Best TVs for Gaming on a PS5 or Xbox Series X

Latency, also known as input lag, is perhaps the most important TV statistic for gamers. That’s because it describes how long it takes for the TV to respond to whatever you do on the game console or PC controller.

Input lag is measured in milliseconds (ms). Gamers will tell you that even a small fraction of a second can determine who wins or loses in games with fast action. Many TVs will now automatically kick into gaming mode when you start to play. It’s sometimes called Auto Low-Latency Mode or ALLM for short, and it reduces latency by shutting off all unnecessary processing.

You should also pay attention to the TV’s top refresh rate, expressed in Hz (hertz), or how many times per second the TV can redraw the image on the screen. Generally, the higher the number, the smoother the picture will be during fast action.

Many less expensive TVs are 60Hz sets, not ideal for gaming. This year we’ll see more sets with 120Hz and even some with 144Hz refresh rates, a figure that’s been more common on gaming monitors. When you’re browsing through TV specs, look for the TV’s “native” refresh rate. TV manufacturers sometimes advertise a higher “effective” refresh rate (sometimes as fast as 240Hz). That’s a number they arrive at by applying motion-handling processing to the image to make their sets seem faster than they really are.

Refresh rates are closely related to frame rates, or the number of video frames the TV can display every second. The terms are sometimes used interchangeably, but they actually mean different things.

It’s important for the refresh rate and frame rate to be in sync when you’re playing a game. Otherwise, you can start seeing artifacts such as screen tearing, a visual glitch where a horizontal split appears in one or more places in the image. It happens when the TV shows part of a previous frame along with the new one.

Picture quality is obviously important, too. Most bigger TVs are now 4K models, with four times the number of pixels—the tiny dots that make up the picture—as high-definition (HD) sets, so they’re capable of displaying much greater detail. Most also support high dynamic range (HDR) content, which can produce brighter, more vibrant images—though there’s a big range in how well TVs actually handle HDR. We score HDR performance for the TVs in our TV ratings, which are available to CR members.

Some games now support HDR, but both the number of games and the way HDR has been used haven’t impressed us so far. That could change with a new HDR10+ gaming standard announced last year. One benefit is that TVs that support it will automatically kick into a gaming mode that optimizes the set for the best game performance. (A number of sets already do that without using the new standard.)

One final thing to consider: the TV’s inputs. If you’re buying a new TV, look for a set with at least one HDMI 2.1 input, the latest HDMI standard. That’s because HDMI 2.1 provides support for higher frame rates (such as 4K gaming at 120Hz) and VRR. (It also supports a lesser-known gaming feature called Quick Frame Transport, a technology that has the potential to reduce latency.)

Both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, as well as PCs with higher-end graphics cards, come with HDMI 2.1 connections, so having HDMI 2.1 on your TV will help you get the best performance out of these gaming systems.

If you’re currently looking for a new TV for gaming, consider these four models below. All are 65-inch sets with an input lag that measures below 15 ms in our tests. They’re listed in order of lowest to highest input lag with the game mode turned on, and all offer very good or excellent overall picture quality and HDR performance.