It has been a long time coming. But an ultra-crisp, high-resolution 4K gaming experience is finally affordable. At least, the monitor portion of the hardware package is, if not the graphics card. The Acer Nitro XV273K is the one we're looking at here, and it's the best Black Friday gaming monitor for $379 (opens in a new tab).

Okay, this is not a throwaway price. But the XV273K went on sale a few years ago for $899, giving you an idea of just how much monitor you're getting for your money. It's a proper IPS panel with 144Hz refresh, 1ms response, and 400 nits brightness. This is not some cheap, bland, overshooting VA lump. It's real high-fidelity IPS.

Of course, to take full advantage of 4K monitors and the incredible image detail they offer, you need serious graphics performance. But not as much as you might think; even if you buy or already own an AMD GPU, you have Nvidia to thank. The reason for this lies primarily in the upscaling technology pioneered by Nvidia's DLSS technology and now emulated by AMD FSR. Upscaling has made 4K at appropriate frame rates possible on a wider range of graphics cards than ever before. Simply put, 4K is now feasible in a way it never was before.

One drawback of Acer's panel is that it is only 27 inches in size. This is not, simply put, small. However, 4K is definitely overkill for gaming on a 27-inch monitor. That's where the Gigabyte M32U comes in. It is a perfect 32" and rivals the Acer Nitro in every other way. [The Gigabyte M32U is a high-quality IPS panel with 144Hz refresh. But it has a special trick that the Acer doesn't have: HDMI 2.1 connectivity, which allows you to enjoy high-resolution gaming not only on your PC, but also on your game console. If you want to tag-team your gaming PC and your gaming console on one screen, the GIGABYTE M32U may be the 4K panel you've been waiting for.

Of course, in an absolutely ideal world, high-resolution 4K gaming panels would also be OLED; only with OLED technology can you get proper per-pixel lighting control and true sub-1ms responsiveness. LCD panels cannot compete.

And 4K high refresh OLED technology is also more affordable than one might imagine: at $779, the Aorus FO48U is a significant investment. However, it is not an exorbitant price given current graphics card prices.

Now, that's done. Thanks to Black Friday, we now have three surprisingly affordable high-refresh 4K options. Get them while you can.