As mentioned in the article, HDR (high dynamic range) allows certain displays to reach levels of realism that has never been possible with an LCD screen. It makes the bright areas brighter and the dark areas darker, enhancing contrast, which is precisely why it provides games and videos with the aforementioned dash of realism.

Now, that’s all fine and dandy, but do you really need it and is it worth the money?

Whether you like the visual enhancements provided by HDR is an entirely subjective issue. After trying it, some can’t go back to SDR while others can hardly tell the difference or just don’t care for it. Furthermore, HDR is now available even in cheaper monitors, so it’s unlikely that you would have to pay extra just for HDR support.

However, a game needs to actually support HDR for it to have any effect, and the same goes for video content. Sadly, not that many games support HDR on PC yet, relatively speaking at least. So, it’s best to check how many HDR-compatible games you’ll be playing before you decide if HDR is going to be a priority feature for you. If it turns out that there aren’t that many right now, then it would be better to prioritize other features, but if HDR happens to be a part of the package, it won’t hurt.

Of course, you also need to make sure that you’re using an HDMI connection and that your GPU supports HDR. Here’s a list of all GPUs and PC games that support HDR at the moment. As for consoles, all versions of the PlayStation 4 and all versions of the Xbox One support HDR, and it’s not exclusive to the PS4 Pro or the Xbox One X.