What's a good but affordable TV for gaming?

At this stage any LCD/LED will be fine for gaming, as long as you turn off unnecessary (and picture ruining) processing. Find out which TVs fit your budget and then read reviews online and read the threads on them in the TV forum.

I would also look at reliability before deciding some brands even name brands have a track record of premature failures and lousy customer support. Doesn't mean I won't get a lemon but it improves the odds.

I kinda disagree..depends on how much into shooters or fighting games you are. There are no low lag led lcd televisions that are are 40+ inches but there are a few models that come close.

Interesting. Expound on this please. Been looking for a dedicated but cheap 42" LCD instead of using my 50" plasma or my 55" LCD. Both of which are too big, IMO.

no xbox only does 60hz. and the only true 120hz are pc monitors.

too big? :-(

can never be to big!

If you want to have a sub 1 frame of lag screen to play street fighter or Battlefield 3 then there isn't a single 40+ inch led lcd monitor that does this. If you can accept plasma technology then you can find a large screen with roughly one frame of lag. If you can't put up with the deficiencies in plasma technology then your looking at an lcd with about a frame and a half of lag at best and some are much worse.

Its not an led but walmart is about to discontinue the LG's LK450 series, It has about a frame and a half of lag, does 4:4:4 chroma subsampling and has a pretty good picture. You can probably pick up a floor model for around 450.

I kinda disagree with this as well. It's purely an aesthetic thing so it varies for each person. I kinda have a distance that I like to sit away from a TV ~8-10ft. I find at that distance if I go bigger than roughly the 46" sets that I loose some of the peripheral awareness during shooting games. So for me 42-46 inches is the size range I like to stay in.

For the distance I like sitting from the TV when I play, it is for me. I miss details at the corners in my peripheral vision that I pick up when I'm playing on 42".

it is to each his own. i play on a 103" 11.5ft back and I'm fine.

I recently got a 37" Panasonic and I'm very pleased with it. Mine's a 2011 model so I can't speak for the latest group, but I would guess they should be very similar. A 42" E5 series is listed at about $650 MSRP I think, $600 for a 37". Panasonics seem to have one of the best reputations for gaming lag, and at least from the little I've experienced, it's warranted.

Yeah, playing on a big screen can force you to have to look around quite a bit, especially when UIs are in the corners. Still, nothing beats the experience of a huge ass screen.

Depends on what you're playing. Most games I prefer a large screen and I like to sit close. Call of duty and other FPS are a little different-- most FPS nowadays force a very limited field of vision (FOV) and don't offer to expand it. I find with a narrow FOV that if I sit too close without enough peripheral vision around the screen I get a bit dizzy. It's just the opposite for games that have a wide FOV-- I find that if I don't sit close enough the game seems fish eyed to me.

As far as brands: Panasonic, Panasonic, Panasonic, maybe sharp. If you want a dedicated gaming display Panasonic is the way to go, their plasmas (especially the low/mid priced models) achieve as little as 16ms of lag. Their lcds also have a great reputation in this department although none of the 2012s have yet been tested to confirm if this is still the case. I remember last years 37" was said to be one of the best lcds for motion res and low latency by several members around these parts. Sharp is a good second choice-- but their sets start at 52" this year!

I was going to buy a sony lcd tv until I read about it having a lot of problems and a darker picture then other brands. I bought a 42 inch panasonic lcd tv instead. I like it. the speakers sound good for gaming, but not always good for watching t.v. samsung and vizio have had a lot of problems with reliability. sadly so has RCA and several other brands. most of my friends had the lcd go bad on them in under 3 years no matter what brand. I hope that whatever brand that you buy that it last a long time.

If you play FPS they can be. The larger the screen the more space your eyes have to cover to detect movement and the extra time involved can cause you to not score as highly and die more frequently in those games.

I thought it was BS too until I read some articles and watched some videos about it. I have to say, they were quite convincing. My own experience tends to back this up as well. On my primary TV, a Panasonic 42" Plasma, my Kill-Death ratio on the last two Call of Duty games is about 15% worse than on my secondary TV, a 32" Samsung LED.

Samsung has ZERO reliability issues. Their sets are among the most reliable TV's on the market, right there with Panasonic, Sharp, and Sony.

Commenting on the size of the tv, having a large set helps with the details. I game on a 65" plasma and it makes it easier to pick out people and movement in the distance when playing first person shooters. Although I can see everything on the screen on smaller screens with less eye movement, it is harder to pick out the enemy. In games like Halo and MW3, the details are what make or break me. So there is a trade off when going smaller vs. larger.

I have the 46BX420 and I use it quite a bit for gaming (Xbox 360: mostly FPS but other stuff too). I like it a lot, though admittedly I may not be as discerning as some of the really hardcore gamers.