How to Find the Best Gaming TV (and When to Get a Monitor Instead)

These terms specifically relate to gaming TVs. If you need to brush up on basic TV terminology first, check out our original TV buying guide.

TV vs. monitor: In the strictest sense, a TV is defined as a display device with a built-in TV tuner to pull in over-the-air signals, and a monitor is any display device that lacks a tuner. TVs are usually optimized specifically for viewing home entertainment content, while monitors are optimized for desktop and professional use, and thus can be designed for more specialized tasks. We discuss the performance differences, as they relate to gaming, below.

4K or Ultra HD (UHD): Most modern TVs have a 4K (3840×2160) resolution. Only the smallest and most entry-level TVs have lower resolutions like 1080p or 720p. Gaming consoles like Sony’s PlayStation 5, Microsoft’s Xbox Series X, and Nintendo’s Switch 2 all output 4K (it’s notable that the Switch 2’s dock is an HDMI 2.0a device, so it won’t support the HDMI 2.1 features detailed in the next section). If you’re a PC gamer, keep in mind that you’ll need a fairly beefy GPU to achieve true 4K resolution at a palatable frame rate. If you’re hoping to get a quality gaming display at a sub-4K resolution, you’ll likely need to buy a gaming monitor instead.

HDMI 2.1: The most recent version of the HDMI connection that links TVs and sources, HDMI 2.1 increases the maximum bandwidth that can pass through the HDMI connection to 48 gigabits per second, which is enough to support 8K resolution and/or higher frame rates. HDMI 2.1 also supports eARC for better audio when you’re using the Audio Return Channel function in your AV gear, as well as automatic low-latency mode (ALLM) and variable refresh rate (VRR) for gaming. Read more about HDMI 2.1.

Frame rate: This refers to how quickly a game runs — technically, how many frames the game is rendered at per second. For example, many movies are shot at 24 frames per second, while the minimum for modern video games tends to be 30 fps, and the goal is typically 60 fps. Higher frame rates make games look and feel smoother, but they also require more processing power. While frame rate and refresh rate (explained below) are different specs, keep in mind that you’ll need higher refresh rates in your TV to achieve higher frame rates from the gaming device.

Refresh rate: Different from frame rate, refresh rate (usually expressed in hertz or Hz) describes how many times per second a display checks for new, incoming information. For example, a gaming TV with a 120 Hz refresh rate checks for new information twice per second, whereas a gaming monitor with a 240 Hz refresh rate checks for new information four times per second. When it comes to TVs, most of them have a native 60 Hz refresh rate, a smaller portion have a native 120 Hz refresh rate, and an even smaller portion have refresh rates up to 144 Hz. Modern consoles (like the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5) can be set to either 60 Hz or 120 Hz (if your TV supports it), but you need a decent gaming PC to take advantage of refresh rates higher than 120 Hz.

ALLM: The official name for a TV automatically switching into game mode is auto low-latency mode, or ALLM, and it’s a feature you’ll find on gaming TVs released within the past few years. ALLM works by detecting an incoming signal from a gaming console over HDMI and automatically switching the TV into the best picture mode for gaming. ALLM also usually turns off features like motion smoothing, video noise reduction, and anything that’s really unnecessary during modern 4K gaming. In some TVs, the ALLM process will also trigger a specialized gaming overlay that allows the player to see information about their frame rate, screen aspect ratio, and whether or not HDR is enabled.

VRR: Another feature commonly found on modern gaming TVs, variable refresh rate (VRR) refers to a TV’s ability to automatically change its refresh rate to suit a game’s content. It’s sometimes also called HDMI Forum VRR or HDMI VRR. VRR helps to reduce common graphical problems like tearing or stuttering, which can occur when incoming frames arrive before or after a TV’s native refresh cycle. While TVs with a 60 Hz refresh rate do come equipped with VRR, the range of refresh rates they can operate within (usually 48 Hz to 60 Hz) is limited. VRR is much more effective on 120 Hz (or higher) gaming TVs and monitors, especially because 120 Hz displays can take advantage of a feature called low framerate compensation (LFC), a feature that allows them to multiply lower refresh rates in order to bring them into the VRR range.

Nvidia G-Sync: Nvidia G-Sync is a form of proprietary VRR that is supported by many gaming monitors and some TVs, including Samsung’s and LG’s latest OLED TVs. As of 2025, G-Sync is available on most of Nvidia’s GPUs (which is relevant only for PC gaming), but it’s not natively supported on any game consoles.

AMD FreeSync: This is AMD’s VRR technology, which functions more or less identically to Nvidia’s G-Sync and can be found on a similar number of gaming monitors and gaming TVs. Unlike G-Sync, however, FreeSync is also supported by Microsoft’s Xbox consoles (the PS5 supports Forum VRR only).

High dynamic range (HDR): High dynamic range lets a TV display much brighter highlights while retaining deep blacks, but only with TV, movie, and gaming content that is created in HDR. Whereas standard dynamic range (SDR) content has a peak brightness of around 100 nits, HDR content can have highlights that exceed 1,500 nits. If you have an HDR-capable TV that supports these higher levels of brightness, it drastically improves contrast ratios and provides a more dynamic image in which bright objects (the sun, fire, a photon torpedo) really jump off the screen. HDR10 is the standard format that all HDR-capable TVs support. HDR10 content contains metadata (or information about how the image should be presented) only for the movie or game as a whole, while the more advanced HDR10+ and Dolby Vision formats have metadata for each individual scene — so the TV can better optimize the image as it changes.

HGiG: HGiG, which stands for HDR Gaming Interest Group, is not a feature so much as a set of standards for HDR gaming. This protocol was developed by companies like LG, Samsung, Rockstar, and Ubisoft to address proper tone mapping during HDR gaming. If you’re familiar with the Filmmaker Mode on TVs, which was designed to preserve creative intent during movies and TV shows, you can think of HGiG as the same kind of thing for HDR gaming. At present, HGiG is available only on certain TVs, including LG and Panasonic OLEDs and Samsung QLED LCD TVs, but hopefully it will continue to be adopted over time.

Motion smoothing: The infamous cause of the “soap opera effect” in TVs, motion smoothing (sometimes called  motion estimation and/or motion compensation) is a process by which modern TVs algorithmically predict upcoming frames in order to make content play back more smoothly. When done effectively, motion smoothing can make sports or nature documentaries look more realistic, but it tends not to work well for movies and most TV shows — and certainly not for video games. Fortunately, most modern gaming TVs will automatically switch to a game mode that turns motion smoothing off, but if yours doesn’t, you should turn it off manually.

4K upscaling: Even though most gaming consoles can output a native 4K resolution, few of the games you play will actually be rendered in true 4K. For example, despite being a current-gen 4K console, Microsoft’s budget-oriented Xbox Series S renders many games below 4K resolution when aiming for a 60 fps frame rate. By contrast, the more powerful Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 may render games in true 4K resolution, but only at 30 fps, or at 1440p at 60 fps, depending on the game. While this differs depending on which console you have and how you set up your in-game graphics, in cases where the game is not rendering in true 4K, the game will be upscaled to fill out your TV’s 4K resolution. The efficacy of the upscaling process will depend on the system on which you’re gaming as well as on the quality of your TV’s processing.

Cloud gaming: All gaming TVs are smart TVs, which means they connect to the internet to allow you to stream services like Netflix and Prime Video. But many gaming-centric TVs also give you access to cloud-gaming services like Nvidia GeForce Now, Xbox Cloud Gaming, or Amazon Luna. These services can be used without a game console or PC, so you can stream games directly to the TV over the internet. In our testing, we found that the quality of the cloud-gaming experience is highly dependent on your home internet speed, unlike with console or PC gaming on a TV. Also, features like 4K resolution, HDR, and VRR may or may not be present, depending on the cloud service and the game you’re playing.