Best Gaming TV for 2024: Low Input Lag and High Picture Quality [CNET]

July 19, 2024July 19, 2024 David Katzmaier technology

If you’re looking to buy a great TV, any of the best TVs of 2024 should be good for you. But if you’re looking to buy the best gaming TV for your home entertainment setup, you’ll need to consider a few more things. Nearly all modern TVs get a gaming mode with reduced input lag; sharper image quality; and excellent resolution, color, contrast and brightness (all factors that make a model well-suited for playing video games). Your TV also needs to have HDMI 2.1 to get the best gaming experience. If you’re looking to pair up your gaming TV with a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X — or both — you’ll need a TV with HDMI 2.1, 120 Hz and variable refresh rates.

During an intense gaming session, quick reaction speeds are crucial. There’s a feedback loop connecting your brain, your fingers, the game controller and the action you see playing out on the TV screen. You’ll want the best performance all around so you’re properly immersed. If there’s a lag or delay, the thrilling immediacy of the playing experience will be ruined. Not to mention, your gameplay performance will suffer. It takes mere milliseconds for a video signal to travel from your console through the HDMI input on your TV to display on the screen. Any delay in that travel can be downright deadly to your in-game character. Those dreadful milliseconds of delay? That’s input lag.

In other words, it can take advantage of the latest graphics features available from PS5 and Xbox Series X and S consoles, as well as high-end PC graphics cards. The C3 is rare among high-end TVs in that all four of its HDMI ports support 4K/120 — great for hard-core gamers with multiple next-gen devices. The TV also comes with a specialized Game Optimizer settings suite. It’s a great choice for gamers who want an excellent picture and aren’t afraid to splurge to get it.

The following TVs, featured at the top of the page, deliver either the lowest lag I’ve measured among the TVs I’ve reviewed, the best picture quality for the money, or a combination of both. Unless otherwise noted, prices shown below are for the 65-inch sizes.

With all of the TVs available today, and all of the technical terms and jargon associated with television technology, it can be tough to figure out what’s important. Here’s a quick guide to help cut through the confusion.

Price: TVs range in price from $100 to more than $2,000. Smaller screens are cheaper, well-known brands are more expensive and spending more money can also get you better image quality. Most entry-level TVs have a good enough picture for most people, but TVs last a long time, so it might be worth spending more to get a better picture. It’s also best to shop for a TV in the fall, when prices are lower.

Screen size: Bigger is better in our book. We recommend a size of at least 43 inches for a bedroom TV and at least 55 inches for a living room or main TV — and 65 inches or larger is best. More than any other “feature,” stepping up in TV screen size is the best use of your money. One of the most common post-TV-purchase complaints we’ve heard is from people who didn’t go big enough. We rarely hear people complain that their TV is too large.

Capability: Among entry-level TVs the most important feature is what kind of smart TV system the TV uses. Among midrange models, look for features including full-array local dimming, mini-LED and 120Hz refresh rate, which (unlike some other extras) do help improve the picture in our experience. Among high-end TVs, OLED technology is your best bet.

For more TV buying advice, check out our guide on how to buy a TV.

Our TV reviews follow a rigorous, unbiased evaluation process honed over nearly two decades of TV reviews. Our primary TV test lab has specialized equipment for measuring light and color, including a Konica Minolta CS-2000 spectroradiometer, a Murideo Sig-G 4K HDR signal generator and an AVPro Connect 8×8 4K HDR distribution matrix. We use Portrait Displays CalMan Ultimate software to evaluate every TV we review. In every CNET TV review, three or more similar TVs are compared side by side in various lighting conditions playing different media, including movies, TV shows and games, across a variety of test categories, from color to video processing to gaming to HDR. Our reviews also account for design, features, smart TV performance, HDMI input and gaming compatibility, as well as other factors.

Measuring input lag (in milliseconds) is an important component of our process for testing gaming TVs.

Check out our page on how we test TVs for more details.

Input lag will often be lower in game mode than in any other mode on your TV. Here are a few more gaming-specific aspects we looked at for each TV.

How to turn on game mode. In most cases, viewing in game mode isn’t automatic so you’ll have to turn it on manually, and sometimes the gaming monitor setting can be difficult to find. Many use a picture mode called “Game” while some, like Samsung and Vizio, let you apply game mode to any setting.

Game mode makes a difference, except when it doesn’t. As you can see in the table above, many TVs cut lag substantially when you turn on game mode, but plenty don’t. In general, expensive TVs with elaborate video processing get more of a benefit when you engage game mode.

Most TV game modes are good enough for most gamers. No matter how twitchy you are, it’s going to be tough to tell the difference between 13 and 30 milliseconds of input lag. Many gamers won’t even be able to discern between having game mode on and off — it all depends on the game and your sensitivity to lag.

Turning game mode on can hurt image quality (a little). TV-makers’ menus often refer to reduced picture quality. Reduced picture quality is generally the result of turning off that video processing. In my experience, however, the differences in image quality are really subtle with console gaming, and worth the trade-off if you want to minimize lag for a great gaming experience.

4K HDR gaming lag is different from 1080p. The display resolution you play at has an impact, and since new consoles prominently feature 4K HDR output for games, I started testing for 4K HDR lag in 2018. In general, the numbers are similar to the lag with standard 1080p resolution, but as you can see from the chart above, there are exceptions.

Testing is an inexact science. I use a Leo Bodnar lag tester. Here’s how it works, and how I use it. You might see different lag test results from different review outlets, which may use Bodnar or another method.