When I purchased a GeForce RTX 2070 Super from Newegg in early 2020, I had no idea what a good buy I was getting. The card was nothing special, but a few months later it was impossible to find a new GPU at a reasonable price. The interminable record-keeping of online shopping can be a source of pain, so it's nice to see good shopping choices from my past self.

Along with the 2070 Super, I bought a new 27" Acer Predator XB271HU monitor in early 2020. I was very happy with it because I spent $495.37 for it, even though it was already a few years old model at that point. The exact same display is now $279.99 on Amazon (opens in new tab). Not quite half of what I paid, but painfully close.

That said, it's a nice monitor! 1440p resolution is still the sweet spot for gaming, and 144Hz is starting to feel like a small number compared to the 280-360Hz displays out there, but it's fast enough; OLED monitors are finally becoming more commonplace, so it's a good thing that this monitor has an IPS panel.

The IPS panel on this display can hardly be called state-of-the-art, but if you're still using the old TN panel, you'll feel like you've taken a sheet of frosted glass out of the game.

To drive it even further, today's $279.99 isn't even the Black Friday doorbuster price; it's been this price since mid-October. That said, Amazon did temporarily try to sell the XB271HU for $529 in August. For this reason, we recommend using a site like CamelCamelCamel (opens in new tab) to look at the price history.

If you want to spend a little more, you might be able to get a large 32-inch LG display for $396.99 on sale at Amazon (opens in new tab). It has a fast refresh rate of 180 Hz. This is because I play competitive shooters and it is more convenient for me to be able to display the entire image near the center of my field of view. Some serious FPS players use 24-inch displays for this reason.

There are other Black Friday monitor specials out there, but they don't get any better than this. If I were to buy a new 1440p monitor today, it would probably be the Dell S2721DGF. We have not reviewed this monitor ourselves, but according to RTings (opens in new tab), this monitor "has a remarkable response time at maximum refresh rate and delivers clarity behind fast-moving objects with almost no noticeable blurring."

There are several other options under $300. Samsung's Odyssey G5 series is similar to my monitor, but curved and a bit cheaper at $248.43 from Best Buy (opens in new tab) It uses a VA panel rather than an IPS panel, which improves contrast but results in a slightly worse image overall. Still, it's not a bad choice. Much better, in my opinion, than buying a cheap 1080p display. If you can, replace it with a 1440p screen. At this point, it's like updating your eyeglass prescription. [The difference between the $215.38 I paid for the Acer Predator XB271HU and the current price doesn't hurt much given my performance over the past few years. I still recommend this product, especially given the price drop. However, the "Predator" logo on the front is subtle but a bit embarrassing and should be covered with black tape.