We’ve pretty much arrived at the golden age of televisions. It used to be prohibitively expensive to buy anything larger than 55-inches or treat yourself to a 4K set, but these days you can get a large, high-res screen for under $900. We’re also rich with options from OLED vs QLED panels that deliver a top-tier visual experience in different ways. How much or how little you spend comes down to what exactly is important to you as a gamer.
Both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X don’t just let you play games at 4K at buttery frame rates up to 120Hz (you can also think of it as 120 frames per second). All of this greatness was previously only attainable on a high-end gaming PC. The latest TVs for gaming have kept pace and that means gamers really are spoiled for choice when it comes to picking out a new television. Even if your current gaming hardware can’t make the most out of a 4K television, image quality and lower latency of modern displays will vastly improve your gaming experience.
But now with so many choices, it can be hard to narrow down exactly what is important to you about your next television. We’re here to help, and the selections below are our picks for the best in different categories – and click here to see them in the UK.
Looking for more affordable options? Check out our list of Black Friday TV deals that are part of the best Black Friday sales.
TL;DR – These are the Best 4K TVs for Gaming:
LG C2 OLED Evo
Best 4K TV for Gaming
LG has been sitting at the top of most recommendation lists for televisions for years now, and the LG C2 OLED Evo is no different as this television checks just about every box. It uses OLED technology for the fastest pixel response time currently available, and you can control color down to each individual pixel. Blacks are truly black, and there’s little worry about annoying “halo” effects around bright objects on dark backgrounds. The absolute contrast also makes colors pop and any scene from bright landscapes and skies to dark caves and creepy basements look incredible.
However, it really shines as a gaming display thanks to its low latency, support for variable refresh rates, and excellent software clearly designed for gamers. On board are four HDMI 2.1 ports that all support up to 120Hz, G-Sync and AMD FreeSync. You also get game optimizer settings, allowing you to fine-tune the picture to work best for the type of game you’re playing. That combination of features and picture quality is currently unmatched.
Outside of gaming you’ll enjoy streaming movies and TV with the built in apps on this TV. And the LG C2 OLED Evo also features an AI processor that upscales any lower resolution content you watch to 4K. All this greatness doesn’t come cheap, and the 65-inch LG C2 OLED Evo will set you back around $2,500 (it is often on sale, gratefully). But if you want the best television for gaming with no compromises, this delivers.
TCL Class 6-Series Roku TV Mini-LED (2022)
Best Budget 4K TV for Gaming
The TCL brand is the most compelling contender when it comes to affordability and value, and its heaviest hitter is the Class 6-Series Roku TV Mini-LED. You get a 4K picture on a 65-inch screen for less than $1,000. The panel features mini-LED technology with 360 local dimming zones, which helps improve contrast, brightness, and overall picture quality. Your images will pop and look even more life-like thanks to the support of HDR, including Dolby Vision and HLG. As for color performance, the quantum-dot display delivers rich and vibrant hues that outdo many other midrange TVs.
If you’re looking to game on the 6-Series, TCL has you covered. This TV offers two HDMI ports capable of gaming at 144Hz in 4K when VRR is enabled. So to answer another question, yes, you get VRR along with FreeSync Premium Pro baked in to enjoy some tear-free, smooth motion perfect for competitive first-person shooters or racing games. ALLM support also means you’re in for lag-free action, while an Auto Game Mode will deliver the best picture settings possible without you needing to lift a finger on compatible gaming devices.
Beyond its two HDMI 2.1 ports, you get a USB port and two additional HDMIs, one of which supports eArc, so you’re good to plug in some other peripherals that don’t need that high gaming bandwidth. You also don’t need to worry about plugging in your streaming device, as the TV features Roku and supports various voice assistants.
Hisense U7H
Best 4K TV for Gaming in a Bright Room
Many televisions offer fantastic picture quality, software, and port selection, but only a select few are bright enough to overpower even the sunniest, window-filled room. If your gaming setup features a lot of natural light and you need a TV that can fight the glare and still give you a great experience, then the Hisense U7H is the television for you. Hisense has sort of made a name for itself by producing some searingly-bright televisions over the last few years, including the TV that held this spot previously, the U7G. In total, this model offers 1000 nits peak brightness across up to 120 local dimming zones, so you’ll be able to enjoy HDR content.
All of the essential gaming television features can be found on the Hisense U7H. There are four HDMI ports, two of which support 120Hz gaming, so you can have both your Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X connected. As is necessary with any gaming TV, it supports variable refresh rate and auto-low latency, which make it ideal for smooth, lag-free console gaming.
The U7G is no slouch when it comes to color accuracy, thanks to its Quantum dot technology that produces rich and accurate colors. It’s even up there with the best options on the market that use an LCD panel. But we saved the best for last; the 55-inch version is under $600. It’s hard to beat a TV that balances features and performance with the price so well.
Sony A80K
Best Picture Quality in a 4K TV for Gaming
The Sony A80K outshines all other TVs on our list in terms of picture quality. Major advancements continue to be made with each iteration of Sony’s Bravia OLED lineup, and their screens display scenes with better graphical fidelity than any competitors. Its latest processor allows the display to offer rich, deep blacks and a high nit peak brightness, so you can take full advantage of that HDR technology. Plus, there won’t be any banding in the skies and the colors are spot on. Overall, you’re in for an insanely realistic and immersive viewing experience, whether you’re watching an action-adventure movie or annihilating your enemies on the PS5.
Speaking of the PS5, the Sony A80K is packed full of features for gaming. Auto HDR Tone Mapping, a PS5 and Sony exclusive, is loaded in to ensure your TV has the optimal HDR settings to get the very best viewing experience from your games, similar to Dolby Vision. An Auto Genre Picture Switch feature also allows the TV to detect the content you’re viewing, like a show versus a game and switches modes to correspond with it. So, when gaming, it’ll automatically go to ALLM. Also, unlike older versions of this TV, you now get VRR support right out of the box for butter-smooth frame rates. And, multiple HDMI ports even support up to a 120Hz refresh rate in 4K.
That astounding picture quality does come at an eye-watering $2,500 price tag for the 65-inch model. But, you won’t be disappointed by the Sony A80K.
Sony X90K
Best LCD TV for Gaming
If you play games because you love world-building, graphics, and cut scenes, then short of an OLED like the LG C2 or the Sony A80K, the Sony X90K gives you the best viewing experience for a television that uses a traditional LCD panel. By going LCD, you’ll be saving a whole lot of money. The 65-inch option is $1,000 less than Sony’s A80K and offers almost all the same features, except a Full-Array LED panel is on offer versus an OLED. Admittedly, HDR isn’t going to be as striking because of this, but you’ll still get deep blacks and solid viewing angles. Content should remain smooth with few pixelated artifacts or visible graduated lines in bright skies, thanks to excellent processing technology.
The features of the Sony X90K are what makes this TV a true standout. There’s the brand’s top-notch upscaler, film modes, and use of the Google TV OS. In gaming, you’ll be tearing through the action at 120Hz in 4K with little worry, as both ALLM and VRR are built-in. If you’re planning to use the PS5 with this TV, Auto HDR Tone Mapping and Auto Genre Picture Switch ensures your TV has the optimal settings for the content you’re viewing without you ever lifting a finger.
The X90K isn’t going to win when it comes to hardware bonuses like great cable management or a super-bright panel, but it’s hard to beat when it comes to how great your games look on it at this price tier.
Samsung QN90B
Best 4K TV for PC Gaming
The line between a monitor and a television is starting to blur, and there are many PC gamers who are choosing a TV over a traditional gaming monitor thanks to the better color, brightness, and larger size that modern televisions offer. The Samsung QN90B has a fantastic panel that delivers high-quality visuals, up to 4K at 120Hz. All the actions with your mouse, keyboard, or controller will feel super responsive thanks to the low input lag and fast response times. Plus, the bright Neo QLED panel ensures you can see the monitor whether you’re lounging on the couch or sitting at your gaming desk.
The Samsung QN90B doesn’t offer a DisplayPort connection for PC, but if your graphics card supports HDMI, then this television is solid. All four of its HDMI ports are capable of offering 120Hz, which means you can hook up both a PlayStation 5 and an Xbox Series X as well. There are also a variety of gaming modes that support ALLM and VRR, so you’re in for some insane motion clarity.
The Samsung QN90B isn’t cheap —$2,600 for 65-inches — but you’ll be hard-pressed to find a gaming monitor that can match all Samsung has on offer here for much cheaper. If you’ve been considering a TV for your desk, the QN90B is our top pick.
Sony A95K QD-OLED
Best OLED 4K TV
Sony is hard to beat when it comes to picture quality, and with the A95K’s QD-OLED panel, the electronics giant has outdone itself. The panel uses a combination of Quantum Dots and OLED technology to produce a brighter and more colorful image than traditional OLEDs. We’re talking a peak brightness of about 800-nits without any color cast. The blacks are truly black, while everything else looks insanely lifelike, from landscapes to skin tone. In terms of color accuracy, this display provides excellent coverage in the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts. And it does all of this while consuming less power, making burn-in less of an issue.
You may have bought the Sony A95K for its gorgeous display, but it’s also a gaming beast. Two HDMI 2.1 ports support up to a 120Hz refresh rate, VRR, and ALLM, so you’ll enjoy butter-smooth, responsive gameplay. If you decide to hook up your PS5, Auto HDR Tone Mapping allows the TV to optimize HDR settings automatically, while Auto Genre Picture Mode recognizes what you’re viewing and can switch to game mode to minimize input lag.
The Sony A95K has a few other features of note, including the Bravia camera. It’s removable and plugs directly into the top of the display. You can use it as a webcam or activate other features like proximity alert, gesture controls, sound tuning, and power-saving modes. However, with such great quality comes a high price tag, and this TV is going to set you back about $4,000 — if you can even get your hands on one.
Where to Get the Best 4K Gaming TV in the UK
Since next-gen systems are right around the corner, everyone is looking to take full advantage of the incredible new visuals on offer. There are plenty of brilliant options for 4K gaming TVs in the UK, and we’ve managed to find the majority from this list as well.
What to Look for in a 4K TV for Gaming
There are many qualities to consider in choosing the best 4K TV for gaming: Color accuracy, contrast, color gamut, viewing angles, power utilization, screen reflections, smart TV features, and more.
However, since we’re all primarily concerned about gaming here, a built-in “gaming mode” with low input latency (ideally, 35ms or less) is crucial here. Without it, you’re guaranteed to have your head in your hands wondering why you can’t pull off Scorpion’s spear move in Mortal Kombat 11 or track targets in Apex Legends.
Input lag is a critical spec to pay attention to when considering a 4K TV for gaming, and RTings has a very detailed chart showing the results of its input lag testing on all the best 4K TVs in various modes.
OLED vs LED (or QLED)
In your search for the best 4K TV for gaming, you’ll come across two primary types of TVs: OLED and LED. While they might be very similar in name, they are worlds apart as separate panel technologies.
OLED TVs are categorized as an emissive screen technology, which means the pixels generate their own light by using an electric current to excite its compounds. As the pixels on an OLED TV generate both the picture and produce their own light, they can achieve true black simply by running zero current through them. No energy, no light.
In contrast, LCD/LED displays have separate image generating and backlight layers that produce the final picture you see. In this relationship, the backlight (LED) illuminates the pixels (LCD), which generate the actual images you see. To achieve the same level of true black with LED/LCD sets, TV manufacturers have implemented fully array backlighting systems, which split the backlighting layer into zones known as “local dimming zones.” When you run across this specification, know that the more local dimming zones a TV has the better it is.
Samsung brands its TVs with the company’s proprietary QLED (or quantum dot LED TV) technology. These QLED TVs essentially contain an extra layer of quantum dots that enhances the brightness and color spectrum of traditional LED panels.
In this way, quantum dots essentially act as an enhancement filter to produce brighter and purer light than LEDs can. This is exactly why Samsung TVs can hit peak brightnesses that are often a thousand or several thousand nits brighter thank OLED panels.
A look at the local dimming zones under Vizio’s 4K TVs
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Ultimately you get a largely identical image from either display, but there are some unique drawbacks and advantages to each panel type.
LCDs can produce much higher peak brightness levels, but they can suffer from narrower viewing angles and muddier blacks as the display can’t fully turn off its backlight like an OLED pixel can just go to black.
OLED displays, on the other hand, are often dimmer than LCDs and can suffer from potential image retention (also called burn-in) problems. This issue occurs when static elements, such as a network logo or health bar, on the screen become temporarily or permanently imprinted onto the screen.
The good news is television manufacturers are constantly improving their respective display technologies. LEDs are getting smaller and smaller, and that’s allowing many more of them to be packed behind a display, giving LCD panels more dimming zones and thus a better control of the image.
You can already find this in some TVs with Mini LEDs, like Samsung’s Neo QLED TVs. And that’s just a start. Micro LEDs go even smaller, offering granular enough lighting control that they could become a serious threat for OLEDs because they, too, would have the ability to turn completely off but they wouldn’t have the same burn-in risk OLED has been known for and they can shine much brighter.
Making sense of HDR
High-Dynamic-Range is a technology that greatly increases the range of brightness levels your TV can display, making a bigger difference between the brightest bright areas and darkest dark areas than non-HDR technology. It’s a huge upgrade in visual quality, and one of the best things about 4K TV sets. But it’s also a little complicated.
There are two major HDR standards supported by TVs today: HDR10 and Dolby Vision. Most 4K TVs that support HDR have support for HDR10, with a select few of the higher-end sets supporting Dolby Vision. When it comes to gaming, HDR10 is all you need, as that is what is output by the PS4, PS4 Pro, Xbox One S, and Xbox One X.
A TV that supports Dolby Vision would only be useful if you have a standalone 4K Blu-Ray player or a streaming media box with Dolby Vision support; it will not give you HDR gaming with your console.
Except for a couple of hard to find Sony TVs, all HDR-capable HDTVs are 4K TVs. For all practical purposes, there are no 1080p HDR TVs. So if you want to buy an HDR-capable TV set to play PC, PS5 or Xbox Series X/S games at 1080p, you’ll be buying a 4K TV.
Hey, it’s good to be future-proof anyway, right?
It’s also important that the peak brightness of an HDR TV will be quite high in order to produce a big difference between dark and light areas in HDR mode. If a TV supports HDR but isn’t very bright, you won’t really see much of an improvement in image quality. For my own suggestions, we’ve ensured that every option in this guide supports HDR10, and has a sufficiently high peak brightness to make it look good.
Adaptive Sync and You
Adaptive sync used to be one of those features you could only exclusively on a gaming PC and gaming monitor, but all of that’s changing now.
For the uninitiated adaptive sync or variable refresh rate (VRR) are both technologies that enable a display to synchronize their refresh rate to the output of your device. Nvidia and AMD first debuted their respective G-Sync and FreeSync forms of VRR on the PC.
However, in the latter half of 2019 we saw adaptive sync technology trickle down to consoles with as LG and Samsung introduced G-Sync and FreeSync on its respective 2019 TVs. In 2020, everyone started jumping in on the fun. Vizio, TCL, Sony, Hisense, and pretty much every major TV maker you can think of will be adding FreeSync support to their mid-range to high-end sets, which makes them the perfect screens to play the Xbox Series X and PS5 on.
Not to be passed up, LG newest lineup of OLED TVs (including the CX, BX, GX, and ZX series) will support both G-Sync and FreeSync, making them the best all-around TVs for gaming no matter which platform(s) you own.
Getting the most out of your 4K TV
Outside of playing games on 4K capable gaming PCs and consoles (the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X), 4K and HDR content lives primarily on these services below.
- Cable and Satellite: Providers are slowly rolling out more 4K and HDR content using HLG (Hybrid Log-Gamma) HDR as opposed to HDR10, HDR10+, Dolby Vision, or Advanced HDR. Some newer TVs have HLG support and some older can support it after a firmware update (be sure to check your specific model).
- Netflix: Most new Netflix original series and movies, (outside of animation and kids stuff) are in 4K, some with HDR as well.
- Amazon Prime: Many Amazon Prime Originals are also in 4K, again with HDR in some cases.
- YouTube: The biggest repository of cat videos also has a surprisingly large amount of 4K content, too.
- Mixer: Microsoft’s game streaming service Mixer can stream in 4K, too.
Streaming in 4K requires a pretty good internet connection and one of the best routers. For example, Netflix recommends users should be able to support at least 25Mbps of throughput on their home network. If all that is a bit confusing, I’ve posted a summary of them all right here for you.
To take advantage of 4K content you need a streaming box or console capable of streaming in 4K, or you can use the integrated smart TV app. The Xbox One S and Xbox One X support 4K streaming apps, as does the PS4 Pro, but the last time I checked the YouTube app on the Xbox platform still needs an update to enable it.
You can also use streaming boxes like the Roku (Roku Premiere only does 4K but not HDR, while Premiere+ and Ultra do both), a 4K-capable Android TV box (like the Nvidia Shield TV), the Apple TV 4K, or the Chromecast Ultra.
Of course, if you don’t want to stream, you can buy 4K UHD Blu-ray discs. This is the costliest option, but it provides the best picture and sound quality. The Xbox One S and Xbox One X support the format, while the PS4 Pro does not.
A quick note on HDMI: To take advantage of the latest features, you’ll need HDMI 2.1 compatible ports (on your console, receiver/switch, and TV). These ports offer 48Gbps of bandwidth, giving you the room you need to send 4K 120fps or 8K 60fps video with HDR.
If you’re in the market for something more affordable, check out our guide to the best cheap TVs for gaming. We also have guides to help your PC get into shape for the new era of 4K gaming, including the best 4K gaming monitors and the best graphics cards.
You may see cables labeled as “4K certified” or something like that, but you won’t know whether your cable is truly up to spec unless it clearly indicates HDMI 2.1 or “Ultra High Speed”, and you don’t want a simple cable to be the thing holding you back. That said, you can still go for a simple cable. You don’t have to go for a fancy cable with impressive branding. As long as the cable is listing its HDMI 2.1 or “Ultra High Speed” specification, you should be able to count on it delivering your signal perfectly well.
Kevin Lee is IGN’s Hardware and Roundups Editor. Follow him on Twitter @baggingspam.
Danielle Abraham is a freelance writer and unpaid music historian.
