by 
I had no idea what a great buy I was making when I bought a GeForce RTX 2070 Super from Newegg in early 2020. The card is nothing special, but months later it was impossible to get any new GPU for a reasonable price. It’s nice to see a good choice of purchase from my past, because the endless record keeping of online purchases can also cause pain – I’m looking at you, monitor I’m using now, and not just because I watch the words I type.
Along with the 2070 Super, I bought a new 27-inch Acer Predator XB271HU monitor in early 2020. I clearly didn’t wait for a sale, or even a small discount, as I spent $495.37 on it, even though the model was already a few years old at that time. The same display is currently $279.99 on Amazon (opens in a new tab). It’s not quite half of what I paid, but it’s close enough to hurt.
It’s still a good monitor! 1440p resolution is still the sweet spot for gaming, and while 144Hz is starting to look like a small number next to 280-360Hz displays, it’s plenty fast. OLED monitors are finally becoming a thing, so the IPS panel in this monitor can’t be called state-of-the-art, but if you still have an old, faded TN panel, you’ll feel like a sheet of frosted glass has been removed from your games. .
To add insult to injury, today’s price of $279.99 isn’t even a Black Friday door-to-door deal. It’s been that price since mid-October. That said, Amazon briefly tried to sell the XB271HU for $529 in August, which is After which I paid in 2020. That’s why we suggest using a site like CamelCamelCamel (opens in a new tab) to look at price histories – they will sometimes try to get you.
If you want to spend a little more, you can get a 32-inch LG widescreen on sale for $396.99 on Amazon. (opens in a new tab) at present. It also has a faster refresh rate, at 180Hz. I like 27 inches for a gaming monitor, though, because I play competitive shooters where it helps to be able to keep the whole image close to the center of your vision. Some serious FPS gamers use 24-inch screens for this reason.
There are other decent deals on Black Friday monitors, but I wouldn’t say there are way better. If I had to buy a new 1440p monitor today, it would probably be the Dell S2721DGF, which was a bargain last year at $330, and is much cheaper this year. We haven’t reviewed it ourselves, but RTings says (opens in a new tab) it has “remarkable response time at maximum refresh rate, resulting in clear motion with almost no noticeable blurring behind fast-moving objects”.
There are other options under $300. The Samsung Odyssey G5 series is similar to my monitor, but curved and a bit cheaper at $248.43 at Best Buy (opens in a new tab). It has a VA panel instead of an IPS panel, which will provide better contrast but a slightly worse image overall. Still, not a bad choice. Much better, in my opinion, than buying any cheap 1080p monitor. Save for a 1440p screen, if you can. It’s like updating your glasses prescription at this point.
Now that I really think about it, the $215.38 difference between what I paid for my Acer Predator XB271HU and its price today isn’t that bad considering how well it performed to me at the recent years. I still recommend it today, especially considering the drop in price. Just get some black electrical tape to cover up the subtle but slightly embarrassing “Predator” logo on the front.
