Does contrast ratio really matter in a gaming monitor?

[ericarzou81]

Hi, so I have two choices. One is 80,000,000:1 and the other is 50,000,000:1 contrast ratio. Am I really going to see a difference between the two? The one with the less contrast ratio actually has a 1 inch bigger screen but is still the same price and same brand. I don't want to get the one with the lesser contrast ratio if it will affect the quality of the screen. I am mostly going to be using this monitor for gaming. Do you guys think it will make a difference for me? thanks

 

[viewtyjoe]

Contrast ratio is one of those finicky stats that you have to dig into detailed reviews to make much sense of. The ratios given on paper are usually in extremely favorable setups/conditions and not the average performance. I believe that generally once you get above like 20m:1 it starts being relatively hard to notice differences for untrained observers.

 

[dsprehe89]

Hi, so I have two choices. One is 80,000,000:1 and the other is 50,000,000:1 contrast ratio. Am I really going to see a difference between the two? The one with the less contrast ratio actually has a 1 inch bigger screen but is still the same price and same brand. I don't want to get the one with the lesser contrast ratio if it will affect the quality of the screen. I am mostly going to be using this monitor for gaming. Do you guys think it will make a difference for me? thanks

For a gamer contrast really only matters if it matters to the gamer. Gamers do not requires extremely accurate colors that someone in the visual arts would require. We only need what we prefer since we are using our computer for pleasure. Each person has there own preference of what they prefer to see (warm vs cool lighting. bright vs dark, etc). While having a properly calibrated monitor is required for people who do video and photo editing since they want to see exactly what they will be printing or showing on other monitors, it isn't really required for people who use their computer for pretty much anything other than visual arts such as gamers.

To know if contrast ratio is going to matter to you, you must first know what exactly contrast ratio is. The contrast ratio is the ratio of the luminance of the brightest color to that of the darkest color (white to black). Basically how bright and dark your monitor can get. Those numbers are so high that they are probably a dynamic contrast which means that it will basically adjust the brightness to make bright scenes as bright as possible and dark scenes as dark as possible. This can cause scenes that have a very wide contrast to look either too dark or too bright.

Basically what I am saying is, unless you will be doing photo or video editing, go to a local electronic store a view all of the monitors that you are considering and pick the one that looks best to you. This would involve adjusting the monitors setting to see which one you can best adjust to your liking. Contrast does matter, but it only matters as much as you want it too. I would argue that resolution and frame rate matter more than contrast for a gamer, but that is my personal preference.

 

[k1114]

Typically anything far from 1000:1 is dynamic contrast. Most tn are close to 1000:1 static so contrast ratio is not even a spec you look at. There is no monitor in existence that even gets into 5 digit static contrast. As explained, dynamic is when they change the brightness of the screen depending on what's on screen. This is rather useless as most people don't use dynamic contrast and it's just marketing.