[simmons]

Even outside of gaming, people's needs are going to vary a great deal. Some people are sensitive to refresh rates, some people really need great color reproduction, etc.

But since you asked what I optimize for... I'm cheap, and tend to opt for inexpensive, no-frills, but reliable 4K monitors. I have several Philips 278E 27-inch 4K monitors. I don't see these on Amazon any more, so maybe this model has been discontinued, but they ran about $250 USD or so. I use a couple on my main workstation for coding, my wife has a couple (that are secondary to an Apple Studio Display), and I have a floating one for the workbench. I find this model to be a sweet spot for my needs. They aren't as beautiful as an Apple display, but they're sufficient.

Potential cons include no camera (I have a separate camera on top, although it sometimes obscures some of the display due to narrow bezels), lousy speakers (I use headsets), and they seem oddly sensitive to electrical fields in the environment (for example, they'll turn off momentarily if I static shock myself on something nearby).