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The Best Gaming TVs, According To Rigorous Testing

A great gaming TV can help create a truly transcendent gaming experience, whether it’s making sure the action in Red Dead Redemption II plays as smooth as butter or making the colors in Super Mario Bros. Wonder pop. The best gaming TVs also feature high refresh rates, no input lag and seamless connectivity to your favorite consoles and cloud gaming services.

Because there’s no short supply of great displays available right now, I spent several months hands-on testing many of the top contenders from Samsung, LG and other brands to find out which ones really stand out. Many of the TVs I tested were designed specifically with gaming in mind. I narrowed the list down to four models that I felt were the top gaming TVs on the market. My top overall pick is the LG OLED Evo G3 TV. It provides the best features available on the market, while the Samsung OLED S95C came in a very, very close second.

Here are the best gaming TVs, according to my rigorous testing:

Best Gaming TV Overall

Terrific Contrast, Better Brightness

LG OLED Evo G3

Size: 55, 65, 77 and 83 inches | Type: OLED | Resolution: 4K | Refresh rate: 120Hz | Operating system: LG WebOS 23 | HDR: Dolby Vision, HDR10 and HLG

Best for:

  • Enjoying your games with a crisp, bright picture
  • Making the most of a large living area with a wide viewing angle

Skip if:

  • You want every single streaming service available
  • You don’t want to spend thousands on a TV

My choice for the best gaming TV overall, the LG OLED Evo G3 gives me a gorgeous OLED panel with the brightest picture available on this type of screen right now—1,600 nits, to be precise. It is bright enough to deliver a vivid, detailed picture for my gaming regardless of what room it’s in. I tested it in my sunny living room, and even there it looks great. During my testing, I felt I could leave the picture as is straight out of the box, because the on-screen colors pop without any calibration. In other words, it has a premium picture despite pretty much a plug-and-play experience, requiring little setup.

Colors look vivid during gameplay, from Red Dead Redemption II to Little Nightmares II. I like how the picture looks detailed and I don’t experience any kind of pixelation, no matter what console I’m using, whether it’s the PlayStation, the Nintendo Switch or the built-in Nvidia GeForce Now cloud gaming service. During my testing, I learned that the TV comes with other cloud gaming services, including Utomik, Blacknut and Boosteroid. In other words, you get plenty of ways to game even without specific consoles.

Because it features a 120Hz refresh rate, I experienced buttery-smooth gameplay across multiple different consoles, including a PlayStation 4 Pro and my beloved Nintendo Switch. Not once did I experience any input lag, screen tearing or ghosting. This is in part thanks to the Nvidia G-Sync and AMD FreeSync Premium, which help to keep response times speedy. The TV also features four HDMI 2.1 ports, and I can connect multiple consoles simultaneously and get a 120Hz variable refresh rate and Auto Low Latency Mode for my gaming.

In short, this TV was born and bred for gaming. While I find the price to be high—$3,300 for the 65-inch version, unless it’s on sale—it’s well worth the investment for connectivity.


Best Premium Gaming TV

Gorgeous Colors And Brightness

Samsung OLED S95C

Size: 55, 65 and 77 inches | Type: OLED | Resolution: 4K | Refresh rate: 144Hz | Operating system: Samsung Tizen | HDR: HDR10, HDR10+

Best for:

  • Viewers of high-quality 4K content who want gorgeous contrast
  • Samsung fans who want to expand their SmartThings home system 
  • Gamers with 4K and HDR-supported consoles

Skip if:

  • You don’t want to spend a lot on a TV
  • You don’t want to deal with the One Connect box

I learned that the Samsung OLED S95C TV packs a lot into this TV during my testing, making it a great splurge pick for any gamer’s home. Samsung’s design has a OneConnect Box that either rests on the back of the TV or can be set on a home entertainment stand. This gave me a more customizable setup, as this box is where I found my HDMI, Ethernet and more, and I can tuck it away into a TV stand and keep my home entertainment center looking less like a rat’s nest of cables.

The display is where I found the Samsung OLED S95C to shine, providing gorgeous contrast with dense, inky blacks and oversaturated reds and greens during my Horizon Forbidden West gameplay. As I said in my review, the oversaturation can feel more like a preference, but when I wasn’t gaming, shows like Fargo captured the bleak, muted Midwestern feel, showcasing just how versatile the panel can be. The vibrant colors and gorgeous contrast make for a top-notch picture based on my testing, and when I calibrated the display settings, colors balanced out and I got a vibrant, beautiful picture. My only gripe? Sometimes during bright sunny days I could see my reflection during darker scenes on the display, but for that vibrancy and contrast, it felt like a small price to pay.

The OLED S95C also features a dedicated Gaming Hub that showcases a variety of cloud gaming systems, including Blacknut, Xbox Game Pass, Nvidia GeForce Now and more. The Gaming Hub felt intuitive; when I booted it up, the Hub featured easy tutorials for setting up my controller and other FAQs. I really appreciated that with this panel—sometimes setup can feel like a chore.

If you have access to a stable, speedy internet connection, the Gaming Hub suits just fine. I played Arise, and while I experienced lag during the initial setup, a quick reboot fixed that minor hiccup. Combined with its 144Hz refresh rate, I experienced smooth gameplay across all my games, including heavy titles like Read Dead Redemption, Horizon Forbidden West and more.

While it’s one of the best gaming TVs you can buy right now, the Samsung proves itself to be a premium pick because its Gaming Hub allows for easy display adjustment for when you want optimal settings for RPGs, FPS games and more. It’s the little details, like the rich picture and easy tutorials built into the Smart Tizen operating system that make this worth the splurge.


Best Gaming TV For PlayStation 5

Dedicated Features For Your PlayStation

Sony XR A80L OLED

Size: 55, 65, 77 and 83 inches | Type: OLED | Resolution: 4K | Refresh rate: 120Hz | Operating system: Google TV | HDR: HDR10, HLG and Dolby Vision

Best for:

  • A console with special PlayStation features
  • Tinkerers who aren’t afraid to delve into TV settings

Skip if:

  • You have a bright living room
  • You don’t want to fiddle with your TV settings

The Sony Bravia XR A80L OLED TV has many of the features I look for in a great gaming TV. It has Dolby Vision and HDR10 and runs on the user-friendly Google TV OS, which can collect all your TV and streaming services into one place. During my testing I enjoyed a smooth 120Hz refresh rate that has some extra detailing thanks to the Dolby Vision. HDR10 also helps keep the display detailed for games like Red Dead Redemption II and other AAA titles, and I particularly enjoy the dedicated gaming mode. It looks—and plays—great on the display. Like the LG OLED Evo G3, this Sony TV comes with specialized gaming features; you can check your game’s frame rates and input lag (so you can see if you have a 0.3 or 0.1 millisecond lag, depending on what you’re playing). It also comes with an optional crosshair that you can use to adjust the color to your preferences. I found this feature extremely helpful during games like Horizon Forbidden West.

However, I do have a few caveats. If you have a bright space, you’ll want to consider another TV for gaming. This panel excels in darkened viewing areas, like a theater room or family room that doesn’t get a lot of sun. For movie buffs and those who like gaming in darker spaces for a more immersive gaming experience, I found the gaming mode, which automatically dims the screen, performed best after sunset. The TV features plenty of viewing modes, including a Vivid mode that I used during the day. If you’re using it for watching movies and not console gaming, I found it to be a great TV.

My other beef with this TV is that the panel features four HDMI ports, but I couldn’t get one to register my Nintendo console initially. After hopping on a call with Sony, the fix was easy: All I had to do was find a setting to switch the input over to being compatible with the console. After that, I didn’t have any additional issues and had a blast starting Super Mario Bros. Wonder on my Switch. But there is definitely some tinkering required to get this TV to work.

Sony’s other claim to fame is audio worthy of a movie theater. The TV features Acoustic Surface Audio+, and of all the TVs I tested, this panel by far had the strongest audio built in. While I still plugged in my Samsung sound bar (I’m an audiophile, admittedly), those who want a stand-alone TV will enjoy the Sony Bravia XR A80L, because there’s no real need to add an additional surround-sound system.


Best Budget Gaming TV

Bright Picture, Great Audio

MOST POPULAR

Size: 55, 65, 75 and 85 inches | Type: QLED | Resolution: 4K | Refresh rate: 120Hz (up to 240Hz) | Operating system: Google TV | HDR: Dolby Vision IQ, HDR10+, HDR10 and HLG

Best for:

  • Getting the full package—audio and picture—without spending a fortune
  • Those who game on consoles and don’t rely on cloud gaming

Skip if:

  • You want a plug-and-play TV without worrying about calibration
  • You want a wide viewing angle

The TCL Q7 QLED comes packed with a bunch of different HDR formats for the best viewing. When I pulled up Star Trek: Strange New Worlds the first night I set it up, I was blown away by the visuals. Uniforms looked so detailed I could see practically every stitch on the 65-inch screen, and colors looked incredibly vivid. I fully expected this panel to cost thousands of dollars, but its three-figure price tag makes this my top budget pick. Testing proved that this TV packs a lot of great features into an affordable package.

Like the Sony Bravia XR A80L I tested, the TCL Q7 QLED TV required some finagling in order to get it to work: Popping into the settings and designating the HDMI port to a console, fine-tuning the gaming mode and more. Once I did that, the picture significantly improved. During gameplay, I experienced minimal blooming (which can look like a halo effect)—something that’s important for when I was heading into ruins in Horizon Forbidden West, since you’re relying on dim light emanating from old holographic panels most of the time.

I appreciated how bright and vivid colors looked during testing, especially while running Super Mario Bros. Wonder—it could have easily looked oversaturated and cartoonish. That said, I tested all the TVs both before and after calibration, and I felt that this TV really does need to be calibrated for best results. Remember that game mode I mentioned before? Before calibrating the HDMI 1 input to a dedicated gaming console, Horizon Forbidden West had screen tearing to the point where I couldn’t play the game. Once calibrated, the adaptive refresh rate kicked in and the gameplay smoothed out.

One thing to note about this panel: You’re not going to get cloud gaming unless you download the apps from the Play Store. It’s not a deal breaker per se, but if you’re seeking a dedicated gaming hub like LG or Samsung offers, TCL doesn’t offer that on this panel. I also really struggled with the narrow viewing angle, and for those who have a wide living area, you’ll get some distortion on-screen as you shift away from a center view.

The speakers come packed with a slew of different Dolby-compatible options, including Dolby Atmos, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Digital and more. The audio sounds detailed without being too overpowering, but I still ran into moments where I felt that the Starship Enterprise felt a little flat while booting up its main thrusters. In short, you’ll want to consider a Dolby Atmos–compatible sound bar for this TV for the very best sound quality, but if you decide not to, you’ll still get pretty decent audio for the price.

For those who usually game on a console, this is an affordable option that will get you a great picture without breaking the bank.


What To Look For In A Gaming TV

When it comes to gaming, a few important TV specs stand out.

Resolution

Look for higher resolution for a better picture. Full HD 1080p sets are the discounted baseline these days, but you can get a UHD 4K television without spending much more. Go for 4K unless you’re buying a relatively small TV, in which case it’s not ideal for gaming anyway. For those that want the absolute best, you can spring for 8K resolution.

Refresh Rate

The best gaming TVs ship with a 120Hz refresh rate. Animations are smoother, controls feel more responsive and fast action looks much crisper than on a standard 60Hz set. Some TVs ship with a 144Hz refresh rate, but since only gaming PCs can handle those kinds of frame rates and it's not compatible with the latest Xbox Series X/S and PS5 consoles, going for a 120Hz refresh rate is your best bet.

You don’t need a really fast refresh rate, though. If the TV you’re buying is only 60Hz, you can still have a great gaming experience—it’ll just be better suited to slower-paced games. But after choosing 4K resolution, no single TV spec improves your gameplay more than a high refresh rate.

OLED Or LED?

The two most popular TV display technologies in 2023 are OLED and LED, and they each have their advantages—though the gaps between them are shrinking.

OLED TVs have the best contrast ratio, the lowest input lag and the most vibrant colors of any of the technologies. But they aren’t as good in brightly lit rooms, don’t get as bright and are at risk of burn-in (an area of permanent discoloration). LED TVs get much brighter and are great for HDR gaming, but they don’t have local dimming that’s as nuanced, and the contrast isn’t as strong as on OLED TVs.

Ultimately, the right gaming TV for you will be dependent on where—and how—you intend to play games. If you mostly game at night or in a room without a lot of sunlight, OLED will typically look better; but if you play in brighter rooms, LED might be worth considering instead.

Viewing Angles

If you play by yourself, the TV’s optimal viewing angles aren’t too important, since you’ll likely position yourself right in front of the TV. If you want to play with others, make sure the TV’s picture for people on the periphery is as good as it is for those positioned right in front.

OLED TVs offer wide viewing angles, with no real degradation in color quality or brightness near the edge of the screen. Some LED TVs can look significantly worse past the 50-degree mark.

Input Lag

If you play games competitively or want to play games that feel as responsive as possible, then a TV with a low input lag is a must. Higher input lag can make controls feel mushy and lack urgency, so the lower you can get your input lag, the better off your gaming experience will be. OLED TVs typically have excellent input lag, but most LED TVs targeting gamers do, too. Low input lag is especially important if you want to play against anyone head-to-head, or you might find yourself blaming your slow TV when you lose.

Sound

If you take your gaming seriously, then adding an external audio setup to your gaming TV is a must, as you’ll get much better audio from a set of speakers or a soundbar than you will from the TV itself. That said, modern gaming TVs do have a few features to make the built-in audio sound better.

Some recent-generation TVs employ an audio technology that uses the screen itself as a large speaker. Pioneered by Sony under the name Acoustic Surface Audio+, this technology is now more commonplace, as other companies have developed similar technologies but under different names. It delivers sound that’s equivalent to an entry-level soundbar, which is a major upgrade over most gaming TVs.


How I Tested The Best Gaming TVs

Whether we’re gaming, streaming or just enjoying its ambient mode while we work, most of us live on our TVs. I’m an expert in the TV space, and I have been testing TVs for a few years now.

When it came to picking the best gaming TVs, a few features were top priority: a great picture, a solid refresh rate, compatibility with consoles and, of course, decent audio. I tested a lot of different games on these panels using two different consoles. On my PlayStation 4 Pro, I played Red Dead Redemption II and Horizon Forbidden West. For the Nintendo Switch, I played through many different titles, including The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Little Nightmares II, Don’t Starve and more.

When testing, I reviewed display quality under various lighting conditions, from sunny afternoons to dark, late-night gaming sessions. I also considered refresh rates and display type, with special consideration for calibration settings both before and after and using gaming modes. Because each TV brand offers a different operating system, I took ease of use into account, too.

Additionally, I evaluated compatibility with cloud gaming as well as compatibility with smart home devices, from Amazon Alexa to Apple HomeKit. I also checked the audio as the panel stood—so no sound bar connected—to make sure that the TV provided adequate audio quality.

Finally, I cross-checked the specs on each of the TVs I tested and double-checked warranties. In light of my testing, I feel all of the TVs on this list will last for years to come and have software features that make them amenable to smart gaming and smart home living.


My Expertise

I’m the consumer tech and electronics editor here at Forbes Vetted and have been in the tech space for 5 years. During that time, I’ve tested plenty of different TV displays, from budget-friendly LED panels to top-of-the-line OLED models. Because I’m shamelessly a cinephile and gamer, I’m very particular about how well a TV performs both during gaming and watching films.


Is An 8K TV Good For Gaming?

While 8K TVs can deliver incredibly sharp visuals, their benefits for gaming may be limited. Most current gaming content is delivered only in 4K resolution, so the jump to 8K might not result in a significant improvement in gaming quality, as the TV will have to upscale your gaming content.

Another factor to take into consideration is that 8K TVs are still incredibly pricey: Samsung’s QN900C TV, for example, can cost upward of $5,000. If you’re seeking a future-proof gaming TV, then opt for an 8K panel. But for most gamers, a 4K panel will meet your gaming needs for years.


Which TV Panel Type Is Better: OLED Or QLED?

The choice between OLED and QLED depends on your preferences and home needs. OLED displays have gorgeous black levels and individual pixel control, resulting in stunning contrast and vibrant colors. Up until recently, they performed best in dark settings, but emerging technology such as LG’s micro-lens array technology means they’re now able to display a vibrant picture in bright rooms without issue. While it’s a great technology, you’ll pay a premium for these displays—and there’s always the risk of burn-in, a problem unique to OLEDs.

QLED displays use a layer of quantum dots to enhance brightness and color accuracy. They perform well in bright rooms and cost less than OLEDs. QLED TVs also tend to have better longevity, as they are not susceptible to burn-in issues. The decision ultimately hinges on your specific viewing conditions and preferences.


What TV Size Is Best For Gaming?

The best TV size for gaming depends on factors like viewing distance and personal preference. For a more immersive experience, many gamers prefer larger screens—a popular range is 55 to 65 inches. However, if you’re sitting close to the TV, a 40- to 50-inch screen might be more suitable. Consider the balance between size and your gaming environment to ensure an optimal and comfortable viewing experience.

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