Physically, the 272URX looks like a dead ringer for MSI's larger 32-inch 4K OLED monitors, including the MSI MPG 321URX we reviewed last summer, just slightly smaller. So, it's a reasonably slick looking monitor with slim bezels and a smattering of RGB lighting on the rear.

It offers a similar collection of inputs, including dual HDMI 2.1 ports and DisplayPort. The latter, however, is upgraded to DP2.1 this time around and in the full UHBR20 spec, which allows for 4K 240 Hz without compression, albeit the only GPUs with DP 2.1 support among Nvidia GPUs are the very latest RTX 50 cards. AMD's Radeon RX 7000 also support the 2.1 standard.

Alongside that you get USB-C with 98 W power delivery and a two-port USB-A hub. So, connectivity is well covered. Actually, a lot of the panel specifications look similar to earlier 32-inch 4K OLEDs from MSI. So along with the 3,840 by 2,160 resolution, there's that 240 Hz refresh and 0.03 ms response, all really nice numbers even if they're identical to the 32-inch alternative.

The same goes for quoted panel brightness. At 250 nits full screen and 1,000 nits in a 3% window, there's no advance over the 32-inch 4K model, which uses Samsung's 3rd Generation QD-OLED panel technology.

There's been mixed messaging from various monitor makers over the status of this new class of 27-inch 4K Samsung QD-OLED. They're all using the same panel, but some are marketing it as 4th Generation.

Adding to the confusion, at CES this year both LG and Samsung showed off new TV-spec large OLED panels capable of much higher full-screen brightness up around 400 nits and peak brightness of 4,000 nits in a 3% window thanks to new quantum dot materials and a so-called five-layer tandem OLED structure.

While the MSI MPG 272URX does indeed get Samsung's new for 2025 4th Gen monitor panel tech that also sports the new QD material and five-layer tandem OLED structure, the higher pixel density is limiting in terms of brightness.

Our understanding is that without the new panel tech, this high density 4K panel would actually have been less bright than previous QD-OLED monitors. Indeed, there's also a new 27-inch 1440p QD-OLED panel that ups full screen brightness to 300 nits thanks to the new QD-OLED technology being applied to a lower pixel density.

Firing the MSI MPG 272URX confirms that the new-for-2025 QD-OLED tech looks very familiar, at least in this implementation. Pretty much all the strengths and weaknesses of the older 3rd Gen QD-OLEDs are apparent from the get go.

Oh, with one exception. 4K on a 27-inch makes for a very tight pixel density of 166 DPI, up from 140 DPI on those 32 inchers. If nothing else, that elevated pixel density puts to bed any remaining issues with font rendering on this monitor. Text looks really nice.

It's true that Samsung has retained the slightly odd triangular as opposed to vertically striped RGB subpixel structure. On panels with lower pixel density, that resulted in text fringing and a slight softening of image detail. But here, with that 166 DPI density, it's all good.

Fonts look super crisp, image content is incredibly sharp. Of course, the same is largely true of the 32-inch QD-OLED class. Yes, this 27-incher is a tiny bit sharper. But it's a subtle upgrade in that regard and one which comes with a rather more obvious downgrade in panel size. At this price point, 27 inches feels a bit stingy.

Moreover, if the improvement in font rendering with the jump from 32-inch to 27-inch 4K is marginal on the Windows desktop, it's pretty much invisible in-game. If for whatever reason you actively want a physically smaller display perhaps for ergonomic reasons, great. But don't go buying this monitor because you think it's going to make a 32-inch 4K look a little fuzzy. It absolutely doesn't.

Anywho, getting back to that carried over QD-OLED 3rd Gen panel vibe, this MSI betrays the same marginally oversaturated colors and warm temperature of the 32-inch model and frankly many other QD-OLED panels. It's not absolutely ideal, but it's something that you adjust to and can mitigate to an extent via calibration.

Likewise, the slightly purple-grey tint of the actual QD-OLED panel itself when reflecting ambient light remains present. In really bright ambient conditions, it compromises black levels a little. But again it's only a minor distraction even then, and in typical ambient conditions and especially at night, it's a non-issue.

While we're talking relative compromises, it's immediately obvious from the full-screen brightness that this new 4th Gen QD-OLED tech for monitors as applied here isn't a big step or really any step at all in that regard. That means the full-screen brightness performance is OK, but only just. Actually, MSI has been pretty conservative with its ABL or automatic brightness limiter in SDR mode. If you crank up the SDR brightness in HDR mode, you actually get a punchier result.

The only problem is then that the SDR color mapping in HDR mode isn't all that good. So, you need to use the sRGB SDR mode to get accurate SDR colors and that in turn means compromising on overall punchiness.

Speaking of HDR, that's where the MSI MPG 272URX really sings. Night time scenes and indoor in-game locations look utterly stellar. A good example is a section of Cyberpunk 2077 set at night on a raised metal gantry next to a rocket. Along the sides of the metal walkway are dotted a few boxed-in fluorescent light installations.

And, oh my goodness, those lights absolutely pop. They're incredibly bright next to the dark background, but also have crisp, sharp borders. No LCD comes close to this performance, even one with a few thousand dimming zones. There's always some light bleed, always some blooming.

That said, when rendering brighter outdoor game scenes, this new MSI is no different to all other recent OLED monitors we've reviewed. It can look a little dull because even this latest OLED tech isn't capable of driving large sections of the panel really hard.

HDR aside, the other big advantage over LCD is obviously response. By way of comparison, I've been playing with a 520 Hz IPS monitor this week, too. While it has a very slight latency advantage, in subjective terms, it's nowhere near when it comes to clarity, motion blurring, and color stability in motion. It's just no contest.

With this monitor, you don't have to worry about overshoot, smearing, inverse ghosting, any of the stuff that all fast IPS and VA LCD monitors suffer from to at least some extent. Like pretty much all OLED panels, the 272URX's pixel response is essentially a solved problem.

What almost certainly isn't a done deal, however, is OLED burn-in. This is a really tricky subject on which to draw definitive conclusions. But there are three things we can say with confidence. First, MSI has equipped the 272URX with a full suite of burn-in mitigation features, including pixel shifting, logo and taskbar detection and various panel refresh cycles.

Second, that won't absolutely guarantee you'll never have a problem with burn-in. Third, MSI provides a three-year burn-in warranty, so you are covered for at least that long. It's also worth noting that Samsung says this latest QD-OLED panel tech is even more durable than before, but for now that's just a claim. Beyond that, it's very hard to say what might happen with long term ownership other than it will likely depend on your usage and how you set up things like the Windows interface.

All of which means this new MSI QD-OLED is a largely similar proposition to other QD-OLEDs we've seen. The HDR experience is mostly stunning, though it does disappoint that OLED technology still isn't capable of being punchier across larger sections of panel.

The SDR experience is mostly fabulous, but a little more compromised. Relevant to both modes are the new OLED TV panels announced at CES. Samsung has implied their boosted brightness will trickle down to gaming monitors in the near future. So, if you have any concerns over full-screen brightness, it would be worth waiting until those panels appear.

More specifically regarding the 272URX, I'm not convinced by the 27-inch form factor. The benefits over 32 inchers in terms of clarity, image detail and font rendering is marginal. At the same time, the larger 32-inch form factor scores for both gaming immersion and desktop working space in Windows.

However, if you prefer the smaller 27-inch form factor, then you'll love this monitor. It's super sharp and gives you all the existing benefits of QD-OLED tech. So, if it's pixel density above all else you've been waiting for, the MSI MPG 321URX might be for you. In all other regards, it's a mostly familiar OLED experience despite the new QD-OLED panel technology and that includes full-screen brightness that's barely good enough. If you're after something brighter, look out for those upcoming 4th Gen 1440p QD-OLED models, which we hope to review soon.

US pricing has yet to emerge. But the AOC Agon Pro AG276FK is about £500 in the UK, implying a likely sticker of around $550. If so, it'll be priced right next to the likes of the ASRock Phantom Gaming PG27FFX2A, which is a dead ringer by most specification metrics.

What we're dealing with here is a 27-inch 1080p IPS gaming monitor that's being sold unambiguously on speed. Along with the nosebleed-inducing 520 Hz refresh rate, AOC rates this monitor's pixel response at 0.5 ms GTG and an eye-popping 0.3 ms for MPRT. That is awfully quick.

Such figures rarely if ever map well to reality. But they're useful as comparators and AOC is certainly positioning this monitor as being one of the fastest IPS panels out there. Of course, fast for an IPS is nothing for an OLED monitor, pretty much all of which are rated at 0.03 ms, an order of magnitude quicker on paper. But then good luck finding a 520 Hz OLED monitor for 500 bucks. They barely exist at any price.

Elsewhere, AOC says this monitor is good for 400 nits and has HDR400 certification. To be clear, this is not a true HDR panel. There's no local dimming and it's not capable of high dynamic range rendering. But it will decode an HDR signal correctly. That's just about better than nothing, especially given HDR sizzle really isn't what this monitor is about.

Apart from the towering refresh rate, this AOC justifies its price point with a well built, all-alloy stand that offers a full range of adjustment including height, tilt, pivot and swivel. Design wise, AOC has gone for a quirky asymmetric vibe, slim bezels on three sides of the 27-inch IPS panel, a smattering of RGB lighting, plus a slide-out headphone hanger on the right-hand bezel.

For connectivity there are two DisplayPort 1.4 connections capable of the maximum 520 Hz refresh rate. Admittedly, the pair of HDMI 2.0 sockets are only good for 240 Hz, but they're primarily there for console connectivity which only requires 120 Hz.

Rounding out the core features are a comprehensive OSD menu that includes overdrive controls and low latency modes, plus AOC's GMENU app that provides access to much of the OSD functionality within Windows.

Ultimately, there's nothing too exotic about this monitor on paper bar the refresh rate and response. So, the question is just how fast does it feel? Oh, and just how bad does 1080p look on a relatively large 27-inch panel?

To address that second point, the pixel density works out to just 82 DPI. This week, I've also been playing with one of the new breed of 4K 27-inch OLED panels. It offers in excess of twice that DPI figure. And, boy, you really can see the difference. On the Windows desktop, fonts look awfully craggy and the whole panel has a pretty pixelated look.

Actually in-game, however, it's not that bad. For sure, it's not as sharp as a 1440p 27-inch monitor, let alone 4K. But the detail level is tolerable. And, of course, the lower resolution means you've much more chance of hitting that 520 Hz refresh rate in terms of actual frame rates.

Well, much more chance in some games and with some GPUs. Ultimately, this is a display designed for esports, for online shooters. So, you can hit 520 fps-plus in something like Counter-Strike 2. But you're not going to see frame rates like that in, say, Cyberpunk 2077 with ray tracing enabled, probably not even with a really high-end Nvidia GPU.

Speaking of Nvidia GPUs, the new RTX 50 series with its Multi Frame Generation tech will certainly help boost frame rates in some games up bearer this monitor's refresh rate. The problem is, while you'll get the motion fluidity, you won't get the other important benefit of 520 Hz refresh, namely low latency.

Latency is totally dependent on fully rendering frames in the 3D pipeline, not guesstimating them with AI trickery. So, to get the full benefit of the AOC Agon Pro AG276FK, Frame Gen isn't going to help.

Anyway, if you can get your favourite shooter running up around 500 Hz, the sense of immediate response is very sweet. I tend to find the returns diminish above 240 Hz or so. But really competitive esports players will definitely appreciate just how instant this panel feels in terms of response to inputs. It's pretty electric.

The other factor in a sense of speed is obviously pixel response. Here, qualifiers are needed. For an LCD monitor, this thing is seriously quick. There are four levels of pixel overdrive available in the aforementioned OSD menu. Happily, the fastest mode is actually usable.

That's not always the case. With a lot of gaming panels you'll find the max overdrive mode is a mess of overshoot and inverse ghosting. Here, a whiff of overshoot is evident when you wiggle an app window around on the Windows desktop. But actually in-game, it's barely visible. Certainly, there's little to no motion color shift, something that can be pretty distracting.

So, this AOC is about as quick as current LCD technology gets. What it's not is as quick as an OLED. Of course, even the cheapest OLEDs are about $100 more expensive and won't get near 240 Hz. So, to some extent you have to decide where your preferences lie. Personally, I prefer the overall compromise of a 240 Hz 1440p panel. But then I'm not a really serious esports aficionado. The days when I was actually any good at Counter-Strike are sadly long behind me.

Speed aside, this is a very nicely calibrated monitor in sRGB SDR mode. It looks punchy and vibrant, the colors are accurate, it's just a very nice thing bar that blocky pixel density. The HDR mode is well setup, too, including nicely executed mapping of SDR tones. So, if you want you could leave this monitor in HDR mode all the time and get great image quality for all content types.

Personally, I wouldn't bother with HDR at all. That's because, as mentioned, this isn't a true HDR monitor and where both SDR and HDR versions of any given content are available, there's little benefit in choosing the latter.

All told, then, I feel pretty well disposed toward the AOC Agon Pro AG276FK despite it not being my kind of monitor. I'm not majorly into esports these days, so 240 Hz or thereabouts is plenty for the vast majority of my gaming, and I'd much, much prefer something with better pixel density.

But that's my remit and not necessarily yours. If yours does indeed major on sky-high refresh and ultra-low latency, this AOC definitely delivers and does so with excellent image quality given the limitations of this panel type. It's not for me, this AOC. But if you're seriously into esports and you don't care about general Windows performance, it might just be for you.

Of course, at this price point something has to give. Actually, with the AOC Gaming C27G4ZXE, plenty has to give. The most obvious casualty to cost reduction is resolution. This 27 incher is a mere 1080p panel, so that's 1,920 by 1,080 pixels.

The result is a very modest pixel density of just 82 DPI. We'll come back to the impact that has on image quality. But up front it's worth noting that while this relatively low resolution is a necessary compromise to hit the price point, it actually makes sense from a price-performance perspective.

If you're shopping monitors at this end of the market, safe to assume you're not running a $1,000 GPU. So, a lower resolution will likely be a better fit with your graphics card, especially if you want to make use of that 280 Hz refresh.

Anyway, the next concession is a VA rather than IPS panel. As we routinely explain, VA tends to have worse response and viewing angles compared to IPS, but better contrast. This isn't always the case, but the slower pixel response can obviously be a bit of a bummer on a gaming display.

Those limitations aside, the AOC Gaming C27G4ZXE is also a little stingy when it comes to build, ergonomics and connectivity. This monitor feels a bit cheap and the stand only offers tilt adjustment.

That said, it doesn't actually look too poverty stricken thanks to some nice geometric design for the stand base and rear of the screen enclosure. This isn't a totally anonymous black square, some effort has gone in. The 27-inch panel's gentle 1500R curve also adds perhaps the slightest frisson of upmarket consumer electronics.

At the very least, it's a decent looking thing sitting on your desk when you consider the price point. It just doesn't feel all that robust. Again, you can't really expect much more at this price point.

As for the connectivity shortfall, well, you get two HDMI 2.0 ports and single DisplayPort input. What you don't get is any kind of USB hub. But try finding an equivalent monitor with a USB hub from a big brand at similar money. You'll struggle.

The final obvious casualty of the low price point is HDR support. Honestly, it's the merest of flesh wounds. You do get basic HDR 10 support. But with a maximum brightness of 300 nits and no local dimming, this is clearly not a true HDR display. But then neither is any monitor with entry-level HDR400 certification.

Actually, I'd argue very few LCD as opposed to OLED monitors are truly capable of high dynamic range rendering. At least with the AOC Gaming C27G4ZXE you can theoretically decode HDR content with correct colors. That's something.

But what of the actual image quality? First impressions are none too shabby. The C27G4ZXE may only be rated at 300 nits, but it's fairly bright and punchy. The VA panel tech helps with that impression. VA panels have much better contrast than IPS and that contrast between brighter and darker tones makes a screen look subjectively more vibrant and dynamic.

AOC has actually calibrated this thing pretty well, too. The colors in default sRGB mode are bob on, which isn't always the case with cheap VA monitors. They are often set up to be over-saturated.

Sadly, that deft calibration doesn't extend to HDR content. Generally, this monitor looks rather dull in HDR mode, it's actually more vibrant in SDR mode which obviously isn't right. What's more, SDR colors in HDR mode are a mess. Ultimately, the HDR mode is best avoided unless you absolutely have to use it. That's not a huge disappointment given the price point. But it does mean that the AOC Gaming C27G4ZXE is very much best viewed as a non-HDR panel.

If those elements of the static image quality are decent, what about when things get moving? The 280 Hz refresh definitely translates into snappy responses to control inputs. The latency is great given the price point. So, this monitor is a great choice for online shooters and esports on a budget.

Less impressive is the pixel response. AOC quotes some very impressive figures here with 0.3 ms MPRT and 1 ms GTG response times. You also get four levels of pixel-accelerating overdrive in the OSD menu to help you tune the response.

Sadly, however, this monitor conforms to the cheap VA norm. All but the quickest overdrive mode suffers from at least a little visible smearing and blurring. As for the quickest option, that largely eradicates the smearing only to swap it for a touch of overshoot and inverse ghosting.

Unfortunately, you can actually see that overshoot in games in the form of texture colors shifting as you move your mouse and the pixel overshoot their target colors. It's not super obvious, but it is there and once you see it, it can't be unseen.

Of course, this is the norm for a VA panel at this price point. So, it absolutely isn't a deal breaker. But if you were hoping that AOC had done something magical and somehow delivered pixel response performance way beyond expectations, well, that simply hasn't happened.

Apart from response, this monitor's other obvious weakness is the aforementioned pixel density. It's a tricky aspect to critique. The price point ultimately dictates 1080p. A 1440p 280 Hz panel at this price point is too much to ask.

And as we said, 1080p is actually a good match in terms of GPU load given the low price point here. But that 82 DPI pixel density is awfully ugly on the Windows desktop. It makes for craggy, rough looking fonts and a generally pretty pixelated vibe.

The saving grace is that games don't actually look too bad when it comes to visual detail. You're still getting full HD and if you switch on upscaling, such as Nvidia DLSS or AMD FSR, the slight softening effect helps to smooth out the craggies that are consequent from the fairly large pixels.

As a final note, the 1500R panel curvature is really neither here nor there. There's really very little benefit to a curved panel on a 27-inch 16:9 screen. But equally the curve is slight enough not to be a distraction.

Overall, then, this is a decent display for the money. 280 Hz and 1080p is a sensible combination and makes for a snappy feeling gaming experience even with a commensurately budget GPU. The low DPI look isn't great, but it's a reasonable compromise at this price point.

The caveat to that is that were it our money, we'd prefer to stretch to around $200 if at all possible and go for a 1440p 144 Hz option. The refresh is lower, but the pixel density is a lot nicer.

If there is an element that's hard to really get on board with even at the price point, it's the mediocre pixel response. Admittedly, you'd do well to find a competing screen that's much better. So, the problem isn't unique to this AOC. But the response really isn't great. So, chalk that up as something we'd like to see improve industry-wide on this class of display as opposed to something AOC specifically has messed up.

Actually, on that note, if money really is tight and $200 for a 1440p monitor isn't an option, we'd probably lean towards a 24-inch IPS monitor, maybe even one running at a lower 160 Hz refresh rate. You'll get better response and slightly better pixel density, albeit on a smaller panel.

Ultimately, there are no perfect choices here. And of the available 27-inch 1080p gaming monitors in the budget class, the AOC Gaming C27G4ZXE is absolutely a worthy contender.

That is certainly the biggest draw to it right now. If you're in the US, you can pick one of these up for about $600 if you buy before the product launches in April 2025, and that's only applicable to the first 1000 orders (there's a handy ticker on the pre-order page that tells you exactly how many are left). Still, that's a special introductory price, which is, at least on the surface, a very wild way of entering a market segment, but an effective one nonetheless. I can guarantee you, they're not going to make a profit on those first thousand units, that's for sure.

Outside of the pre-purchase window, the standard retail price slides in at around $999 US, or £819 in the UK. That's not bad, but not exactly revolutionary.

Given the hardware it has to hand, it puts it in line with projectors like Acer's Predator GM712, which similarly features the same Texas Instruments DLP display tech to achieve those resolutions and latencies and equally comes in at about the same cost. It is worth mentioning, however, that the GM712 has been out now for several years.

If you're aware of the projector marketplace right now, then 4K units like this and their equivalent specs are pretty much a dime a dozen. If they can do 4K at 60 Hz, they can do 1080p at 240 Hz, with reduced latency as they do it. The higher the res, the greater the technical latency. This isn't like MPRT or grey-to-grey; however, it's a lot smoother than that, so do bear it in mind. Philips won't advertise its 4K latency because of that, but if you decide to opt for the 4K mode, you're looking at an input lag of around 12 ms or higher, at 120 Hz that drops to 8 ms, and at 240 Hz (at 1080p), you nail down that 6 ms response which it is advertising.

As for other key specs, Philips has it rated at about 1,000 lumens (ANSI) or so; if we compare that to the GM712, it's not quite as bright. The GM712 clocks in at its standard mode at around 4,000 lumens (around 1,667 ANSI). Fortunately, lower brightness does give you a far longer-lasting bulb, and the GamePix is earmarked for a life-span of around 30,000 hours or so (about 3.4 years if you used it for 24-hours a day, every day for that duration). In my own time testing it, I never felt it was too dim at all, certainly at night in my office, and I even tested it against a dark gray wall, with little change in that experience.

Outside of those basic stats, however, the GamePix is incredibly barebones by comparison to some of those other units. There's no wireless connectivity, no Bluetooth, no Google Casting, AirPlay, Android TV, or anything of the sort. I/O is also incredibly limited, with only a single HDMI port, a USB Type-A power out, a headphone jack, and that's about it.

There's also no automated feature here either. No auto-keystone, no auto-focus—it all has to be dialed in by hand. That's not the end of the world, and the reality is if you're setting this up in a mancave or gaming den, you're probably going to do it once and then never move it again, but still, it'd have been a nice inclusion here for sure.

Build quality is generally quite average as well, sadly. The housing is just a cheap fingerprint-absorbing black plastic with a slight red accent around the lens, and that's it. There's some good ventilation on the sides, and slick fans that are quiet enough, and it does come with an adjustable front foot, along with a pretty barebones remote, but there's really not a lot to talk about from a pure design perspective. It's certainly nowhere near the caliber of the likes of BenQ's X series units, although those projectors are considerably pricier in contrast. There's no glitz or glam here; still, that could be a good thing. After all, you should be focused on the image, not the device.

And the GamePix 900 delivers on exactly that. Oh boy, image quality—what a treat this thing is to use. It might be barebones, might be quite simple, but the clarity and color is outstanding. 4K absolutely delivers on that premise, with crystal clear definition and beautifully punchy colors, with impressive dark tones, no matter the content you drive through it. Latency, even at 4K, even above that 8 ms mark, is barely noticeable at all. Particularly when configured in its game modes.

Settings are again quite basic. There's little to write home about here. There's a plethora of color profiles, some of them a little odd; "Brightest," for instance, seems to turn the entire image green; standard's a little dim, and movie chucks it into a warmer tone mode, but there's a ton of calibration in here to really dial in contrast, and color tones exactly how you want them.

The speakers are, probably what you'd expect at this price, just average. No treble or top-end, overly bassy, very loud, but they'll do in a pinch, until you get a better solution hooked up.

The GamePix 900 is ultimately a fairly barebones unit. It delivers on the core ethos of what a projector should, and that is exceptional image quality with impressive color accuracy, all while slamming it up onto a seriously large display (120 inches at its max throw). It does that while delivering some impressive latency and a fantastically enjoyable experience as a result. Still, it just lacks that refinement, the feature set, and the build quality that others at its retail price have, and that really does hurt it at its full price.

If you can grab this with that pre-order discount, what you're looking at is one of the best value 4K projection purchases you can make this year. But, and more importantly, if it's at retail, if this is post-April, or if Philips hasn't continued that discount on after the fact, you'd be better served looking elsewhere.

"In the very near future, we’re going to be placing tariffs on foreign production of computer chips, semiconductors and pharmaceuticals to return production of these essential goods to the United States of America,” Trump said.

It is of course TSMC in Taiwan that makes many of world's most advanced chips, including both Nvidia's outgoing RTX 40 GPUs and the new RTX 50 family.

Trump's justification for the move involves incentives to force chip designers like Nvidia and indeed its rival AMD to produce more of their products in the US. "They needed an incentive. And the incentive is gonna be they’re not gonna wanna pay a 25, 50 or even a 100% tax," Trump said.

He also clearly called out Taiwan as his chief target. "They left us and went to Taiwan, which is about 98% of the chip business," he said.

Trump argued that tech companies will build new chip production factories or fabs in the US in order to avoid paying the tariffs. Whether that would indeed be the case, what is certain is that it takes many years to construct a new fab and have it producing chips at decent yields.

That process takes even longer if you're talking absolute cutting-edge chip production. That means the Trump administration is in a tricky spot if it wants to impose tariffs.

If it does so in the near term, there won't be time for those fabs to be built and come online, so costs will go up for chip makers, in turn amplifying the risk that prices for consumers in the US increase.

A possible alternative is to set a future date for tariff imposition. The problem with that approach is that term limits for presidents in the US constitution unambiguously prevent Trump from running again in four years.

That said, in the speech Trump questioned whether he could run again. "I'm not 100% sure," Trump said, adding, "I think I'm not allowed to run again, I'm not sure."

Trump could impose tariffs towards the end of his term only to see them immediately revoked, just as Trump himself immediately revoked a whole slew of Biden administration executive orders in his first day in office.

Of course, it's true that some chip production is already being brought back to the US. We recently reported that AMD has started producing Ryzen 9000 CPU dies at TSMC's Arizona fab. But, again, that move was many years in the making. TSMC has suggested it would expand further in the state, with help from Biden's CHIPS Act cash.

Anyway, for now there's no clear indication when any tariffs may hit or exactly the level at which they are pitched. But even a 25% tariff on all chips from Taiwan would very likely push up the price of PC components dramatically in the US, let alone a 50% or 100% tariff.

Trump has also promised to reverse inflation, and fast. "When I win, I will immediately bring prices down, starting on day one,” Trump said in August. That's not going to be easy with hefty tariffs applied to imports, that's for sure.

The best gaming monitors are engineering marvels, packed with millions of pixels, that can change colour quicker than you can imagine. You do need a decent graphics card to push them all around, though, but one inspired coder has a solution to this in the form of a game that just uses your monitor's subpixels.

As I write this, I'm currently staring at a 4K 27-inch monitor. The display comprises a little under 8.3 million pixels and, somewhat obviously, they're too small to make out by eye. But if you took a microscope or a camera with a decent macro lens, you'd instantly notice them and the fact that every pixel is a collection of three (sometimes four) even smaller pixels, one each for red, blue and green colour channels. They're called subpixels.

Fascinated by their own discovery, coder Patrick Gillespie (via Sweclockers) was inspired to create a version of Snake, the classic phone game, that worked entirely via a monitor's sub-pixels. In other words, rather than moving a snake comprising one or two full pixels around the screen, Gillespie worked out a way of doing just with subpixels.

If you want to know just what that would look like, you can try 'Subpixel Snake' for yourself on Gillespie's website or you can download the javascript code from GitHub, and compile it for your own hardware. There's just one teeny problem—unless you have eyes like Legolas, you'll barely notice a thing, which means you will almost certainly need a microscope (or a good macro lens).

And don't think you can just zoom your browser window all the way in, as the more you do this, the more the subpixels in the game's code won't align properly with your monitor's subpixels. In fact, you need to go the other way and have your browser window scrolled all the way out to ensure everything lines up. Well, you can try to zoom all the way in and even use a software tool to magnify that portion of the screen even more, but it just won't work correctly.

If all that seems like too much hassle, you can just watch the above YouTube video instead but it is well worth five minutes of your time anyway, as Gillespie explains how everything was done. Subpixel Snake doesn't serve any real practical purpose nor does it push the boundaries of game development further ahead, but to me, it's just a really neat endeavour.

I reckon anyone with an interest in becoming a game developer should try a similar project. In the same way that bedroom coders of the 1980s worked with limited colour palettes and tiny amounts of RAM, forcing yourself to work on modern, ultra-powerful hardware that's been massively constrained in terms of capability, will help you understand why and how things work. And just as with those old coders, it can lead to creating better games.

There's probably no career path to be found in the world of subpixel gaming, of course, but just think what kind of reaction you'd get at a game dev job interview when you pull out a microscope to show off the next big indie hit.

Now Samsung has announced a partnership with game developers Nexon Korea and Neople to "deliver unparalleled 3D experiences" in the upcoming game The First Berserker: Khazan. The plan is to utilise the as-yet-unreleased Samsung Odyssey 3D monitor to create an "immersive 3D gaming experience without the need for 3D glasses."

"By fine-tuning the focal distance for 3D effects on a case-by-case basis, Nexon and Neople aim to develop specific scenarios that determine when and how elements become 3D. These efforts reduce crosstalk—a common issue causing visual overlap—while enhancing the clarity of epic boss battles and cinematic cutscenes" says Samsung.

Well, there's something I'd like to see for myself. Glasses-free 3D has never really worked for me, probably for the same reason I never quite mastered those magic eye puzzles. Focus, unfocus, cross your eyes, look at the ceiling—I must have a defective set of peepers, because the effect is never more than a blur.

The Samsung Odyssey 3D gaming monitor made its debut at CES 2024, and makes use of a front-mounted lenticular lens, stereo camera, and eye-tracking in combination with a light field display to create a 3D effect. It beams light at your eyeballs at differing angles, thereby tricking your brain into thinking the image you see in front of you has artificial depth.

It cropped up again at CES 2025—apparently much improved—but while it can convert 2D to 3D content, the feature is currently limited to full-screen videos in a web browser. Custom-tweaked content seems to be the next step, although it'll take a while to build up to the portfolio created by competing manufacturers, like Acer's partnership with SpatialLabs.

Still, put me down as curious and mildly excited. I'd certainly like to see 3D get its time in the sun without the need for bulky head gear, and if reports of how good The First Berserker: Khazan looks on this particular display are accurate, it may be Samsung that finally brings this concept into the mainstream.

Or it could all just be a flash-in-the-pan fad, as has often been the case with 3D implementation in the past. Still, VR headsets appear to be trucking along at a steady rate, so perhaps proper 3D monitors and proper 3D games to go with them are the next logical step. And perhaps I'll finally win the lottery this year. One can dream, can't they?

To be more precise, LG told YouTube channel HDTVTest that OLED now has 22% of the PC gaming monitor market. LG notes that market share has been achieved within just two years of the launch of its first OLED-based PC gaming monitor.

Meanwhile, it might surprise you to learn that OLED only currently represents 18% of the TV market, and that despite the fact that LG released its first OLED TV way back in 2013.

Of course, the very first OLED gaming monitor was actually the Alienware 34 AW3423DW, which was launched nearly three years ago and was based on Samsung QD-OLED technology. LG's first OLED monitor came a little later. But the overall gist here is clear enough. OLED adoption rate on the PC is much, much faster than with TVs.

As much as I'm a card-carrying fan of OLED technology and despite the fact that there is now a wide array of OLED gaming monitors to choose from in all kinds of shapes, sizes and resolutions, I find that surprising.

Mainly, that's because OLED monitors remain very expensive. You're looking at MSRPs of at least $600 for an entry-level 27-inch 1440p model from a recognisable brand, while most models are $800 and upwards. Indeed, it wouldn't surprise me if the average price of an OLED gaming monitor from the bigger brands right now is in the region of $1,000.

To my mind, that ought to make them pretty niche. And, OK, LCD still makes up the hefty majority of the market. But over one in five gaming monitors being bought right now is OLED and presumably that market share is still increasing. It'll probably be at least a third in a couple of years.

Hopefully that continued increase in market share will reflect lower prices. It's always been slightly baffling how expensive OLED monitors have been compared to TVs. When the first 27-inch 1440p OLEDs came out, they were about the same price as a 42-inch 4K OLED TV. It made no sense at all.

Since then, prices have generally come down. Like I said, those 27 inchers start nearer $600 and both 34-inch ultrawides like the Alienware 34 AW3423DWF and 32-inch 4k models including the MSI MPG 321URX are in the region of $800 and up.

But those are still pretty hefty prices when you consider that $200 or so will net you an LCD-based 27-inch 1440p gaming panel and $250 and up will bag a 34-inch ultrawide.

So, personally, I'd like to see OLED prices come down still further. I think $500 for a 32-inch 4K model and a little less than that for the 27-inch 1440p and 34-inch ultrawides would be about right. At least, it would be at about those price levels that I'd be happy to recommend them without major caveats.

Speaking of caveats, it's worth pointing out that one of the very last that applies to OLED tech on PC gaming monitors aside from price seems like it might be history. As I reported last week, both Samsung and LG announced new OLED panel tech at CES with much higher claimed full-screen brightness.

In theory, we could see as much as 400 nits full screen, which for my money would mean the brightness "problem" with OLEDs is solved and I expect models with at least 350 nits full screen will appear later this year based on this new technology. Hope such monitors won't come at a major price premium.

But even if they do, I expect those prices will come down pretty rapidly, as will OLED prices generally. Give it a couple of years and the sub-$500 OLED monitor capable of 400 nits full-screen brightness will probably be a thing. The only slight snag is that the OLED I really want, LG's new 5K2K Ultragear 45GX950A is a $2,000 monster. Sadly, it'll be a while yet before a panel like that is truly affordable.

If true, that's an impressive win for TSMC's new US fab. It was only August last year that AMD released the Ryzen 9000, including the Ryzen 7 9700X, using 4nm silicon for the chip's CPUs made by TSMC's Taiwan factories, aslo known as the TSMC N4 node. So, moving some of that production to the Arizona fab so soon certainly looks like a vote of confidence in the facility.

However, the broader context for this news is quite complicated. TSMC is on record as saying that chips in its Arizona fab cost more to make than equivalent products in is factories in Taiwan. It also says that it plans to charge more for US-made chips as a consequence.

Moreover, AMD Ryzen 9000 CPUs are chiplet designs. While it seems AMD is now having some 8-core CPU dies made in Arizona, the package also contain a 6nm I/O die housing the memory controller and other functionality.

That die, as we understand it, is still made in Taiwan. TSMC does have an older fab in Washington state. But that facility at best produces chips on the 16nm node.

Indeed, there are further components in the package and then the package itself to consider. It's not clear where all of the items are produced. So, the mere fact of Ryzen 9000 CPU dies being made in the US wouldn't automatically into an all-American product, even if the CPU cores themselves will have been both designed and manufactured in the USA.

As things standard, TSMC has three new Arizona fabs either already in production or being built. The first, FAB 21-1, produces 4nm chips reportedly including the AMD Ryzen 9000 and Apple's A16 and it already up and running. FAB 21-2 will up the ante to 3nm or N3 chips, the likes of which include Intel's Lunar Lake laptop CPU and are currently only made by TSMC in Taiwan, while FAB 21-3 will eventually make the move to 2nm.

For now, you can't actually buy any devices with TSMC-made 2nm or N2 silicon. Indeed, TSMC still plans to reserve its cutting-edge technology for its domestic Taiwanese plants. So, N2 chips made in Arizona will come online some time after similar silicon is available from Taiwan.

That said, AMD doesn't tend to use the very latest nodes for its chips. The new Ryzen 9000 was rolled out on N4 despite TSMC having been in production with N3 for several years and even AMD's new RDNA 4 GPUs which were almost but not quite announced at CES are still on N4.

The same goes for Nvidia's latest Blackwell RTX 50 graphics chips. Those are on TSMC N4, too. So, the fact that TSMC's US fabs are being kept a step behind Taiwan doesn't mean we won't see new CPUs and GPUs that are made in the US.

Then again, the likes of AMD and Nvidia will have to play off the benefits of having chips made in the US, which might include avoiding tariffs, against higher local production costs. It'll be interesting to come back in five years or so and see which chips, exactly, end up being made in the US.

Project Zero is of course MSI's branding for motherboards with all the connectors on the rear, an approach other motherboard makers including Gigabyte and its own project Stealth boards and Asus and its BTF line are also running with.

Like most of the competition, MSI Project Zero motherboards have generally been pricey premium products up to now. But that changes with the new MSI MAG Z890 Tomahawk WIFI PZ and MAG Z890 Tomahawk WIFI PZ White.

Tomahawk is MSI's mainstream family of motherboards and it's the first time Project Zero and that more affordable series of mobos have been married. As MSI itself puts it, Tomahawk products are aimed at PC builders who want a "no-frills, reliable platform for their PC."

Like all Project Zero motherboards, these mobos move the connectors for everything bar the CPU, DRAM, and SSD on the rear, allowing for an ultra-clean look. As the Z890 moniker indicates, the boards are designed for Intel's new Arrow Lake CPUs up to and including the range-topping Core Ultra 9 285K and sport a decent sport 16+1+1+1 setup of VRMs for 19 power stages.

You also get DDR5 memory overclocking support up to 9200 MT/s, a PCIe 5.0 x16 slot for GPUs, a PCIe 5.0 M.2 slot for NVMe SSDs, plus a pair of PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots. Oh, and two Thunderbolt 4 ports, an Intel Wi-Fi 7 card, and 5 gigabit Ethernet.

Slightly frustratingly given value for money could be the central appeal of these boards compared to the "back connect" competition, MSI hasn't actually released pricing for these boards.

It's also worth bearing in mind that you'll typically need a compatible case to use one of these super-clean mobos. In practice, that probably means more money on a new case, although as Nick explained, some of these rear-connect boards are more compatible with legacy cases than others.

Still, as we found last year, these back connect boards aren't just about looks, they have cooling advantages, too. Anyway, hopefully, MSI's new Tomahawk boards are part of a broader move to making cleaner PC builds more mainstream and affordable. Once you've built a PC with all the connectors neatly hidden away, it's tough to go back to that old rat's nest of cables.

Well, today I was at a trade show. CES 2025, to be precise, in the Las Vegas Convention Center. And, to my great shame, I was drawn in by a transparent TV display. Because honestly, when LG has gone to all this effort to put something this visually spectacular together, even I have to stop and ogle.

I know, I know, it's just another expo gimmick. Mounting a load of 77-inch LG signature OLED T displays sideways, motorising them, and moving them in sequence while being rotated around a chandelier is nothi... actually what am I talking about, it's properly impressive.

As an effect, at least. Before you think my brain has entirely turned to mush, I'm not suggesting anybody run out and buy one of these things. They're $60,000 a piece, for goodness sake—and once again, you really, really don't need a transparent display in your home.

But gosh, I am a bit of a sucker for the whole cyberpunk aesthetic, and this display, nay, sculpture, made my brain go all fizzy on the inside. Just for a second, mind, before I shook my head from side to side like a cartoon character and went back on the hunt for other tech.

That being said, I did find another display that I'd desperately love to hook up to my gaming PC and blast out a bit of Forza Horizon 5. How about the glory that is the 163-inch Micro LED TCL X11H Max?

TCL says it features a nanosecond-level response time, and can reach 10,000 nits brightness. That'll do then.

Yours, for a mere *checks notes* $110,000. Gulp. But can you imagine playing racing games on this thing? The odd bit of Doom Eternal? Hell, what about a horror movie, if you're brave enough? The mind (and the eyeball) boggles.

Fine, I'll go back to hunting for interesting PC gaming hardware. But I get to see a lot of lovely displays in this job, and I have to say that both of these made me stop in my tracks—even if they're much more home consumer than pro gamer.

I still think transparent screens are an awful idea in general, though. Even if you do make them dance the fandango for the amusement of the press.

LG has announced a partnership that will specifically bring cloud gaming to their smart TVs via the Xbox app, promising "access to hundreds of games." As you may already suspect, the price of entry is a Game Pass membership, with LG particularly keen to highlight the Ultimate-tier in their announcement. This $19.99 a month subscription tier will offer the option to "stream a catalog of select Xbox games [you already] own" to your LG Smart TV, as well as access to "highly anticipated releases like Avowed" at launch. However, the full details of this partnership with Xbox dreams a little bigger than a single app announcement.

Additionally, those with one of LG's newest Smart TVs will have access to the Gaming Portal. LG pitches this as a "versatile, gaming centric hub…designed as an all-in-one solution for seamless navigation and personalized gaming, both for the latest AAA games and casual webOS app games."

To me, this suggests LG's cloud gaming dreams don't end with Xbox. For example, I recently wrote about Nvidia's long-awaited, finally announced dedicated GeForce Now app coming to Steam Decks later this year. It hardly seems like a stretch for LG to get chatting with Nvidia about bringing their cloud gaming subscription service to their Smart TVs too.

Theorising aside, the announcement's emphasis wasn't just on ease of use, with those aforementioned webOS app games "playable with the remote controller," but also discoverability. Though I've not yet seen little of LG's Smart TV Gaming portal, attempting to balance "cloud gaming apps, the top 10 most popular games, editor’s picks, and other tailored, user-friendly gaming experiences," leads me to suspect yet another crowded UI.

I'm already struggling with the non-problem of 'too much to play'—now my Smart TV's promising the same sort of decision paralysis that effectively ended my Netflix subscription.

Still, so long as the intended audience's internet connection can support streaming, bringing cloud gaming to Smart TVs seems like a no-brainer. Though still an expensive TV for many, chances are that it's a cost some will prioritise over splashing out on either a separate, full-price console or gaming PC, and that's an audience Xbox understandably wants to properly introduce itself to. Microsoft is simply joining up the dots on 'This is an Xbox.'

Anyway, I have a confession to make: yes, it was tempting to kick this news post off with a quip to the tune of "See this can of Monster? That's an Xbox," but I thought better of it. In the spirit of sharing, I also decided against this old groaner: "See my chicken hutch? That's an eggs-box." You're welcome.

Anyway, clocking in at 2,560 by 720 pixels, the Xeneon Edge has full touchscreen support and hooks up via either USB-C Alt Mode or HDMI. It's designed to be fitted inside your case using a 360mm radiator mounting point for a "sleek" look, or mounted externally with the built-in magnets for easy access.

The Xeneon Edge can also be plopped directly on your desktop using the included stand. The display supports both vertical and horizontal orientations, the latter perhaps offering a natty new way to feed your social media addiction. It could be perfect for scrolling through tweets and other pointless online posts.

Corsair claims the Xeneon's five-point multi-touch capacitive touchscreen offers, "an intuitive and interactive experience when used externally, functioning as a standard Windows touchscreen display for added versatility."

The horizontal resolution is pretty high for a panel measuring just over 14 inches across and works out to a heady 188 PPI. That's better even than the latest 27-inch 4K OLEDs. So text will be super crispy and the image quality should be great, even if there's no word for now on the precise panel technology used here or any specs like refresh, brightness or response.

Moreover, while Corsair doesn't go into much detail, we assume it will operate as a secondary display in Windows, albeit one with a slightly odd resolution and aspect ratio. But does that make it a fully fledged monitor? Or can it only really be considered as some kind of status display?

On that note, Corsair shows the screen displaying a suite of neat-looking tools and apps, which may or may not come bundled with the Xeneon. Corsair isn't quoting a price, but we doubt it will be cheap. On the other hand, we also don't doubt it will make a tower PC look like a million bucks. Money no object, I'd slap one in the window of my rig just for the hell of it.

Corsair says the Xeneon Edge is out in Q2 this year, which means you should be able to bag one by no later than the end of June. Watch this space for a price and maybe, just maybe, a final and definitive dissertation on that monitor-versus-status-screen conundrum.

For now, it's unclear if these new panels are in any of the newly announced OLED PC monitors also doing the CES rounds (more on that momentarily). But when it comes to latter-day OLED panel technology, what starts in TVs is pretty much guaranteed to hit monitors shortly thereafter. So, what exactly have LG and Samsung announced?

Starting with LG, perhaps the most surprising detail is that the company seems to be dropping its MLA or microlens array panel tech that uses zillions of tiny lenses to focus light and increase brightness. Well, MLA is gone for its new flagship G5 OLED TV series.

Replacing MLA tech is a new so-called 4-stack panel. LG claims this new panel is a staggering three times brighter than its previous best when it comes to the 10% window metric. All told, that should mean a peak brightness on a 10% window of 2,400 nits, which is really getting on some.

Of course, full-screen brightness is arguably where OLED monitors, including LG's own UltraGear 32GS95UE, have really come up short thus far and here the new panel technology isn't quite so impressive. According to HDTVTest, the panel will be 40% better for full-screen brightness compared to the panel in the extent LG G4 TV sets.

That may not be 3x brighter. But 40% is a very large step for a single generation when it comes to full-screen OLED brightness, which typically only improves incrementally. Applied to existing PC monitors based on LG's OLED panels, that would mean a step from 250 nits to 350 nits, at which point you could argue that the problem of full-screen SDR brightness on OLED monitors is pretty much solved.

If "pretty much" isn't good enough for you, well, get a load of the QD-OLED panel in Samsung's new S95F TV. It's rated at 390 nits full screen, tantalisingly close to the 400 nit marker that we'd say surely qualifies as "job done" for full-screen SDR brightness.

Samsung says this jump has been possible thanks to modifications to the EL or electroluminescent layer. It also seems that Samsung is getting one up on LG by presenting this new QD-OLED panel as offering 5-stack technology, referring to the the number of layers of light-emitting diodes and beating LG to the tune of one.

For the record, Samsung is quoting 2,000 nits on a 10% window for this new panel. So, it's brighter full-screen than LG but doesn't quite hit the same highs, on paper at least.

Now, it's worth remembering that TV panel specs don't translate directly into figures and capabilities claimed for PC OLED monitors, even when ostensibly based on the same panel technology.

There are various reasons for that, including differing panel sizes and resolutions. Somewhat confusingly, as far as we can tell the latest 27-inch 4K OLED monitors are being marketed as offering Samsung's latest 5-stack panel tech and yet do not offer improved full-screen brightness, being rated at the same 250 nits as existing QD-OLED monitors.

It may be that the super-small pixels inherent to squeezing the 4K resolution into a 27-inch as opposed to a 32-inch or larger OLED panel have implications in terms of brightness. Perhaps that's why Samsung waited until now to do a 27-inch 4K option.

Or maybe the new 27-inch 4K QD-OLED panel doesn't have exactly the same new panel tech as the new Samsung S95F TV. All told, there's still a little to shake out from all this.

But the key takeaway here is that both of the big players in OLED tech are making big claims when it comes to full-screen brightness for their latest panels and that can only be a good thing for upcoming PC monitors. These are big steps in brightness performance by the standards of OLED technology.

We'd be surprised if these new panels didn't make PC monitor with at least 300 nits full-screen brightness possible and something close to the magic 400 nit number seems at least viable.

The MSI MPG 242R X60N will be showcased at CES next week according to TFT Central, and its appeal will be all about that wild 600 Hz refresh. The rest of the package, the TN panel tech, the 24-inch size and the 1080p resolution are not exactly the stuff of gaming dreams, after all.

Of course, this monitor is aimed squarely at esports. So, stuff like 4K res, ultrawide aspect ratios, huge panel sizes and HDR sizzle aren't really the point. What you want is absolutely minimal latency and a compact panel that allows you to see everything that's happening on screen.

What you want, therefore, is the highest refresh possible on a 24-inch screen, something even faster than the likes of, say, the 540 Hz Asus ROG Swift Pro PG248QP.

All that said, as refresh rates climb higher, the returns arguably diminish. We are surely already at the point where there's no benefit in terms of visual smoothness of this 600Hz Hz panel over a 500 Hz alternative. But what about latency?

There will be ever so slightly less input lag at 600 Hz than 500 Hz, that's an undeniable fact. So, the real question is at what point does the latency reduction essentially become invisible to human perception.

On that note, we'll take the 5th. Personally, in the past I'd probably have said the difference above 240 Hz or so was getting close to imperceptible. But I must concede really serious esports types do seem to benefit from even faster panels.

Eventually, we will surely get to the point where higher refresh is of no truly tangible value. But we'll have to wait and see where that dividing line eventually lands.

In the meantime and getting back to this MSI panel, arguably slightly unexpected is the inclusion of USB-C connectivity with 98 W of power delivery. That's a handy feature for productivity and ergonomics, less so for gaming.

Using a laptop is a little implausible when you're trying to achieve the very highest frame rates. And even if you do, you'll need more than 98 W to keep a high performance gaming laptop powered.

For now, we have no specs in terms of metrics like brightness, contrast, viewing angles, color coverage and all that jazz. But as a TN panel, you wouldn't expect much from those aspects. It's just not what a high-refresh TN monitor does well.

Oh and for the record, the response is rated at 0.5 ms, which is excellent for an LCD panel, albeit miles behind the 0.03 ms typically claimed for OLED monitors.

Pricing has yet to be announced, but the MPG 242R X60N isn't expected to go on sale until at least April. So, it's a case of wait and see for now. But it will be very expensive for a 24-inch TN monitor, that's for sure.

A first world problem if ever there was, but 3,440 by 1,440 is pretty modest when stretched across a huge 45-inch monitor as opposed to, say, a 34 incher like the excellent Alienware 34 AW3423DWF. The result is a slightly grim pixel density of just over 80 PPI. A tragedy, indeed.

But 5K2K means 5,120 by 2,160 pixels. The resolution is basically a standard 4K pixel grid taken out from 16:9 aspect to 21:9. In terms of pixel density, it works out to 125 PPI. That's a little short of the circa 140 PPI of a 32-inch 4K monitor. It's quite a ways off the 166 PPI of the new 4K 27-inch OLEDs we mentioned earlier today, too, obviously.

But it's also a fair bit better than the 108 PPI of a regular 27-inch 1440p panel and the usual 34-inch ultrawides, including OLEDs. In truth, we'll have to see it with our own beady peepers to decide just how much the pixel density improvement over those popular monitor formats translates into more visual clarity, sharpness and detail.

LG hasn't quoted any specs for the panel beyond listing the same 0.03 ms as other LG OLEDs along with a refresh of 165 Hz. That implies there's nothing dramatically new about it save for the form factor and resolution, and thus it will likely mirror LG's existing 3rd gen WOLED gaming monitor panel technology.

That's no bad thing. But it probably means we won't see any advance in terms of full-screen brightness, which is still a limitation on all OLED gaming monitors, and colour brightness, which is a little weaker on LG's WOLED versus Samsung's QD-OLED tech.

Along with this LG UltraGear 45GX950A, there's also an LG UltraGear 45GX990A. It's essentially the same monitor but in a bendable format. Where the 45GX950A offers a fixed and quite extreme 800R curve, the 45GX990A can go from fully flat through to 900R. Oh, and it achieves that bend via a remote control and motors as opposed to manually.

For the record, both panels also offer a secondary 2,560 by 1,080 pixel doubled mode offering 330 Hz refresh. It's a similar dual-mode feature to 4K monitors that can also run at 1080p but at a higher refresh rate.

In truth, these pixel-doubled modes never look quite as crisp as the same resolution in native format on a similarly sized panel. But it's a nice little extra all the same.

As for the sordid matter of money, the fixed curve 45GX950A has an MSRP of $1,999. The bendable 45GX990A hasn't been priced up, but what with the fancy motorised panel bending shizzle, we suspect it will be at least $2,500. Ouch.

Thus far, the 4K OLEDs we've already seen are all 32-inch models. That applies to monitors based on both LG WOLED panel tech and Samsung QD-OLED. These new 27-inch models are all based on what's being billed as '4th Gen' Samsung QD-OLED technology.

However, do not get too excited by that '4th Gen' label. The new 27-inch 4K Samsung panel does not appear to move the game on for metrics like brightness. Instead, it's more of a shrinking of Samsung's existing 3rd Gen 32-inch 4K panel, like that in the MSI MPG 321URX, down to 27 inches.

That brings with it clear benefits in terms of pixel density. Existing 32-inch 4K panels come in just under 140 pixels per inch. These new monitors will be a little over 160 (actually 166 DPI due to the panel size coming in at 26/5 inches).

That should put to bed concerns over font rendering with the QD-OLED tech and its triangular pixel substructure (which is retained for these 27-inch panels). Font rendering was already pretty good thanks to the pixel density of 32-inch models. At 4K and 27-inch, it should be a total non issue.

The benefit of the pixel density for gaming is more debatable. Do many gamers look at a 32-inch 4K panel in-game and think it's nice but a little bit blocky? In practice, the visual benefit in terms of sharpness and in-game image detail going from 32-inch 4K to 27-inch 4K is marginal. But the smaller panel size and the reduced immersion that brings is arguably more obvious.

With all that in mind, who are the players in this new market? Among the first out of the gate is the Asus Swift OLED PG27UCDM. It packs the new Samsung panel running at 240 Hz, plus DisplayPort 2.1a (up to 80Gbps).

There's also USB-C with 90 W power delivery, but Asus isn't making any claims re increased brightness. Our understanding is that the new Samsung panel does not improve full-screen brightness compared to existing QD-OLED screens.

MSI has the MPG 272URX, which essentially matches the Asus spec for spec, but with marginally higher 98 W USB-C power delivery. Where Asus hasn't quoted brightness specs, MSI has, with 250 nits full screen and 1,000 nits in a 3% window. Again, that's the same as existing 32-inch 4K QD-OLED models.

Samsung has its own panel in this new 27-inch 4K segment, the Odyssey OLED G8 (G81SF). It appears to have pretty much identical specs to the competition. Oh and for the record, we understand that the bright ambient reflectivity issues that lead to black tones appearing grey still apply to these 27-inch 4K QD-OLEDs.

Anyway, increased pixel density is always nice, but it's not immediately obvious how much this will be a clear benefit over 32-inch 4K panels for gaming. The appeal of these panels will therefore likely come down to price. Our understanding is that they will be cheaper than their 32-inch cousins, but only a little.

ASRock has announced two 520 Hz IPS gaming monitors, the PG27FFX2A and PG27FFX1B. And in addition to the MPG 272URX (a 27-inch 4K QD-OLED), MSI has announced a 500 Hz, 27-inch, 1440p OLED monitor, the MPG 272QR QD-OLED X50.

The ASRock Phantom Gaming PG27FFX2A and PG27FFX1B, both 520 Hz monitors, are obviously targeted at competitive gamers. They only reach 1080p resolution but are IPS panels, and ASRock points out that this is "a market dominated by TN and VA panels".

IPS panels tend to offer better colour accuracy than TN panels and better response times than VA ones. And regarding the latter, both these new monitors offer 1 ms GtG response times, and both have FreeSync Premium support.

Both monitors are mostly the same, but the PG27FFX2A is height-adjustable and has a Wi-Fi 7 antenna built into the stand.

These monitors are sure to catch the eye of competitive gamers who are willing to sacrifice a higher resolution for a 520 Hz refresh rate. But for those who want the best of both worlds—though presumably for a steeper price—it looks like MSI's MPG 272QR QD-OLED X50 might be a better bet.

The 272QR X50 is the world's first 500 Hz 1440p OLED monitor. Being OLED, it offers all the vibrancy and contrast you might want but with ultra-quick response times. And now, it seems, with an ultra-high refresh rate to boot.

Apart from being ridiculously fast for a 1440p OLED, it also has a ClearMR 21000 certification, this being VESA's latest and highest motion blur rating, is G-Sync Compatible, and supports HDR 500 (none of that basic HDR 400 malarkey). There's no improvement in GtG response time compared to the OLEDs we're used to. But that's 0.03 ms, so, erm... yeah, I think we're good on that front.

Last year was kind of the year of the OLED panel, with a slew of stunning premium options hitting the market and making for some of the best gaming monitors, albeit for similarly premium prices. If this MSI monitor's anything to go by, 2025 might be the year of the OLED, too. I just hope they're not all of the premium variety and that some more affordable options start to debut, too.

With ASRock's monitors being part of the equation, too, CES and 2025 in general looks to be promising on the monitor front, especially as far as refresh rates are concerned. If 500+ Hz starts to become the norm I'll eat my shoe, but these latest additions are surely a sign that refresh rates might shimmy up across the board.

In which case, it's a good job we're soon expecting some powerful new graphics cards that might be capable of churning out frame rates to match. Roll on CES.

It's that time of year again. No, not the holiday season, we're over that, but the time when CES 2025 approaches. The Consumer Electronics Show will officially start on January 7 in sunny Las Vegas, Nevada, and this year's event is already full of hope and promise, and most especially for PC gamers.

After all, with Nvidia's Jensen Huang delivering the keynote (and hopefully announcing some next-generation RTX 50-series Nvidia GPUs) and every tech company worth knowing ramping up the potential announcement dates, it's looking like CES 2025 will be jam-packed full of delicious hardware, much of it of the gaming variety.

I'll be packing my holiday bags and gambling money (just kidding) and heading off to this year's show with several other members of the PC Gamer hardware team to provide on-the-ground coverage. Las Vegas here we come.

But before then, I've put together a run down of everything we're expecting to see, along with a few possibilities that are of the more hopeful variety. Who says we're cynics, ey?

Okay, you don't all have to put your hands up at once.

Nvidia 50-series graphics cards

At this point, I'd eat my metaphorical hat if we didn't see at least some of Nvidia's next-generation RTX 50-series graphics card lineup announced at CES. That's probably no surprise to those of you keeping up with your newsfeeds in recent months, as the leaks have been coming in thick and fast for what's likely to be the biggest GPU release in many moons.

No one was more surprised than us when CES 2025 became the hot tip for a launch location, as it's traditionally thought of as a more laptop-focussed show. Still, the most recent rumours suggest that we'll be seeing the RTX 5090, RTX 5080, and the RTX 5070 revealed all at once. This would be another break in recent tradition from Nvidia, as it's been the two top-tier cards that debuted before the mid-range offerings of the past couple of generations.

Recent leaks suggest that the RTX 5090 will be an absolute monster of a card, with kopite7kimi claiming it'll have 32 GB of GDDR7 memory across a 512-bit bus, a peak power demand of 600 W, and 21,760 CUDA cores. For those keeping count, that'd be 33% more cores than the RTX 4090, a GPU that's still considered overpowered to this day. That tracks with an even more recent RTX 50-series specs leak, this time apparently from Zotac—and this one even lists a potential core count for the RTX 5070 Ti.

So could we be looking at four desktop GPUs launched at once? We've even heard rumours that mobile GPUs could be on the table, too, although at this point the speculative roar is so loud, it's difficult to sort fact from fiction. Regardless, it looks like Nvidia GPUs are marching on the horizon, so expect to see new Blackwell-based graphics cards galore come the start of the show—with potentially some AI sorcery in the form of "Neural Rendering".

What's that then? We'll be honest—we won't really know unless it's formally announced, as technically DLSS, Frame Generation, and Ray Reconstruction could all be referred to as Neural Rendering. So it could simply be a repackage of all those existing features. But Nvidia is about as deep in the AI toolbox as it could possibly be, so I wouldn't rule out some high-faluting, all-AI-all-the-time rendering technique we haven't seen yet. At least, in a way that actually works for gaming, rather than a tech demo.

Exciting stuff though, isn't it?

AMD RDNA 4 next-generation GPUs

It's not just Nvidia GPU announcements we're expecting to see at CES 2025, as AMD's RDNA 4 graphics cards have long been tipped to make an appearance. We reported back in September that the next-generation AMD cards were expected to launch in January, although those of you looking for a potential RTX 5090 or RTX 5080 competitor will likely be disappointed.

That's because AMD's Jack Huyhn has gone on record saying that the high-end market isn't the priority. This tracks with more recent reports that what's rumoured to be the top-end card, the RX 8800 XT, will instead deliver raster performance similar to the RTX 4080 Super, and 45% faster ray tracing performance than the current top-end AMD card, the RX 7900 XTX.

And you know what? I'm kinda down with that. After all, we're expecting Nvidia's top-end offerings to be mightily expensive, so if AMD can launch a card that matches the RTX 4080 Super for raw grunt and fix the woeful ray tracing performance of the previous generation, I reckon it might be a bit of a winner—providing it's launched at the right price.

That's a big if, of course. Further down the lineup, there have been rumblings of a non-XT variant of what might become AMD's new top-end card (of this generation, at least), and potentially an RX 8700 and RX 8600 as well.

So don't cry too deeply into your cereal, AMD fans. There are more potential developments to get excited about in the team red enclosure as well, in the form of FSR 4. The scuttlebutt suggests that the upcoming version of AMD's DLSS upscaling competitor will be AI-based, which also hints that the new cards will have some sort of NPU/Tensor core equivalent to handle the load. And if we see the new cards revealed as expected? Then FSR 4 will likely follow.

As my own testing shows, FSR 3.1 is still behind the curve when compared to the latest version of DLSS—so an AI-enhanced version is something to get excited about for those of us hoping for performant-yet-affordable RDNA 4 GPUs in our future. Fingers crossed, at the very least.

Gaming laptops galore

Well, here's a return to tradition: CES is usually about laptop releases, and this year they've got some shiny new chips to nestle inside. We've already had a play with AMD's Strix Point Ryzen AI 300-series CPUs and Intel's Core Ultra 200-series mobile CPUs, and we've been thoroughly impressed. So we're expecting to see every major gaming laptop manufacturer under the sun release new models at CES 2025, many of them taking advantage of the shiniest silicon available today.

That means Razer, Asus, Alienware—basically, think of a gaming laptop manufacturer, and I'd be surprised if they didn't have a new model or two to reveal at this year's show with either AMD or Intel's most recent efforts

Of course, there'll be Qualcomm Snapdragon X laptops too, although I'll be keeping a special eye out for anything making use of AMD's Strix Halo APU. It's looking like it might be a very performant chip in early leaks, so I reckon we'll see the odd ultra-thin, ultra-light machine touting its gaming capabilities.

So January's looking like a superb time to start thinking about your next gaming laptop. With existing efforts like the Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 and the Razer Blade 14 taking the form to sleeker, svelter, and more desirable heights, I reckon 2025 might be the year we see gaming laptops blossom wholesale into the ultra-desirable machines we imagine in our heads.

The cantankerous chassis designs of old are starting to fall behind us now, so I'm expecting slim, portable, and luxurious to be the order of the day.

And I haven't even got onto the displays yet. OLEDs in gaming laptops are a proper thing now, and I'd wager we'll see plenty more models released with screens capable of inky dark black levels and gorgeous colour reproduction. Probably the odd Mini LED unit too, just to shake things up a bit.

Oh, and higher refresh rates. It can't just be me who's noticed most gaming laptop displays creeping towards the 240 Hz mark and beyond, and I can't see that slowing down anytime soon. Speaking of which…

Ultra-high refresh gaming monitors, OLEDs, and more

CES has also traditionally been about monitor releases. Or rather, TVs and monitors, as it's technically the Consumer Electronics Show, so expect plenty of screens designed to sit in your front room as well as on your desktop from many of the major manufacturers.

Expect gaming monitors of all sizes, shapes, and feature sets to dominate your newsfeeds over the course of the show, many of them aiming to reach new heights of refresh rate nirvana. Esports is a major driving factor for many monitor manufacturers these days, so I'm expecting to have to elbow my way through internet megastars (the names of which I do not know) in order to get to whatever hot new monitor of the moment they've come to promote.

I'll be gentle, I promise. Still, speedy screens make for great gaming monitors for the rest of us (to a certain extent), and it's in person where that refresh rate becomes less of a number on the box and more of a lovely thing to behold. So I'll be sure to pump myself up with caffeine and plonk myself down in front of as many of them as I can, along with our other team members. The conversation will be fast-paced and nerdy. Of this, you can be sure.

Again, OLED gaming monitors everywhere is the expectation—and perhaps even some more affordable models, if we've been really, really good. Plus, there are usually some laptops with fold-out screens to admire, before we all agree that it looks a bit flimsy and move ourselves on to the next booth. Anyway, monitors, lovely screens, expect lots.

Handheld gaming PCs

Remember what I said about new chips? Well, now that Lunar Lake and Strix Point are officially a thing, we've all been very excited at PC Gamer towers to usher in the next generation of gaming handhelds. The APUs in the older devices are starting to look a bit long in the tooth, so high-powered handheld gaming PCs are something we're hoping will be the order of the day.

Personally, I'm going to be keeping an eye on Lenovo, as leaks regarding the Lenovo Legion Go S have been so frequent this year, I feel like I've seen it already. Providing it does actually exist (wouldn't it be a turn-up for the books if it didn't?) and makes an appearance (who knows?), it'll likely find itself sitting in amongst some tough competition, given that the handheld market seems to be growing at a phenomenal rate.

The original MSI Claw didn't exactly set our hearts aflutter earlier this year, but the MSI Claw 8 AI+ is touting some remarkably high benchmark numbers, courtesy of testing performed by, err, MSI. We'll be sure to get our hands on one of those if we see one, although obviously we won't be able to benchmark it ourselves at the booth if MSI has one to show off. I mean, probably. Still, it's an interesting thing and seems much worthier of consideration than the old, Meteor Lake-based model.

Then there's the Adata handheld prototype my beloved hardware overlord Dave got his hands on at Computex this year. A bizarre machine for sure, but we loved the creativity on display. Will it make a reappearance, potentially with some tweaks? Time will tell. Still, I'm hoping to have a play around with some handhelds that dazzle, so keep an eye out for our coverage as we scythe our way through the show floor, hunting down all the latest portable PCs.

Motherboard chipsets

How's this for confusing—thanks to some leaks, we're expecting to see motherboards using new chipsets from both Intel and AMD, and they're said to be called the B860 and, err, the B850. Yep, two entirely different new chipsets, from two different and highly competitive companies, separated by a single-digit change.

So for clarification, the B860 is expected to be Intel's latest Arrow Lake-S chipset. If the leaks are to be believed, it'll sit below the current Z890 chipset in the lineup with support for 45 total high-speed I/O lanes and up to 12 USB 2 ports, and six USB 3.2 ports. It's currently believed to be locked for chip overclocks, although RAM overclocking is said to be supported. Keen eyes have already spotted listings for Asus motherboards using the new chipset, supposedly arriving at CES 2025.

On the AMD side of things, we have what's expected to be the B850 chipset for Zen 5 CPUs. Videocardz already has photos of what a reader claims is the Gigabyte B850M Aorus Elite WiFi6e Ice (another catchy motherboard name to add to the list), and it's said to offer PCIe 5 support for NVMe drives, and optionally graphics. The leaked board photos show four DDR5 DIMM slots, connections for 24+8 pin power connectors, and a whole lot of board elements hidden underneath some shiny white covers.

Not the most thrilling CES expectation, I guess, but that's what we have to go on for now. Expect to watch me become confused by chipset naming schemes at this year's show, and in fact, probably at future ones as well.

HDMI 2.2

Now we're talking: cable and connection standards! The current HDMI 2.1 specification supports 4K resolution at 120 Hz uncompressed, and up to 10K 100 Hz with Display Stream Compression (DSC). That's all dependent on what cable and monitor (or TV) you use, of course, but rumours suggest that we'll see the announcement of HDMI 2.2 at CES 2025, which will support…

Actually, we have no idea. Just the potential announcement, that's what's been leaked at this point. Of course, if we do get a new HDMI connection standard then it's likely to be capable of far exceeding the 42 Gbps maximum data rate of current HDMI 2.1 connections. But by how much, we really can't say at this point.

Still, when it comes to gaming monitors we're currently looking at a 240 Hz limit at 4K using the current top HDMI standard, so this may simply be sowing the seeds for 8K ultra-high refresh rate displays to come. Not that modern GPUs can really make use of that sort of headroom at the moment, but hey, faster hardware is coming, and that means faster connections and cables will eventually be needed to accommodate it.

I wouldn't expect to see an HDMI 2.2 port on new graphics cards from any of the major players for a while yet, but you never know, do you?

AI everywhere, again

Last year's show was all about AI. Guess what this one might be about? Yes, the AI boom is still far from bust, so it's once again time to put on our anti-hogwash hats and delve into all the AI offerings to see if any of them are worth talking about.

I kid, I kid, AI has its uses. I mean, we struggled to find them at last year's event, but in 2025 we'll be once again stalking the halls to see if we can find AI products that make sense. Of course, Nvidia will likely be talking up all sorts of AI shenanigans, and I've already covered the potential AI integration we're expecting to see in FSR 4 if it arrives. Perhaps we'll get another chance to play with Nvidia ACE, the AI-NPC tech that left our Jacob stunned in 2024?

And who can forget my legendary post-show article from last year, summing up three AI features we thought we might use, and three we definitely wouldn't? Even me apparently, because I've just rediscovered it. Still, AI will be all over Las Vegas this year as well I'm sure, so here's hoping I end up writing an AI product redemption piece now the tech has hopefully matured. See, I told you we weren't cynical. Just bitter, and that's a different thing entirely.

Use a 32-inch monitor every day and you’ll soon forget that it’s the sort of size that would have been considered excessive in a living room TV not so long ago. Stepping down to a 27-inch monitor after getting used to a 32-inch feels like going back to that 14-inch that buzzed and needed to be degaussed once in a while all over again.

And then you remember that this screen only costs £300/$350, and suddenly any sense of lingering disagreeableness passes. A mini-LED monitor for this kind of money is remarkable enough, with comparable models from Cooler Master or AOC going for twice the price, but the G Pro 27i also sports Quantum Dots, a fast 180 Hz refresh rate (with FreeSync), and a veritable plethora of inputs too.

For UK readers, there's also a three-pin plug on the power adapter. Previous Xiaomi screens have been sent out for review with US-style two-pin plugs that require an adapter, though work perfectly well on UK voltage, and it’s nice to see that this practice has stopped. Though as the screen requires its own power brick and the cable on it isn’t spectacularly long, you’ll need to keep it reasonably close to a power socket.

The mini-LED backlight is split into 1,152 local dimming zones, each made up of four mini-LED beads which means it’s mostly free of the haloes you can get from screens with larger zones. You’ll instantly realise that this means 3,200 pixels per zone, which at a pixel density of 109 ppi isn’t a large area—assuming the zones use the same 16:9 ratio as the screen itself you’re looking at each one being around 75x42 px. This is still much larger than the individually lit pixels of an OLED, but much better than traditional backlights.

There's still a little bit of bloom, though, especially around bright objects set against a dark backdrop. It’s very bright, unnecessarily so in fact, and most of the time you’ll want to turn the brightness down, something easy to achieve thanks to Xiaomi’s sensible implementation of the OSD controls. Place it next to a standard IPS panel and the difference is clear, with increased brightness and contrast.

It also has excellent colour reproduction, claiming to display 99% of the DCI-P3 colour gamut that can display 25% more colours than the more common sRGB. Combined with the HDR-1000 certification, this should lead to an extremely vibrant result if you’re keen on playing games that have colours in them. Tests with a colourimeter bear this out, showing a 98% response to P3, and a maximum brightness of 690 nits. That’s better than many OLEDs and a heck of a lot better than the usual figures we see at this price point.

The panel is the headline feature, but there's plenty else to like here. The G Pro 27i is a screen that’s meant to be admired from all sides. As a result, there's a lighting ring around the point at which the stand clips into the back of the screen itself (its colour controlled from the OSD), and a cover that will hide the bit where the input cables plug into their sockets (though you’ll still be able to see the cables themselves snaking away).

The foot, unusually, attaches to the vertical part of the stand with four screws (a driver is provided) instead of a single thumb-turned attachment, which feels rather old-fashioned, but it’s not the sort of thing you’re likely to do more than once or twice in the monitor’s lifetime and leads to a very stable configuration.

Having four video inputs is very nice to see on a gaming monitor, and the sort of setup that uses all of them is probably somewhere in our dreams. Desktop and laptop PCs, games console and streaming stick, perhaps? As the only screen in a dedicated gaming room or bedroom it’s good to be able to hook up multiple devices without needing to rely on switchers, though you will need to connect something to the audio socket as there are no built-in speakers on the Xiaomi screen.

The HDMI ports hit version 2.0, so are limited to 144 Hz at 1440p, but the DP 1.4 connectors can really let the pixels flow. The only thing that’s missing is a USB-C connection, and if you’ve become used to switching a USB hub between a couple of PCs, then it can be a wrench to go back to doing things the old-fashioned way.

And that’s one of the big things about the G Pro 27i. In a world of OLEDs, it uses mini-LED. Where USB-C is the up-and-coming video connector, it sticks with DisplayPort, and uses HDMI sockets that can’t feed it the max refresh rate. It doesn’t have anything like a built-in webcam or even speakers.

While other monitors have become hubs around which to organise your PCs and other devices, this is something more pure: a display, and nothing else. Happily, displaying things is something it’s good at, and as it’s available at a low price for a mini-LED panel we perhaps shouldn’t be too dismissive of its more focused approach. Stick one (or a pair!) of these on your desk, hook it up over DisplayPort, and you’ll have a fast, bright, colourful PC gaming experience. And isn’t that really all we want?

If there's one thing that stands out about 2024, at least as far as gaming monitors are concerned, it's that this year has without a doubt been the year of the OLED monitor. We've been hit with them left, right, and centre. And sure, these monitors mostly feature the same 32-inch Samsung or LG panels, but those are great panels.

Whether we're talking about the MSI MPG 321URX, LG UltraGear 32GS95UE, or any number of other 2024 OLED releases, you're getting a high refresh rate, low latency, and stunning 4K visuals. But while we've seen a bunch of these entering the market, none of them are cheap.

We've also seen some manufacturers start to experiment with Mini LED tech. This technology uses backlighting arrays and could eventually be an alternative to OLED tech that offers brighter screens with less text fringing and no risk of burn-in. Unfortunately, though, there are still problems with Mini LED tech, as we discovered when we looked at the BenQ MOBIUZ EX321UX, for instance.

At the other end of the pricing scale, 2024 has shown us what can really be achieved for a more moderate number of pennies. The Xiaomi G27i, for instance, showed just how high of a refresh rate and how low latency you can get for a mainstream price these days.

Speaking of refresh rates, one trend we saw this year was the introduction of dual-mode refresh rate technology. We first saw this with the LG UltraGear 32GS95UE which had its debut at CES. This tech allows for an ultra-high refresh rate at 1080p and then a lower (but still high) refresh rate at 4K, thanks to pixel doubling. We already saw it in laptops in 2023 such as the Razer Blade 16, but the tech is now officially featuring in standalone monitors.

Best gaming monitor 2024: the nominees 

The winner of the Best Gaming Monitor 2024 PC Gamer Hardware Award will be announced on New Year's Eve. So keep your eyes peeled for our pick of the best panel for this year.

Hardware rumours are ten-a-penny at the moment but this one apparently stems from an HDMI press release, according to the Italian site, Digital Day. It says that HDMI v2.2 will be officially announced at the Las Vegas tech event CES 2025 and that "[t]he new specification, featuring next-gen HDMI technology and increased bandwidth, will support a wide range of higher resolutions and refresh rates, supported by a new HDMI cable."

That's…err…not a lot to go on if I'm honest, but reading around various tech sites shows that it isn't stopping folks from making all kinds of wild claims as to what the new specifications will entail. HDMI 2.2 will obviously offer more bandwidth than the current 2.1 interface but exactly how much is a total mystery at this point.

With a maximum data rate of 42 Gbps, an HDMI 2.1 connection is good for 4K 120 Hz without compression, and up to 10K 100 Hz with Display Stream Compression (DSC). However, whether you actually get that depends on what the graphics card and monitor both support and the cable used.

To get the maximum data rate, you have to use an HDMI cable that's properly rated ("Ultra High Speed") and this would appear to be the same with the new 2.2 specification. Assuming that it's still using the same signalling system as in 2.1 but just at a higher data rate, an HDMI 2.2 socket will be backwards compatible with other previous versions, but whatever super-duper bandwidth it offers will be dependent on using a new cable. "Super-Duper Ultra High Speed," anyone?

Gaming monitors top out at 4K 240 Hz at the moment, which HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 2.0 both support, so you might be wondering what need there is for a new specification that offers even higher resolution and refresh rate combinations. The gaming industry is all about numbers, so we will eventually see 4K 360 Hz and even 8K 144 Hz monitors at some point. To comfortably reach those figures, a faster display is required.

Of course, one will need a ridiculously powerful graphics card to churn out such figures in games and as we're expecting AMD and Nvidia to announce RDNA 4 and Blackwell GPUs at CES 2025, we could potentially see one of them supporting the new spec just for marketing kudos. HDMI 2.1 has been used by both companies for at least two generations of GPUs so there's a small chance that one of them may make the jump.

Now, Asus ROG's OLED gaming monitor range is here to set new standards in the space, so we're going to talk about what truly makes a great OLED panel. Beyond the deep blacks and impossibly high refresh rates, you also need to consider resolutions, response times, refresh rates, and myriad other features, so join us as we team up with ASUS ROG to help you find a ROG monitor that will last you deep into the future—whether you're in search of searing frame-rates in first-person shooters or a sprawling screen space for multitasking.

If you currently own a IPS or TFT monitor, you're probably curious about what an OLED panel offers that your current one doesn't. Unlike IPS, OLED monitors don't require a backlight, so are markedly slimmer. Due to the fact that each pixel in an OLED panel is lit, backlight bleeding is a thing of the past, while black pixels don't even switch on, saving energy at the same time as creating 'true' blacks for much richer, deeper contrast. Motion clarity on an OLED panel is significantly higher too, with near-indiscernible ghosting and blur (something you'll really come to appreciate in racing sims and other fast-moving 3D games). In fact, motion clarity on a 240Hz OLED panel is about equivalent to a 360Hz IPS one.

Within the ROG OLED monitor range, you can choose from QD-OLED and WOLED displays. Both offer the same perfect blacks and deep contrast, but for the ultimate brightness and colour accuracy, you'll want to go for a QD-OLED, such as the ROG Swift PG32UCDM, which combines traditional OLED tech with quantum dots to deliver unrivalled image quality—perfect for gamers as well as creators needing the best colour accuracy possible.

The upside of WOLED monitors is that they are more affordable and energy-efficient, while still offering great contrast ratios. So on that front check out the ROG Swift PG27AQDP, which also happens to be the world's first monitor to sport a 480 Hz refresh rate. This translates to mercury-smooth motion and virtual elimination of screen-tearing, especially when combined with G-SYNC and FreeSync (all ROG OLED monitors have FreeSync and are G-SYNC-compatible). While we're on the topic of refresh rates, the lowest you're going to get with a ROG monitor is 240 Hz, so you can rest assured that it will do justice to whatever GPU you throw at it. 

Asus ROG uses high-quality LG panels for its glossy and semi-glossy monitors, but if glare and reflections are a concern, then they have you covered with custom-designed semi-matte anti-glare finishes. These surfaces span the size range of ROG OLED monitors, which go from 27" options such as the ROG Swift PG27AQDM all the way up to the 49" behemoth that is the ultrawide ROG Swift PG49WCD—a monitor wide enough to give you a vast, unbounded workspace by day, and unparalleled gaming immersion by night. It's a monitor fit for a full-on sim rig, whether you want to keep your eyes on drivers attempting to overtake you in Forza Horizon 5, or surround yourself in the vast cosmos of Elite Dangerous.

Every ASUS ROG monitor is supported by an arsenal of powerful onboard technologies that supercharge the screen experience even further. Dual Mode, currently available on the ROG Swift PG32UCDP, lets you switch seamlessly between high refresh rates and high resolutions, depending on the kind of gaming you're doing. If you want that super-sharp image clarity to fully take in the landscapes of the old west in Red Dead Redemption 2 or the mystical Norse realms of God of War Ragnarok, then set Dual Mode to 4K/240Hz. For blisteringly paced online games like Call of Duty or Apex Legends where frames take priority over pixels, then go for FHD/480Hz. 

ROG-Exclusive Anti-Flicker Technology reduces flicker when your monitor changes refresh rates in G-Sync or FreeSync, reducing eye strain so that you can keep going into the small hours. Then there's the OLED Care Suite, which utilises pixel-shifting, logo dimming, and other screen-wiping tools to extend your panel's longevity well into the future (with a three-year warranty on most OLED models to boot).

With all that firepower on offer at ASUS ROG, the only thing that's going to hold you back from peak gaming performance is your GPU. Unless you're content in admiring the smooth movement of your mouse cursor around your screen, there's no point having a monitor in the 240HZ-480Hz range if you don't have a GPU powerful enough to hit those heights. For 4K and ultrawide gaming, you should probably look for something like an ASUS Dual Nvidia RTX 4070 or an ASUS TUF Gaming RX 7800 XT, utilising AI upscaling technologies such as Nvidia DLSS and AMD FSR, along with Frame Generation (RTX 40-series only) or AMD Fluid Motion Frames, to hit those high refresh rates. These cards also feature HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 1.4/2.0 ports, which is a must to carry the kinds of resolutions and refresh rates ASUS ROG's monitor range is capable of.

So head over to the ASUS games hardware store or Amazon and get yourself kitted out. There's currently a 'Rate your Gear' promotion too, where you can get up to £50 cashback on select OLED monitors when you buy one and leave a review, but you'll need to be quick because this is only available until December 31, 2024.

To keep up with all the latest inventions at the ASUS lab, you can follow them on Facebook and Instagram. 

That startup mentality is also absolutely evident with the Dough Spectrum Black 32 OLED, the brand's very latest PC monitor. It ups Dough's ante to fully 32 inches of glorious 4K OLED action and, just like the original Spectrum, you sense the effort and investment, in terms of design and careful attention to elements like the design aesthetic and build quality, that's gone into this new OLED panel. You just don't see that from the bigger brands.

Where models from more mainstream monitor makers tend to feel a bit cheap, plasticky and mass produced, even at this premium end of the market, the Dough 32 OLED sports a lush metal rear chassis and a gorgeous, beautifully engineered alloy stand, albeit that latter feature is an optional $100 extra.

Add in the slick Corning Gorilla Glass screen cover and minimalist design and you have easily the most physically desirable 4K OLED we've yet reviewed. It makes most of the alternatives feel like cheap, disposable toys.

It's also mostly well specified. Dough has gone for the LG WOLED option as opposed to Samsung's QD-OLED tech. There are pros and cons to both panel types, but the LG panel in 4K format is the company's third generation WOLED technology and, importantly, it closes the gap to Samsung for full-screen brightness.

Actually, if anything it's a bit brighter full-screen for white tones, though QD-OLED probably still has the edge for color brightness. That's because WOLED, as the name implies, has an additional white subpixel to boost brightness that obviously does its best work with white tones.

Anyway, Dough has specced this panel up at 240Hz like most 4K OLEDs and its 275 nit full-screen and 1,000 nit peak HDR (in a 3% window) brightness ratings are largely par for the course, as is the claimed 0.03ms response performance.

To that you can add both HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 1.4 connectivity, plus a USB-C interface with 100 W of power delivery for slick single-cable connectivity, although the 100 W rating, while at least equal to that of most comparable displays, means that there's not enough power for a genuine gaming laptop. The only arguable exception to that is the new HP Omen Transcend 32 OLED with its 140 W USB-C interface, which is just about enough for some low-spec RTX 4060 laptops.

Anywho, while there is USB-C for video input and device charging, there's no USB hub for peripheral connectivity. At least, there isn't with this model which goes for $1,099, or $1,199 with the stand. A so-called "Hub" model which adds that functionality and a few other features is coming, but will be priced at $1,299 without the stand. Ouch.

That's a pity, because the USB-C interface without a hub rather undermines the whole single-cable connectivity notion. If you're not going to have a hub, it probably makes sense to ditch USB-C altogether and hit a lower price point. Still, at $999 with a stand, the Dough Spectrum Black OLED is actually pretty attractively priced given the overall feature set and clear build and design quality edge it has over the competition. If it performs well, it could be a no brainer as our pick of the current 32-inch 4K bunch.

Sadly, that's not quite the case. Out of the box, the sRGB calibration in SDR mode looks great, with accurate colors and plenty of punch with the brightness cranked up. There is a little ABL-driven brightness variation depending on how much of the screen is being ignited. But it doesn't distract to anything like the extent that ABLs or automatic brightness limiters did with earlier generation LG WOLED-equipped monitors.

The Gorilla Glass cover is likewise very sweet, enabling a sense of heightened contrast but without excessive reflectivity. In fact, it makes for the best glossy implementation of an OLED we've seen. You really would have to be using this monitor in incredibly bright ambient conditions to choose the matte version Dough will also be offering starting at $899 with no stand and no USB-C port.

As an SDR panel, then, this thing really pops, the pixel density thanks to the 4K resolution is fab, and then you're getting all the usual OLED upsides including ridiculously fast response times, great viewing angles and perfect per-pixel lighting. However, the problems begin when you enable HDR.

For starters, despite updating to the latest firmware that supposedly fixes an HDR brightness issue, our review sample wasn't producing the full HDR performance.

Meanwhile, SDR tone mapping in HDR mode is essentially broken. That means you have to switch between SDR and HDR modes depending on content type. Not the end of the world? Nope. But it's a problem lots of HDR monitors used to have but latterly far fewer exhibit and contributes to a broader impression of a monitor that's not quite ready for retail availability.

On that note, the USB-C interface in its current state is essentially broken and only works intermittently with the multiple laptops with which we tested. This should be a fairly straight forward fix for Dough, just like the SDR tone mapping in HDR mode. But as we write this review, actual customers are receiving monitors and they really shouldn't be shipping out with these fairly basic flaws.

This is, frankly, a little disappointing. At $999 with the stand, this could be our favourite 4K OLED. The design and build is lovely and the LG WOLED panel is fundamentally fabulous. Fix the SDR tone mapping and the USB-C interface and this will be a killer product. As it is, the Dough Spectrum Black 32 very much a hold rather than a buy.

If you're interested, our advice is to keep a weather eye on the Dough Reddit forum and jump in when it's clear all the issues have been sorted. They very likely will be, at which point the Dough Spectrum Black 32 OLED with Gorilla Glass will be very appealing, albeit at a price.

Ideally, we'd like to see a Gorilla Glass version with the arguably redundant USB-C ripped out and offered for about $100 less. That would be a very compelling proposition. As it is, we'd counsel caution for now. In its current state, the Dough Spectrum Black 32 OLED isn't quite ready to be bought.

Ultimately, there are only two sources you can go to for the actual 32-inch 4K OLED panel, LG and Samsung. So, every monitor including this new HP is a derivation of one of those two familiar technical themes. What chance, then, that HP has come up with something individual and compelling?

Actually, the Omen Transcend 32 is pretty nice. The caveat is that it all hinges on price. Conceptually, HP has gone for a full-feature take on the 32-inch OLED riff. It's the full 240 Hz treatment, sports probably the best connectivity of any display in this class, and HP has included some additional capabilities claimed to make this a great display for content creation, too.

All of that would have you expecting a pretty painful price. And indeed the MSRP is a hefty $1,299. That's around $500 more than the MSI MAG 321UP, which sports essentially the same Samsung QD-OLED panel. The difference is that the MSI lacks true single-cable USB-C connectivity and also runs at 165 Hz.

However, you can actually buy this HP Omen for $999 from Best Buy, even at launch. In fact, Omen's own website links you through to Best Buy if you click "Shop Now", though the listing for the Omen Transcend 32 on the sister HP website allows you to buy direct for $1,299. Much will hinge on that disparity, but we'll come back to the sordid matter of money later.

To drill down into the specifics, then, this Omen monitor uses Samsung's latest QD-OLED 4K panel running at the aforementioned 240Hz and offering 0.03ms response times. In other words, it's hella quick.

It's rated at 250 nits full screen just like every other Samsung-equipped 32-inch 4K OLED, along with a peak of 1,000 nits for HDR content in a 3% window. Again, much of a muchness with other Samsung-based 4K OLEDs, albeit those are great specs.

The Transcend 32 begins to carve out something of a niche with its industrial design. The white rear section of the chassis is a little redolent of some Alienware and Samsung Odyssey panels. But there are a few signature Omen flourishes, such as the square base and slim stand. Overall, it looks pretty slick, though perhaps feels a little plasticky for such a premium panel.

For the record, the display adjusts for height, tilt and rotate into portrait mode, but doesn't have any swivel support. There is also an invisible magnetic headphone hook on the left side of the panel for support headsets.

However, where the Transcend 32 really begins to separate itself from the competition involves connectivity. Along with the dual HDMI 2.1 and Display 2.1 ports, plus a USB hub with both USB-A and USB-C connectivity, most notable is the USB-C interface with DisplayPort Alt mode and 140 W of power delivery.

Yup, you read that right, 140 W. That's a fair bit higher than the usual 90 W and 100 W that USB-C interfaces top out at with most monitors. HP claims that it's enough to get a "full experience" with a single cable when gaming with their own Omen Transcend 14 gaming laptop.

We suspect that's because the Transcend 14 can be had with a relatively low wattage Nvidia RTX 4060 GPU. Whatever, what we can say for sure is that in our testing with a Lenovo laptop equipped with an RTX 4080, the 140 W USB-C power delivery certainly wasn't enough for a "full experience". Using the USB-C only for power delivery cut the frame rate in half playing Cyberpunk 2077, but even the restriction in power usage that implies wasn't enough to prevent the battery being depleted during game play.

Anyway, the bottom line is that the 140 W USB-C interface almost certainly won't be enough to keep most gaming laptops juiced. But what it does allow for is a reasonably powerful laptop to be used alongside a gaming desktop. To that end, HP has included full KVM switch support.

It's also worth noting that, likely due to the high-spec USB-C interface, this monitor has easily the most massive power supply we've ever seen for a monitor. It's rated at 480 W and weighs a metric ton.

Connectivity aside, what of the Transcend 32's image quality? If there aren't really any surprises, we can confirm this is one of the better Samsung-based 32-inch 4K OLEDs we've seen. It's nicely calibrated in SRGB mode, but perhaps more importantly, SDR content actually looks its best and most punchy with HDR enabled.

That means you can simply select HDR and you're good to go with all kinds of content. It's also good to see that panel brightness is very consistent in all modes, with little if any evidence of brightness variability on the desktop depending on the content being shown. In other words, the panel's ABL or automatic brightness limiter is not at all intrusive.

That may be down to the graphene film panel heat sink and fan, with the latter operating pretty much inaudibly during our review. Anyway, this is as punchy a 4K QD-OLED as we've seen. It's also slightly less prone to the overly warm color balance that some QD-OLED's exhibit. Nice.

Yes, you can still see the slightly grey, purplish tinge to the panel itself in very bright ambient light conditions. All QD-OLEDs suffer from that.

But it won't be an issue for most users and the general image quality, contrast and HDR performance is just fab.

The contrast and HDR visuals in particular benefit from a glossy coating that manages to really let the per-pixel OLED lighting pop while at the same time not being excessively prone to reflectivity. It's all nicely judged.

The net result is a pretty stellar gaming experience. Cyberpunk's ray-traced HDR visuals look utterly spectacular on the Transcend 32, while the 240Hz refresh and vanishingly short response times make for a very nippy experience in shooters like Counter-Strike 2. Of course, a 4K panel like this wouldn't be your first choice if you want the absolute last word in low latency and high frame rates. But if you're not a pretty serious esports type, there's more than enough speed on offer here.

Along with all that gaming goodness, this is a really lovely panel for more mundane desktop duties. The pixel density of the 4K native is much crisper and sharper than, say, a 27-inch 1440p or 34-inch ultrawide panel, for instance.

HP has also added a few features specifically for content creation pros, including configurable HDR clipping levels, manual or AV Info Frame HDR controls and factory calibration. We're likewise big fans of Omen's OSD controls. The interface is exceptionally logical, clear and easy to use and has all the features and options most users will want to see.

Oh, and HP has built in a quartet of downward firing speakers that perform comfortably above the norm. They're not going to displace even fairly basic dedicated speakers. But they produce decent audio in a pinch and are useful as a temporary backup.

The overall upshot, then, is that this is certainly one of the more appealing and better resolved 32-inch 4K OLEDs we've seen. Is it the best? That's hard to say. But one thing is for sure. Its appeal very much hinges on price.

At HP's $1,299 MSRP, we've not overly bothered. There are alternatives that can be had for $300 less that will deliver a similar experience. But at the $999 tag that's currently applied at Best Buy, the Transcend 32 is a different proposition.

In fact, if USB-C connectivity and sharing a monitor like this across a desktop gaming rig and a laptop is what you desire, then this Omen is probably our pick of the current bunch.

Of course, we could argue that if all you care about is exclusively gaming with your desktop and you don't mind forgoing 240Hz for 165Hz, the cheapest of the MSI options is the obvious pick. And if the $200 price differential is meaningful to you, then that absolutely makes sense.

But if you can afford the full $1,000, as an overall package in terms of its strong feature set and marginally superior image quality compared to cheaper alternatives, this HP Omen is probably worth the extra cash. It's certainly worthy of being on your 4K gaming OLED shortlist.

Apart from their high prices, there are a couple of things that have always put me off getting an OLED monitor. First of all, they're not very bright compared to a decent IPS display and while that's fine in a darkened gaming den, it's less convenient in a bright office.

Secondly, there's the ever-present worry over pixel burn-in. However, according to Applied Materials' press release (via FlatpanelsHD), these could be things of the past if the likes of Samsung and LG adopt its new manufacturing process, called MAX OLED.

"Applied’s proprietary solution uses selective deposition to enable excellent pixel placement accuracy, more than doubling the amount of OLED material per area as compared to previous technologies. The technology can increase OLED display brightness by as much as 3X and increase resolution by as much as 2.5X, to approximately 2,000 pixels per square inch. The solution can also reduce display power consumption by more than 30 percent and increase display lifetime by up to 5X."

Rather than using masks to mark out where the OLED materials get deposited on the glass substrate, the primary base for the display panel, Applied is using a proprietary system to place individual red, green, and blue pixels as required. The upshot is that the pixels themselves can be larger (thus emitting more light) and more tightly packed together (improving pixel density).

It's worth noting that Applied Materials isn't some random research company: It's one of the world's largest manufacturers of panel production equipment, so it certainly knows a thing or two about making OLED screens. It designs and builds the equipment for others to use, much in the same way that ASML makes chip fabrication units that are bought by TSMC, Intel, and others.

Samsung is apparently one of the first big companies to sign up for MAX OLED so there's a good chance that we'll see gaming monitors, using panels made via the new process, quite soon.

While I suspect that none of this is cheap to buy and thus the price of the resulting display will be fearsomely expensive, I am encouraged that genuine progress is being made at making OLED displays brighter and longer-lasting. Now I just need a MAX CASH production system for my bank account so I can save up to buy one, when they eventually come to light.

It's a full-array affair with 1,152 zones. On paper, it enables HDR1000 support, which means a peak brightness of 1,000 nits. This panel will also do fully 700 nits full-screen, something that no existing OLED monitor can even approach. Even the latest generation large-screen OLED tech tops out at about 250 nits full screen.

Indeed, with a typical price of around $1,200, this BenQ really does need to do something a bit special to justify its existence. Currently, 4k 32-inch OLED panels can be had from around $800. An LCD panel for 50% more cash is a serious ask.

Anyway, what with all the attention on OLED of late, it's worth briefly recapping what this mini-LED, full-array shizzle is all about. The idea is to use an active backlight to compensate for the fact that LCD panels allow light to leak through even when a given pixel is supposed to be switched off or showing a very dark colour.

To fix that, theoretically at least, you use a backlight split into zones. That allows the backlight intensity to vary across the panel according to the image being shown. For brighter areas of the image, you crank up those zones, for darker areas, the opposite.

If that sounds like a neat trick and a good idea, it comes with downsides. We'll dig into the details momentarily, but the basics involve weirdnesses arising from the algorithms used to control the zones and the resolution of the backlight itself. 1,152 zones might sound like a lot, but it actually means each zone is lighting up 7,200 pixels. That's not exactly precise.

Full-array backlighting aside, the BenQ MOBIUZ EX321UX has plenty more going for it. It's a 144 Hz 4K panel, for starters. In this age of 480 Hz-plus panels, that's a relatively modest refresh. But it actually makes sense with the 4K native resolution. Even with upscaling, realistically, you're not going to be playing the latest games at 4K and 200 Hz-plus, especially if you don't have an RTX 4090.

It'll do its 4K60 thing over both HDMI and DisplayPort. Oh, it'll do it over USB-C, too, which includes 65 W of power delivery. That's not going to be enough to keep a proper gaming laptop juiced. But it does make this monitor ideal to share between a gaming desktop and laptop or, whisper it, a console. Speaking of connecting multiple PCs, there's full KVM switch support, too. Incidentally, the HDMI interfaces have eARC 7.1 support and there's a built-in audio DAC.

If the feature set is pretty strong, BenQ has also leaned into the aesthetics a little, too. There's white plastic for the stand and the rear of the screen that gives a similar overall vibe to Samsung's high-end Odyssey gaming monitors and helps to justify at least some of the price premium. It's a pretty good-looking monitor, then, just not anything truly exceptional.

Of course, it's the image quality where the BenQ MOBIUZ EX321UX really needs to stand out and first impressions are good. This is a very bright, clean, punchy IPS panel. Notably, BenQ has gone for a matte rather than a glossy anti-glare coating, the latter being borderline compulsory on OLED monitors of late.

Matte versus glossy is a pretty subjective thing. But one thing is for sure, this panel is easily bright enough to offset any perceived dullness that can come with matte anti-glare coatings. It looks good for every one of those 1,000 nits in HDR mode and SDR content can be set almost uncomfortably bright.

On the subject of SDR versus HDR, SDR content looks absolutely bob-on in HDR mode, with perfect colour calibration. So, this is very much a display you can set to HDR and just leave it, regardless of content type.

Another brightness-related foible is that this display allows you to adjust the overall brightness levels in HDR mode. That's unusual and somewhat counter-intuitive given that brightness data is inherent to an HDR signal. But it is actually a welcome feature and one we wish more monitors would include.

Whatever, the HDR experience is mostly impressive. This is a really zingy, impactful display. It's also more prone to light up a backlight zone for a small image element than many full-array LCD monitors.

On the plus side, that means you don't lose small details on dark backgrounds. Less welcome is the more apparent popping on and off of backlight zones as a small bright object moves across a dark background, plus the inevitably bright halo that entails.

In the end, there are unavoidable compromises that have to be made when the backlighting resolution is so low. So low, that is, compared to the resolution of the panel itself. And thus also very low compared to the perfect per-pixel lighting of an OLED panel, which effectively has eight million zones to this panel's 7,200. All that said, this thing still looks pretty bloody marvellous in, say, Cyberpunk 2077 with all the HDR bells and whistles fired up.

Arguably the other major contention when it comes to LCD versus OLED is the assumption that the latter is far faster for pixel response. And it is. But it is also debatable how much that matters.

As IPS panels go, the BenQ MOBIUZ EX321UX is very quick indeed. There's very little blur or smear and, just as important, no obvious overshoot or inverse ghosting. For most gamers, most of the time, the response and clarity will be just fine. But an OLED panel is definitely that little bit better, and a much higher refresh OLED is better still.

Now, were this monitor significantly cheaper than an OLED alternative, it would be easy to rationalise away the response deficit. You could acknowledge OLED's advantage, note how much more it costs and conclude this monitor still looks pretty good for the money.

But at $1,200, it's much trickier. Along with the comparatively clunky HDR rendering, this panel is clearly slower and slightly blurrier than an OLED monitor. And yet it's priced up with the most expensive OLED options. In return, you do get superior full-screen brightness. But that really is about it.

In the end, the BenQ MOBIUZ EX321UX is a very good example of its breed. As LCD gaming monitors with mini-LED, full-array backlights go, we like it a lot. It's got one of the better backlight algorithms we've seen. But at this price point, it's just so hard to recommend. Mini-LED panels like this would be much more appealing as a budget alternative to OLED, priced slightly above a conventional LCD monitor.

At, say, $600 to $700 and roughly $100 to $200 more than a basic 144 Hz 4K 32 incher while still undercutting all the OLED options, this monitor would be intriguing. But at basically double that price point, it really doesn't make much sense.

Though, it must be said, where once there was a somewhat beneficial state of stagnation in the monitor market, one that enabled a high-end screen to be at the top of the game for a decade, things have changed and are moving apace. Where a 2560 x 1440 IPS panel with a 144 Hz refresh rate could have been considered top spec for the longest time, we're at a point when OLED screens have taken hold, offering 4K resolutions and 240 Hz+ refresh rates for the best gaming monitors. For a price.

That, however, is great on multiple counts. On one hand, you get high-end panels with the sort of image fidelity we could only have dreamed of a couple years back, while on the other, such is the sky-high pricing of OLED technology, and its cemented position as the de facto top pick, that the sort of screen you can now get for a couple hundred dollars or a few hundred quid is nothing short of stunning. The top screens of two years ago are now phenomenally affordable.

We're regularly rounding up our favourite screen bargains, and as we run up to the end of the year we've got a constantly updated list of the best Black Friday gaming monitor deals, too. But you need to know what you're actually looking for before you commit to anything.

So, here's what you need to think about before buying your very first gaming monitor:

1. Can you afford an OLED?
2. HDR is a nice-to-have not a need-to-have
3. How many screens do you want?
4. What's your GPU?
5. Don't go unnecessarily chasing refresh rates

To OLED or not to OLED

1. Can you afford an OLED?

OLED gaming monitors are the current pinnacle of screen technology. The latest LG and Samsung-built 4K panels—the highest resolution OLED gaming display you can currently buy—are some of the best monitors we've ever seen. But they are incredibly expensive. When you can buy a 55-inch OLED TV for $900, it feels a little hard to swallow having to pay over $1,000 for a 32-inch monitor that doesn't even have a tuner or OS inside it.

But why would you want an OLED monitor? The simple answer is that OLEDs deliver perfect, genuine blacks and a level of contrast that is impossible to find from any other current monitor technology. The technical reason is that each pixel is self-emissive, which means it doesn't require a light source behind it, and therefore means there is no bleeding of light between them. That's what makes the contrast so crisp and the blacks so deep.

They don't have the same sort of full-screen brightness as something like a mini-LED display, but a good modern OLED will deal with what it's got better than any other panel technology.

You are going to have to spend the big bucks to get one, however. The best prices we've found for OLED gaming monitors that we would want (and that excludes the offensively over-priced 2560 x 1440 ones) come in at $800 at best. That's a lot of cash to drop on a screen even if it will last through the lifespan of your current gaming PC.

The flip-side, as I've said earlier, is that the emergence of genuinely great OLED gaming monitors has crushed the prices of panels we would've thought of as top-spec just a short while ago. So, even if you can't afford an OLED monitor, there are stunningly good value IPS and VA panels (the other two panel technologies we recommend) available right now that will still look great in-game and on your Windows desktop.

Oh no, HDR

2. HDR is a nice-to-have not a need-to-have

It's very easy to get caught up in the marketing buzzwords of the day, and the HDR (or high-dynamic range) performance of a screen has been used for the past five years or so to denote whether a monitor is a particularly good gaming display. The problem is that HDR gaming on PC is, at best, a mess and, at worst, replete with what seem like obfuscating certifications.

My issue is with the DisplayHDR certification brought in by the VESA group, an organisation lead by monitor and panel manufacturers. Ostensibly, the certification was designed as an open standard which purported to show the HDR performance of a screen. Unfortunately, when you label something as the lowest standard—DisplayHDR 400—the expectation is that it is capable of HDR gaming. While that is technically true, it's not a great experience.

The '400' bit means that a certified screen is capable of a peak 400 nits brightness, which isn't all that bright if we're being honest. That's absolutely fine for a standard dynamic range screen, and you can have a great time gaming on a 400 nit display, just not a great HDR time. You won't get the little peaks in brightness which really make a HDR image pop.

To get a proper HDR experience you need either an OLED with true blacks and almost infinite contrast, or a screen with a ton of bright backlights, such as an expensive mini-LED panel. Even then, even then, HDR on PC is a cludge. It's a mess of mismatched settings and awkward features which contradict each other and need to be manually enabled each time you game or your display experience suffers outside of gaming.

If you can get a DisplayHDR 600 or 1000 rated panel, then fine, you're going to get a decent HDR representation, but I wouldn't specifically pay over the odds to get that specs box ticked if you're not 100% certain that you need HDR in your life.

Multi-monitor

3. How many screens do you want?

Are you content with running your gaming PC with just a solitary monitor, or do you feel the need, the need for moar? Personally, I'm a multi-monitor kinda guy because I spend a lot of time working on my machine, and I like to play games full-screen on one and have something else going on with a second screen.

But you can almost get the best of both worlds with a single screen, so long as that screen is wide enough. Or ultrawide enough. That is a species of gaming monitor with an aspect ratio of at least 21:9, and can get even wider if you pick a ludicrously broad 57-inch wide boi.

Some of these screens are effectively a pair of 32-inch 4K panels smooshed together in a holy ultrawide union. And some will even allow you to enter into a mode where you can split them up again to use each half of the screen as an individual screen before flipping back into ultrawide mode again.

The most arresting use, however, is in gaming.

An ultrawide gaming monitor can deliver a level of gaming immersion and visual splendour that is unrivalled by any mere 16:9 panel. Long gone are the days of having to hack-in ultrawide support for games (except you, Elden Ring, damn you) and having something like Red Dead Redemption 2 writ wide across such an expanse of screen real estate can be a stunning experience. And think about what that extra width can get you in flight sims or racing games, and you'll start to see why there are so many ultrawide gaming converts.

Pixel pushing

4. What's your GPU?

This has to be a key thing to ask yourself before you spend big on a gaming monitor. The native resolution of a display is key to your PC's performance, and we would always recommend aiming to run at the native res of your screen where at all possible. Anything else is a recipe for muddy, fuzzy visuals.

The issue is that the rendering of pixels costs GPU performance, and you can get an idea of the extra load on your graphics card when you actually look at what a resolution actually means in terms of the number of pixels on a screen you're asking your PC to deal with every single second. At 1920 x 1080—still the most popular and easily achievable gaming resolution—you're looking at just over 2 million pixels. It's a simple matter of multiplying those width and height numbers to get your total pixel count.

A 2560 x 1440 resolution therefore means near 3.7 million pixels, which is a fair number over and above 1080p but not unreasonably so. Stepping up to 4K (or rather 3840 x 2160) and we're now talking about around 8.3 million pixels, and you can see why that now places such a burden on your GPU.

Most modern graphics cards of this, and the previous generation should be more than capable of powering a native 1080p gaming monitor without breaking a sweat, and should also be relatively capable of running a 1440p display. Throw upscaling and some judicious adjustments to your game's graphics settings, and you'll get high frame rates out of most of them, too.

But only the very best graphics cards can comfortably cope with running a game at 4K native resolutions, especially without the magic of upscaling or frame generation. 4K gaming arguably starts around the RTX 4070 Ti Super level, and often benefits from 12 GB of VRAM or more.

Don't be worried, however, if you're looking for a new monitor today, and a new graphics card down the line—maybe when Jen-Hsun pulls his finger out and finally launches the RTX 50-series he's been jealously holding onto for the past year. If you're going to spend out on a high-end GPU of the coming generations, then speccing your monitor purchase to cater to that future card over your current won't necessarily deliver a terrible experience.

A 4K monitor can still look decent running at 1440p and likewise a 1440p display can run at 1080p without looking too dreadful. It will certainly see you right while for the time you're gaming out your time with an older card in preparation for a new purchase down the line.

Refresh rate

5. Don't go unnecessarily chasing refresh rates

It's easy to get caught up in the chase for ever higher numbers. It's something that marketers will always latch onto as it avoids having to explain more complex topics and features of a particular product and it's absolutely prevalent in tech.

Big number: good. Lower number: bad.

Ever higher refresh rates are such a marketing folks' dream digits, and ever since we made gaming monitors push beyond the 60 Hz refresh rate they were locked for the longest time it's been a race to ever higher figures.

The refresh rate is the number of times a screen will refresh in a second. At 60 Hz the screen is refreshing every second, and if your game's running at 60 fps then you've got a perfect match and the image will feel smooth. But higher refresh rates can be so much smoother.

I will admit I am an absolute sucker for high refresh rate screens, and will happily zoom windows around my 240 Hz Windows desktop just for the thrill of watching them smoothly float across my display. But in-game it's a whole other thing. For a locked 240 Hz gaming monitor to feel super smooth you really need to be running at 240 fps, and that is not easily achievable. And what about a 360 Hz or 480 Hz panel?

For me, so long as you're looking at a gaming monitor with a refresh rate of 144 Hz or 165 Hz then you are going to have a great gaming experience. Anything higher and you're relying on your PC and its GPU to be able to match your panel. Good luck with that.

OLED panels caused quite a splash when they erupted onto the gaming scene, with the technology being used in laptop screens and desktop monitors to provide brighter colours, enhanced contrast ratios, faster response times and thinner designs than the clunky LCD screens of old. The splicing of Quantum Dot technology with OLED to create QD-OLED brings even greater brightness for HDR games and movies, with colours that are more accurate - something that will endear these screens to those who use their PC for more than gaming too. As each pixel is self-lighting, there's no need for a backlight, and QD-OLED screens can be slimmer as a result, which leads to the striking designs and high specifications of the Evnia QD-OLED range.

Evnia is the premium choice for gaming and a forward-thinking and inventive brand. It brings modernity and a playful spirit, backed by the long experience of Philips. There's sleek good looks, the latest display technology, sustainable designs and fresh perspectives too. Evnia aims to rekindle and reinvent the joy of gaming, and its name comes from a Greek phrase meaning "to show interest in protecting and supporting someone". Evnia is the gamers’ support system, and its monitors help everyone to own their gaming experience. Let’s take a look at them.

32in QD-OLED 4K gaming monitor

Thanks to the QD-OLED technology driving it, the Evnia 32M2N8900 produces incredible visuals and is perfect for playing the latest shooters and sims. Mix this with a Display HDR TrueBlack 400 certification, it’s an absolute powerhouse of visual quality, even at its 240Hz maximum refresh rate. An anti-reflective coating on the screen prevents room lights from interfering with your game, while around the back you’ll find two HDMI 2.1 inputs, a DisplayPort 1.4, and a USB-C with a useful 5Gbps hub. Meanwhile, Philips’ Ambiglow lights up your gaming room with a rear display that adapts to the colour and brightness of the image being displayed, an AI-enhanced processor helping to create a truly immersive and customisable experience.

27in QD-OLED 1440p high-speed gaming monitor

Just as bright but with a hugely fast 360Hz maximum refresh rate for twitch gaming and esports, the Evnia 27M2N8500 is a monitor with a real ‘wow’ factor. Input lag is low, as is the response time, which at just 0.03ms is among the fastest available. The 2560 x 1440 resolution keeps visuals sharp, and a DisplayHDR True Black 400 certification keeps things colourful and filled with contrast. Philips Evnia monitors benefit from a host of gaming enhancements, such as Shadow Boost, a SmartImage game mode optimised for different gaming genres, and a Smart Crosshair that enhances aiming accuracy, and this superb 27in QD-OLED screen includes them all. Naturally there's Ambiglow too, picking out aspects of the screen’s display to increase immersion and fill your room with colour.

49in QD-OLED ultrawide gaming monitor

Ultrawide monitors offer luxurious gaming, and the Evnia 49M2C8900L is no exception. Its 32:9 QD-OLED panel has a gentle curve and is so wide it’s like having two 1440p 240Hz screens next to one another, only with no gap in-between. The extra space is perfect not only for immersive gaming in simulators and shooters, but anything else you might want to do with your PC too. QD-OLED is a hybrid technology that marries OLED panels and quantum dot technology, and it guarantees high contrast, deep blacks and unlimited viewing angles, with a higher peak brightness and more vibrant colours. That ‘s certainly what you get from this huge screen, which provides a gaming experience that’s hard to forget.

34in QD-OLED curved gaming monitors

Many gamers like to mix productivity with their explorations of virtual universes, and the Evnia 34M2C6500 and Evnia 34M2C8600 are versatile 21:9 ultrawides with crystal-clear displays that truly offer the best of both worlds. Wider than a 16:9 screen and with a curve that offers the wrap-around feeling that’s essential to true gaming engagement, it also brings an expanded desktop space that will be useful to anyone working in desktop publishing, video editing, content creation or anything that requires multiple app windows open and tiled across the screen. VESA ClearMR 9000 implementation means the screen produces the lowest amount of blur in its images, as tested with a high-speed camera, and this, along with VESA DisplayHDR True Black 400 and Philips’ Ultra Wide-Color Technology delivers a high-contrast display with a wider spectrum of colours for a more brilliant picture. Greens are more natural, reds more vivid, and blues deeper, bringing anything displayed on the QD-OLED monitor to life.

LG Display is the latest name to explore something with this technical twist, unveiling a stretchy screen prototype that can be expanded by up to 50% with a good tug (via Tom's Hardware). A prototype demonstration took place in Seoul at LG Science Park as part of a stretchable display national project during an event involving around 100 other South Korean tech stakeholders on November 8th.

This is far from the first bendy screen we've seen, with American company Corsair releasing the Xeneon Flex OLED Monitor a few years back. The big difference with LG's prototype is that it does a bit more than stretch; you can scrunch it, pull it, and twist it (though there's no word yet on whether you can bop it).

Dated reference aside (does Gen Z know the crushing low of flicking it when you mean to bop it?) LG's prototype is also a darn sight smaller than that Corsair monitor. LG's flexible display first presents RGB colour and 100 PPI at 12 inches, but can then expand up to 18-inches—which LG is quick to note in their press release exceeds "the original national project’s target of 20% elongation," and is "the highest rate of elongation in the industry."

As impressive as all of that is, I just can't get past how wrong the idea of scrunching up expensive tech feels; monitors may be hardware but they're historically not the hardiest of wares in the face of, say, a flung controller. Furthermore, in the case of the Corsair monitor, it's not just the fact you've really got to give it some welly to expand the display, but also the horrible sounds of protestation made by the frame that all contribute to the feeling of 'there's something wrong with this picture.'

Besides that, isn't the pliability of LG's prototype and its array of potential form factors just introducing heaps of new points of failure? 

On the subject of durability, LG's press release states, "By using a micro-LED light source of up to 40 μm (micrometers), the new prototype’s strengthened durability means it can be repeatedly stretched over 10,000 times, maintaining clear image quality even in extreme environments such as exposure to low or high temperatures and external shocks." That might be a bold claim but, if this prototype ever makes it to market in some form, it could mean cracked phone screens may one day be a thing of the past.

The LG Display prototype remains a ways off any kind of consumer environment, but the company also shared a handful of conceptual use cases. In a bid to further highlight both the prototype's durability and pliability, LG proposed a wearable application where a stretchable display panel attached to a firefighter's uniform could provide a real-time feed of information. While that could end up being a pipe dream, a wearable that actually achieves some real world good would certainly make a change.

And what deals they are! Having one of the best monitors available is a huge boost for any PC gamer, and getting one that’s larger or uses new technology can be as big an upgrade for your gaming rig as a new GPU. Tech such as OLED displays and higher refresh rates can make games more colourful and add smoother motion, while increased resolutions make graphics sharper and with greater detail.

MSI monitors come with a huge range of gaming-specific features, depending on the model you choose, such as the ability to superimpose a crosshair over your game for increased accuracy (and have it change colour depending on what’s being displayed, so you can always see it) plus AI Vision to bring out the details in dark areas, and even a built-in aim magnifier - Optix Scope - to turn any weapon into a sniper rifle.

MSI has knocked some serious cash off some of its best monitors this year, with bargains for everyone who’s looking for a new screen, from great value 27-inchers to a simply huge 34in OLED.

A solid IPS screen: MAG 274QRFW

Buy it here: £279 > £179 (35.8% off, save £100)

IPS screens are the peak of LCD technology, and MSI’s speedy 27-incher delivers an enormous 180Hz refresh rate at 1440p. It’ssharp, super smooth, and feature’s AMD FreeSync to eliminate screen tearing as the frames fly by. Its extremely thin bezel is perfect for a multi-monitor setup, eliminating most of the gap between the screens, and with VESA DisplayHDR 400 certification, you’ll be immersed in bright, saturated colours too. Like many MSI gaming monitors, it’s optimised to reduce eye strain by lowering the total amount of blue light, ensuring you a longer period of game time without fatigue.

Embrace the curve: MAG 32CQ6F

Buy it here: £259 > £189 (27% off, save £70)

Curved screens can increase immersion while gaming, and this huge 32in model envelops you in your game thanks to a wide 2560 x 1440 WVA panel with a 180Hz refresh rate and 0.5ms response time that will cut down on motion blur and give a crystal-clear image. Add adaptive sync, plus MSI's Anti-Flicker and Less Blue Light technologies, to the mix, and you’ve got a screen that you’ll want to use for everything, be it gaming, streaming or even working. With a pair of HDMI 2.0b ports alongside a DisplayPort 1.4 input, it’s the ideal screen for sharing between multiple inputs, be they PCs, consoles or streaming sticks.

High-speed OLED: MAG 271QPX QD-OLED E2

Buy it here: £749 > £599 (20% off, save £150)

If twitch shooters and esports are your thing, this HDR QD-OLED screen with a sky-high refresh rate is exactly what you want. You’ll be pumping frames to it at up to 240Hz, and with a 2560 x 1440 resolution and an incredible 0.03ms response time, plus the amazing colour saturation and brightness you get from the combination of OLED and Quantum Dot tech, your games will never have looked better. The screen’s anti-reflection coating helps you focus on your games with fewer distracting glare artefacts or washed-out colours.

Ultrawide OLED: MAG 341CQP QD-OLED

Buy it here: £899 > £599 (33.4% off, save £300)

If you’re ready to take things to the next level, this 34in HDR OLED monitor deal offers a huge saving for a huge screen. MSI has outdone itself with this curved ultrawide screen, which brings a 3440 x 1440p resolution and a gentle curve to the party. You get the benefits of next-gen QD-OLED technology for deeper colours, a huge HDR peak brightness of 1000 cd/m², a 0.03ms response time and a 175Hz refresh rate with adaptive sync. It’s a beast of a screen that can truly put you ahead of the competition, now with a third off the price.

Budget curved screen: MAG 27C6X

Buy it here: £169 > £119 (29.6% off, save £50)

Proof that you don’t have to completely spend out when buying a new monitor. This screen was a bargain before Black Friday, but now it’s positively begging you to buy it. With a 250Hz refresh rate and 1ms response time it’s blazingly fast, with adaptive sync to iron out any stuttering as your PC tries to keep up with the 1080p VA LCD panel. This vivid display with a wide colour gamut is ideal for any fast-moving games, including first-person shooters and racing titles. Its frameless design and 1500R curve give it a sleek modern look, so it looks almost as good switched off as it does when switched on.

Fast and sharp: MAG 274UPF E2

Buy it here: £439 > £319 (27.3% off, save £120)

Modern GPUs have enabled 4K gaming at high framerates, so why not take advantage of all that pixel-pushing power with a screen that can reach 160Hz? This 27in model uses a Rapid IPS panel that’s VESA DisplayHDR 400 certified, so you can look forward to vibrant colours alongside an incredibly sharp picture that allows you to really see the detail baked into your favourite games. Its 0.5ms response time means it can keep up with the fastest-moving graphics with little blur, while anti-flicker and blue-light-reducing technology lower the strain on your eyes. It also has a useful selection of inputs at the back, including a USB-C port that can connect to and charge your gaming laptop (plus two HDMI 2.1 inputs and a DisplayPort 1.4 for multiple computers), and is fully height adjustable too.

In typical Sony style, this monitor adopts stratospheric market positioning courtesy of the same LG-sourced 480 Hz WOLED panel as the Asus ROG Swift PG27AQDP. It's the latest OLED technology from LG with Micro Lens Array enhancement. So, it's as punchy as they come with 275 nit full-screen SDR brightness and up to 1,300 nits HDR in a small window.

It's also faster and even more expensive than the 360Hz 27-inch Alienware AW2725DF we covered recently. Other specifications are as you would expect from a cutting-edge OLED gaming screen. Colour coverage comes in at 98.5% of DCI-P3, for instance. Then there's the pixel response. It's rated at a ridiculously fleeting, if now familiar for this class of display, 0.03ms.

Combined with that turbo-charged 480 Hz refresh you have the makings of a rather nippy gaming display. That is, of course, the whole point of the Sony INZONE M10S. The latest member of its INZONE lineup of "elite-level gaming gear", Sony says the M10S has been developed in collaboration with the professional Valorant and Apex Legends players in the Fnatic esports team, with optimal online shooter performance being the number one priority.

That extends to a "tournament-compliant" 24.5-inch mode which operates at native 1332p resolution. You basically end up with black bars around the smaller 24.5-inch active area of the panel. Honestly, it's pretty unlikely you'd want to use it outside a tournament. Even then, serious tournaments typically provide standardised screens the contestants must all use. Still, it doesn't hurt to have the option.

Aside from speed, the Sony INZONE M10S's other major selling points are design and engineering. The aesthetics are slick and minimalist in general. The build quality is great, too, bar a very slightly wonky outer screen bezel. But it's the implausibly small stand base that caught our own Andy's attention recently.

To look at, you'd think the merest prod would have the Sony INZONE M10S toppling over its petite circular base. But it's actually very stable. The possible caveat would be that it probably won't work that well on anything but a very firm, flat surface. But that's most desks, right?

The stand also offers tilt, height and swivel adjustment, but no pivot into portrait or even fractional pivot adjustment. The latter is a little bit of a pity, as our unit sat ever so slightly unevenly and the ability to trim that out is always welcome.

As for connectivity, you get a pair of HDMI 2.1 sockets and a USB-A hub, but no USB-C connectivity at all, which really is very stingy given the price point. Sure, USB-C doesn't cut it in terms of power delivery for a powerful gaming laptop. So that version of single-cable connectivity isn't a goer. But some users might like to connect both a gaming desktop and general-purpose laptop to this display, which is where USB-C would be very handy.

All that said, the eye-catching connectivity metric is surely DisplayPort 2.1 support. Not many displays support DP 2.1. Just as importantly, only AMD's latest Radeon RX 7000 GPUs support DP 2.1, which means no Nvidia GPU is currently compliant.

However, the Sony INZONE M10S only supports the base UHBR10 DP 2.1 spec, which translates into a peak 40 Gbps of bandwidth and 38.69 Gbps of usable bandwidth. That's well below the 80 Gbps and 77.37 Gbps of the top UHBR20 DP 2.1 spec. 

Yup, DisplayPort now rivals USB for baffling bit-rate related spec tiers. The relevance of all this is that with the base DP 2.1 spec you do get more bandwidth than DP 1.4, but display stream compression or DSC is still required to hit the full 480 Hz. That will irritate a very, very small number of people for whom DSC is a technical demerit. For our money, it's fine. DSC is visually lossless and doesn't add latency. But for the record, it's in use here.

Speaking of going on the record, what of our overall impressions of this screen? Well, it has a matte anti-glare coating, which probably suits the esports remit but arguably attenuates the sense of eye-searing HDR sizzle by the slightest fraction.

More than anything, though, this WOLED wonder is just super quick. Even jiggling application windows around on the desktop it feels and looks preposterously slick. In game? Counter-Strike 2 is my multiplayer mayhem of choice and if I've seen it in sharper, clearer, lower latency rendition, I can't recall when.

Put another way, in terms of pixel response and latency, the Sony INZONE M10S must represent something of an end-game, a point beyond which the returns are diminishing to the point of non-existence.

A pro-level gamer might have something to say about that. But is this really the kind of display serious esports aficionados would go for? Or would they default to a 24-inch TN panel with even higher refresh? And if the latter, who can justify this 1440p monitor's nosebleed-inducing price tag?

That's really the problem here. As a general gaming monitor, let alone an all-purpose work-and-play panel, does a 1440p model for over $1,000 make sense? Remember, the new LG UltraGear 32GS95UE, a 32-inch 240 Hz WOLED 4K model with an alternate 480 Hz 1080p mode, can be had for exactly the same money. 

Perhaps you would prefer a 49-inch 5,120 by 1,440 OLED ultrawide for fully $200 less in the Gigabyte Aorus CO49DQ. Or really any of a number of other options that seem like a far better value proposition, like a 34-inch MSI 21:9 model for over $400 cheaper. Ouch.

You can check out the rest of the alternatives on our gaming monitor deal page, but this Sony really is a hard sell. Arguably, then, how it performs outside of games almost seems academic. But the calibration in sRGB mode is really lovely, with plenty of pop provided you disable the automatic brightness limiter. 

HDR content positively zings, too, though the SDR colour calibration in HDR mode is pretty obviously overstaturated. That means you realistically have to manually toggle SDR or HDR mode depending on content type. Pity. And, of course, the basic 27-inch 1440p spec means that pixel density, visual sharpness, font rendering and desktop space are all distinctly ordinary.

All of which means that the Sony INZONE M10S is an absolutely stupendous example of the 27-inch 1440p gaming monitor breed. If it's a 27-inch 1440p panel you desire at any cost and above all other alternatives, this Sony should be near the top of your shortlist. But if you want the best overall gaming experience that can be had for in excess of $1,000, there are far more impactful and multi-talented options available.

The Sony Inzone M10S and Inzone M9 II, however, bring something a little different to the party. What comes into contact with your desk is a small, circular plate designed to take up as little footprint as possible. This is so gamers can happily move their keyboards, mice, and other desk detritus into whichever position is most comfortable, without the monitor stand getting in the way.

That being said, with such a small base design, I couldn't help but think they looked precariously close to falling over. At the product demonstration, I was invited to wobble them, knock them around, and test the stability of what looked suspiciously like an ineffective (if pretty) stand design. In practice, however, they really are much more stable than I was expecting, thanks to a clever bit of mechanical engineering.

The center of gravity is actually right behind the panel, meaning that all the weight is centered in a straight line going down to the middle of the base. They're a bit like Weebles—you can wobble them, but the second you let go they want to return to their upright position almost immediately. Clever, that.

In terms of specs, the Inzone M10S isn't just a pretty stand. It's a 27-inch 1440p OLED panel with up to a 480 Hz refresh rate, 98.5% DCI-P3 coverage, a 1,300 nits peak brightness rating and a host of esports ready features.

That includes a 24.5-inch "professional mode" that reduces the displayed image down to a smaller size. Several assembled esports pros from the Fnatic esports team (which Sony collaborated with to help design the display) explained this was because 24-inch monitors are the default size for competitions, so you can practise your skills on the same-sized screen as the professionals before taking to the big stage.

In fact, the whole ethos here seems to be esports, esports, esports. There's several different monitor modes available, designed to help you gain a competitive edge, including dedicated FPS modes tuned by Fnatic members to better display certain colour contrasts in games like Valorant. I was shown a green fog effect in-game where, on the default setting, a character in the distance began to blend into the smoke. With the FPS Pro+ mode on, however, you could just about make out an elbow amid the mist, giving the game away as to where your opponents may lie.

Sounds silly, I know. But I am reliably informed that, when it comes to esports competition, every little advantage helps. And who was I to doubt the superheroes of gaming around me, I guess. I'm just a mere mortal, after all.

For the more sedate gamer (and I'm including myself here), the Sony Inzone M9 II is likely more up your street. It's a 27-inch 4K IPS display with a 160 Hz refresh rate and a 1 ms GTG response time, also featuring that self-balancing stand design. It looked good in action, but I have to say, sticking it next to an OLED of the same size really did throw into direct contrast just how much nicer a good OLED looks compared to even an excellent IPS panel.

The Inzone M9 II is a good-looking display, there's no doubt, but that OLED really did look stunning in a dimly lit conference room. More than that, the 480 Hz refresh rate looks smooth as glass under gameplay conditions, and it did make me slightly envious of high refresh rate displays in comparison to my own, lesser monitor at home.

Two premium-looking monitors then, with some clever features that make them stand out from the pack—and some seriously high refresh rates to boot. All that was left to discuss was the price, and I have to admit that when it was revealed, I performed a double take. Let me start out by saying, the Inzone M9 II is $100 cheaper than the Inzone M9 before it, which was a welcome surprise.

The bad news? It's $799. That's a substantial amount for a 27-inch 4K 160 Hz monitor, and while it certainly looked lovely, when something like the fantastic LG Ultragear 27GR93U retails for $630, I can't really see why you'd pick the Sony instead. That stand's great and all, but for that sort of money I'd want something that was going to blow me away, and in my brief time with it I couldn't quite figure out where the money had gone.

As for the OLED Inzone M10S? That'll set you back $1,099. We still expect OLED monitors—particularly ones with mega fast refresh rates and esports credentials—to command the big bucks, so it came as less of a shock. Still, that's a serious chunk of change for any 27-inch display.

In person, those trick stands really did impress, and the M10S was a delight to look at in action. But with prices like this, I can't help thinking that, unless you really are looking to maximise your performance to the nth degree, you're likely paying extra for the Sony branding and the Fnatic association here. 480 Hz refresh is a nice thing to have, but for this kind of money? It's a serious amount to spend.

We'll be testing them to find out how they perform under the microscope, but one thing's for sure—they're going to have to work hard to justify all that moolah.

Out goes the 27-inch dual-mode IPS 4K panel. In comes a QD-OLED 1440p display from Samsung which shares the same 27-inch diagonal, but that's literally it. Okay, the styling and look of the chassis is pretty much the same between these two 27 inchers. But the actual display technology couldn't be more different.

Of course, one of the most immediately obvious differences is pixel density. 1440p on a panel this size works out to about 109 DPI, where 4K comes to 163 DPI. That's a dramatic difference you can't miss. On the Windows desktop, fonts are much less crisp and sharp, and there's generally less detail. You have fewer options for scaling the desktop interface to make that trade off between legibility and usable space, too.

However, in-game you could argue the delta isn't nearly as obvious or important. 1440p still makes for very detailed gaming graphics and arguably sidesteps the whole 4K versus 1080p thing for gaming pretty neatly.

Indeed, this monitor can do the same refresh at 1440p, namely 360 Hz, as its dual-mode sibling achieves at 1080p. The catch is that 1440p is about 75% more pixels than 1080p, and so you'll need very roughly 75% more GPU power to hit the same frame rates.

Anyway, if you've got the GPU hardware, this OLED isn't just a match for that IPS panel when it comes to latency. It's easily got the measure of it when it comes to outright speed thanks to superior pixel response.

The dual-mode IPS is rated at a zippy 0.5 ms. But that's only zippy for IPS. This QD-OLED clocks in at 0.03 ms. On paper, it's an order of magnitude—plus some—faster. In the real world, the gap isn't quite so substantial, but where you can just see the limitations of that IPS monitor when it comes to response if you look really closely, it's essentially a solved problem with these modern OLED monitors. They're just so fast.

The other really obvious advantage is HDR and contrast performance. This QD-OLED panel absolutely destroys the dual-mode IPS alternative by those measures. This is Samsung's latest OLED technology, and it really delivers with HDR content. The peaks really sizzle, while the black levels are basically perfect and controlled on a per-pixel level.

Frankly, even with full-array dimming, IPS monitors don't come close, and the AW2725QF doesn't even have that. Even better, Alienware has calibrated SDR content really pretty nicely in HDR mode. So, you can essentially toggle HDR mode and leave it like that. There's no need to jump between HDR and SDR modes depending on content type.

Well, there is one exception to that. By default the SDR mode has a brightness limiter that's designed to ensure the overall panel brightness doesn't fluctuate depending on the specifics of what's being displayed.

You do get a bit of that in HDR mode. But it's pretty subtle and on balance, the panel generally looks that little bit punchier and zingier in HDR mode. Whatever, you have the choice. If you want absolute consistency for SDR content, and for the record the sRGB profile is pitch perfect, then you have that option available.

Anyway, for gaming it's pretty hard to fault a modern QD-OLED panel like this. They're just so fast, the lighting is so perfect, the viewing angles so faultless. Funnily enough, it can actually be when you glance at a panel like this by accident from across the room that it's OLEDness, for want of a better word, really hits home.

Where an IPS panel looks a little translucent thanks to light bleed and imperfect viewing angles, these OLED panels are just so, well, solid. It's very hard to go back to a wishy-washy IPS panel once you're used to OLED, that's for sure.

The one caveat to that is the characteristic greyness of QD-OLED panels specifically in bright ambient light. You can see it here just as you can with all other QD-OLED monitors. We don't think it's a major issue, but it's something to bear in mind if for whatever reason you game in a really bright environment.

Of course, the real catch here is price. Alienware wants an extra $200 for this OLED over the already expensive dual-mode IPS alternative. The consequent $800 is just so much for a mere 1440p 27-inch monitor, even one this good.

Oh, one other aspect this OLED panel shares with its dual-mode doppelganger is connectivity. And that's not a particularly good thing. You get DisplayPort and HDMI, plus a USB hub that includes a USB-C port on the bottom bezel. But there's no USB-C upstream for single-cable laptop connectivity.

Again, that's somewhat forgivable for a dedicated gaming display. But this is still a $800 monitor and who knows what you might want to do with it a few years down the line. Even right now you might want to share with across both a desktop gaming rig and a laptop. Surely for that kind of money it should have USB-C support for laptops and other devices?

Anyway, pricing remains the killer for monitors like this. It's simply very hard to get your head around paying this much cash for a mere 27-inch 1440p panel, even one this good. That's doubly true when you consider that you can have a 49-inch ultrawide QD-OLED like the Gigabyte Aorus CO49DQ for only a little more money. Okay, it won't be fully 360 Hz. But in all other regards, it'll be literally twice the screen for the same price. And that disparity in quality just doesn't make sense for this display.

This is a 27-inch 4K IPS monitor that runs at up to 180 Hz in UHD mode. Make no mistake, it's a very high-spec panel. But it doesn't have full-array local dimming or any other really cutting-edge feature. Except, that is, for the dual-mode shizzle.

In simple terms, what Alienware is doing here is the same as other dual-mode screens, namely pixel doubling. In other words, you double up in both vertical and horizontal directions, which results in a quartet of pixels acting as one. 

Of course, 4K is precisely four times the overall resolution of 1080p. So, what you end up with is a 1080p display in which each "native" pixel is actually made up of four smaller pixels. In other words—boom!—you've got a "native" 1080p and you can run higher refresh rates. In this case, the Alienware AW2725QF hits 360 Hz in 1080p mode, a hefty step up from its maximum 4K refresh and with consequent benefits in response and latency.

In principle this all makes sense and means you no longer need to interpolate a 1080p image over a 4K pixel grid when rendering 1,920 by 1080 pixels on a 3,840 by 2,160 pixel grid. What's more, if you drill down into the structure of any actual individual pixel on a modern, standard flat panel display, you'll find it is in fact composed of multiple subpixels itself. So, how native is native anyway?

With that in mind you might think, great, done right this alternate 1080p mode should be just like an actual 1080p panel. Indeed, accessing the 1080p mode is quick and easy, even if it does cause the monitor to resync with your PC. 

But it gets more complicated from there. The main problem is that subpixel structure actually matters. By way of example, Windows' font rendering addresses pixels at a subpixel level in order to achieve the smoothest and sharpest text possible on any connected screen.

More specifically, Windows renders under the assumption of three subpixels—red, green and blue, and in that order. In a pixel doubled display, you've actually got two rows of red, green, blue, red, green, blue. Well, you do in an IPS display like this Alienware. OLED panels arrange their subpixels differently—and that's different between panel manufacturers, too—which only adds to the problem.

Anyway, long story short this difference in subpixel structure impacts image quality. So does the shape of and spacing between pixels. For any given panel size, a true native 1080p pixel tends to be a little softer and rounder and certainly has more space between it and the next pixel.

When you start with a much denser 4K pixel grid and then combine four pixels into one, the gap between each resulting pixel is tighter and the edges and shape of the pixels sharper. Put all these elements together, and the final consequence is that a pixel-doubled 4K panel running an alternate "native" 1080p will never look exactly the same as a panel of the same size that's actually 1080p.

However, it doesn't automatically follow that a dual-mode monitor will look worse. Just that it will be different. With all that convuluted pixel/subpixel chatter in mind, what does this 27-inch 4K monitor look like when running in its alternate 1080p mode? Just like the LG OLED monitor mentioned above, you would not mistake this for a conventional 1080p panel.

Compared to the LG, the results are a little crisper and sharper. That's both a pro and con. It means this monitor avoids the slightly soft and blurry look of the LG. In-game, it actually looks pretty good much of the time. In fact, you'll often forget that it's not truly a native 1080p panel.

However, some graphical elements catch the pixel-doubling approach out. It's most obvious in fine details. A common example is grass and other foliage with fine lines. In 1080p mode, they can look horribly rough and pixelated, think about what it's like running an upscaler like FSR in its lowest quality setting, and you'll get the idea.

Back on the Windows desktop and it's even more apparent that you're not looking at a true native panel. Where the relatively large spacing and rounded edges of a typical native pixel soften the image a little, this pixel-doubled display is harsher and less forgiving. Arguably, that doesn't matter as the dual-mode feature is only really designed for gaming.

Overall, it's an intriguing and worthwhile, but definitely not a killer feature. If you're really, really serious about competitive online gaming and achieving the lowest latencies, you're likely still going to want a dedicated high-refresh display. But for everyone else, it gives you a very usable option for upping the refresh rate when you're in fast and furious fragging mode and without compromising image detail and pixel density the rest of the time.

Speaking of the rest of the time, we've kind of forgotten to discuss what this Alienware AW2725QF is like as a plain old 4K panel, which in reality is how it's usually going to be used. In short, it's mostly really lovely.

The core colour calibration in SDR mode is gorgeous and the panel is super punchy and bright, as you'd expect given the 450 nit peak SDR rating. Even more impressive is the response. This monitor is hella quick.

You get three different levels of pixel overdrive to accelerate response. There's a touch of overshoot and ghosting in the fastest mode. But the other two are just really fast. In fact, this might just be the quickest IPS panel I've seen. It's certainly up there with the very best, and quick enough that I'm not sure the theoretical advantage of OLED panels, when it comes to response, translates into a terribly obvious subjective difference.

Where OLED panels do murder this monitor, however, is HDR performance, contrast, and black levels. The Alienware AW2725QF has HDR 600 certification, but it's only edge-lit rather than offering full-array dimming. So, there's lots of light bleeding through the panel and relatively poor contrast compared to OLED.

To be clear, this monitor is no worse than any similar IPS panel. But once you've seen OLED, displays like this do have very obvious shortcomings in these areas, there's just no getting round it.

Of course, as a 27-inch 4K monitor, the pixel density is fab and everything is uber sharp and detailed. The 180 Hz refresh in 4K mode will likewise be plenty for most gamers when it comes to response and latency. All of which means this is a seriously nice all-round gaming panel.

The only other snag worth mentioning is the lack of USB-C connectivity and therefore no single-cable option for laptops. There is a USB-C port on the lower front bezel, but that's just for the USB hub that needs a separate cable. Oh, and there's no audio line out for, say, headphones.

Is that all fine for a gaming display? Probably. For sure, the limitations of USB-C power supply mean you can't really keep a gaming laptop fully juiced with a USB-C cable. At the same time, USB-C would still make for a more versatile display, enabling you to share this panel between a gaming desktop and a laptop. Moreover, with USB-C, you simply have more options. Who knows what you might want to do with this monitor in future and at this price point, USB-C really ought to be a given.

Yeah, the price point. For a regular 4K gaming panel without full-array dimming, the Alienware AW2725QF is undeniably expensive. Whether it's worth the premium for the dual-mode feature is a tough call. It's a very nice panel even without dual-mode, it's punchy and very, very fast. So, the overall value proposition is reasonable. But if you're not interested in the 360 Hz 1080p mode, you can have a similar experience for quite a bit less cash.

In a continuation of this Hertz-stacking zeitgeist, Acer's just launched a 600 Hz monitor, the 24-inch, 1080p Nitro XV240 F6. That's faster than any (non-modded) monitor in mass production to date.

Acer says, "The 24-inch Nitro XV240 F6 is an FHD-resolution monitor with a blazing 600 Hz refresh rate and up to a 0.1 ms G-to-G response time, making it among the fastest gaming displays currently available. It boasts a VESA DisplayHDR™ 400 certification and supports 95% coverage of the DCI-P3 color gamut to ensure stunning brightness and color reproduction."

Of course, we're talking about a TN panel here, which means you won't get all the lovely colour reproduction of an IPS or the dark blacks and vivid colours of a VA. It's 1080p, too, which even today's luddites should recognise is somewhat behind the times.

But there have to be trade-offs when you're going for such a high refresh rate. You can't have it all (yet).

I suppose the question is why you'd want to make these sacrifices. I've never laid eyes on a 600 Hz monitor—nor a 540 Hz one, for that matter—but I can't help but imagine such a high refresh rate will be complete overkill even for competitive gaming. 

Then again, perhaps such a comment will age like fine milk, and in a decade we'll all be speaking in MHz rather than Hz, championing the latest 2,000 Hz / 2 MHz displays. Perhaps monitors like this Acer one will seem quaint in comparison.

There are some things in life you wish you could unsee. XXX: Return of Xander Cage, for example. But if I had a choice, I'd like to erase all memory of using a 32-inch screen as my main display for the past year. It's not that the experience has been bad, like watching a poorly-written Vin Diesel sequel. In fact, quite the opposite. 

But now I'm hankering for an OLED gaming monitor, and since my poor eyeballs have been treated to 32-inches of glorious display for a significant amount of time, I know I won't be able to go back down to a 27-inch or 24-inch screen again. Nor am I quite ready to commit to an ultrawide full-time, despite their advantages, for reasons I'll go into later.

I've come perilously close, it's true, and even at points thought I was converted. They are brilliant, after all, and I've flip-flopped on my decision so many times I've lost count. But there's something about the 32-inch screen format that keeps pulling me back in—and OLED-wise, that means my next monitor purchase is likely going to be expensive.

For those of you that haven't known the glory of a 32-inch screen, allow me to wax lyrical for a second: A screen of this size, I've finally decided, is the perfect amount of panel. And I can hear your complaints already: whatever your particular preference is, you'll argue it's the best, and that's fine.

But I've had the pleasure of sitting in front of many fabulous displays recently, from 49-inch ultrawides to 27-inch high refresh rate marvels, and I've oohed and aahed at them appropriately. That being said, every time I return to my desk and sit in front of my sensible 32-inch MSI G321Q, there's something about it that feels like coming home.

It's not the greatest of displays, this. It's an IPS panel, which might still be the best LCD tech around, but the low-light contrast isn't great. It's got a 170 Hz refresh rate—which is plenty fast enough for me, but positively glacial compared to some. Its colour reproduction is pretty decent, which means well-lit scenes do look appropriately lush, but HDR-wise it's only "HDR Ready", which effectively means it can't really give me the benefits of HDR at all. It's also got a matte finish that point-blank refuses to clean up to a perfect surface.

But it's the format I'm in love with, and I'm struggling to let go. That 16:9 aspect ratio will cause ultrawide fans to scoff, but that's fine by me. I love a good ultrawide, it's true, but there's something about a 32-inch 16:9 that keeps bringing me back. It just feels more comfortable to me, like an old pair of shoes, with just the right amount of wear.

That 32-inch panel size means that I can happily have two, three, or four windows on screen at the same time without straining to read them. Yes, they'd be more spread out on an ultrawide, but a 32-incher still gives you plenty of room for multiple screen elements, without dominating your field of vision. I can also look around it to my (real life) window behind and spot the endless delivery drivers ferrying packages to my front door. I can stare at the bin man, ignoring my recycling collection once again. It just feels a bit more…civilised, than a super-wide display.

And as for gaming? If I'm playing an intense first person shooter, thanks to that large panel, I can sit forward and immerse myself. For chilled out controller stuff, I can lean back in my chair, kick my feet up and relax. I've even got it setup on a VESA arm mount, so I can swing it towards my partner's chair and we can both play a bit of local co-op in comfort. 

Ever tried two-player gaming on a curved ultrawide? Thanks to that bend, the experience isn't great. They're brilliant screens, but I can't quite bring myself to replace my traditional experience just yet. I've thought about it, hemmed and hawed, but as good as modern wide bois are, and as much fun as I've had using them, I can't quite shake the 16:9 bug. And as for smaller displays? Nah. Bigger really is better, I'm afraid.

But I do want an OLED. Again, once you've seen one, you can't quite unsee how much better an OLED screen is than just about everything else out there. Of course, plenty of 32-inch options are available, but given my preferences, I'm going to have to spend up a bit if I want my next display to be on the large side.

Not that smaller OLEDs are cheap, you understand. But good OLED 32-inch monitors are often that bit more expensive—and that means that every time I'm about to pull the trigger, I stop myself. Our current best gaming monitor, the 32-inch MSI MPG 321URX QD-OLED, has earned its place at the top of our recommendations for having a fantastic panel that's cheaper than the competition. Cheap-er, not cheap.

It'll still cost you $950 at the time of writing, and it's got a tendency to sell out very quickly thanks to that more reasonable, but still teeth-clenchingly high price. Top level hardware can be expensive, and large OLEDs are certainly no exception.

I've thought about going back to 27-inches to try and save a bit of money, I really have. Or putting aside my nitpicking and going for the magnificent 34-inch ultrawide Alienware 34 AW3423DWF, which can often be found around the $700 mark. But it's no use. Now I've resigned myself to the 32-inch, 16:9 format, I know my next screen purchase is going to be expensive—at least for the foreseeable future.

Nevermind the fact that 32-inch OLEDs are all 4K screens. To get the most out of that resolution, I'd need to upgrade my GPU as well, and now I'm looking at a total that's closer to $2,000. And that's the sort of cash that could be spent on a lovely holiday—or heavens forbid, a savings account. Perish the thought.

But there are some green shoots in that regard. Certain OLED monitors, like the ma-hoosive (but really rather lovely) 49-inch Gigabyte Aorus CO49DQ have been dropping in price quite rapidly since release, and I can only hope that this is a sign of cheaper OLED displays in all sizes to come. Bring me the right deal on a good 32-inch model, and I may just be brave enough to bite the bullet.

But in the meantime, here I sit, scanning for bargains on my admittedly inferior display. I'll definitely be keeping an eye out around the Black Friday sales for good OLED deals, but being UK based I'm sure it'll be our stateside friends that'll get the lion's share of the great discounts. Perhaps the 32-inch OLED display of my dreams will suddenly appear, bathed in glorious HDR light, at a price point that won't make my bank manager call me to check that I'm feeling alright.

Perhaps not. Still, I can dream, can't I?

AOC has form when it comes to offering conspicuous value. Enter, therefore, new 27-inch 1440p and 32-inch 4K OLED gaming monitors from the brand. As far as we can see, they don't break any new ground, technologically. What they do achieve is the lowest price points we've ever seen, at least in terms of MSRP or recommend pricing, for such displays.

The 27-inch comes in at £650 in the UK, while the 32 incher is £740. The latter looks like conspicuously good value when you compare it to the LG mentioned above. While we have occasionally seen 27-inch OLEDs lower than those prices, those are sale prices rather than MSRP.

For now, we don't have US pricing, though we have put the question to AOC. As things stand we'd expect similar figures in dollars. Right now, the cheapest 32-inch 4K OLED is the MSI MAG 321UPX, which typically goes for about $900 and is identical to the MSI MPG 321URX we reviewed earlier in the year, save for lower power output over its USB-C interface. 

So, how has AOC pulled this off? Part of the explanation is no doubt maturity in terms of the 4K Samsung QD-OLED panel AOC is using. It's bound to have come down in price a little.

However, the AOC Agon Pro AG326UD, as the 32-inch 4K model is known, also only runs at 165 Hz compared to the 240 Hz that's the norm for other 4K 32 inchers running the QD-OLED panel, including the MSI and LG models mentioned above.

Yes, that's a downgrade. But then how often are you achieving 240 fps in the latest games at 4K? 165 Hz is a decently high frame rate in most contexts. For 4K, we'd argue it's plenty.

Elsewhere, you're also missing out on USB-C connectivity, which is arguably more of a loss. However, if you know you're not bothered by that, then the proposition of a 4K OLED for less money remains strong.

As for the AOC Agon ProAG276QZD2, that's also a Samsung QD-OLED based model, but this time at 27 inches and 1440p. The refresh rate comes in at 240 Hz. That's half the refresh of the very latest 480 Hz 27-inch OLEDs, such as the Asus ROG Swift PG27AQDP.

But, again, how much do you care? For sure, really serious esports types will appreciate the 480 Hz refresh. For most of us, having the OLED experience at 240 Hz but for less cash will be very appealing.

Of course, neither of these panels are actually cheap. You can get a 32-inch 4K 144 Hz LCD monitor for under $400 on occasion. A 27-inch 1440p 240 Hz LCD panel is likewise now not much more than a $200 affair, typically.

So, you're still paying handsomely for the OLED experience. But just a bit less handsomely than before, which is welcome. Hopefully, we'll get our hands on both of these new panels soon and can report back on just how much of a bargain they truly are.

OLED tech remains new enough for the answer to that to remain unclear. But the evidence is beginning to stack up. And it seems even the latest OLED panel tech does suffer from burn in. But it's not catastrophic.

The latest data points come from Monitors Unboxed and Rtings. The former has been running an informal test using an MSI MPG 321URX, the very same model that heads up some of our best gaming monitor guides.

The channel is now six months into its test, which involves using the panel as a primary productivity screen for all-day work duties. And the result? After one month, little to no burn-in was visible, after three months some light burn in could be seen, and after six months that burn in was a little bit more visible.

It's worth noting that the burn in noted by Monitors Unboxed was mild even after six months of heavy use in the region of 1,200 to 1,500 hours. It can only be seen when viewing large areas of certain dark colours. It doesn't show up against brighter backdrops. 

For the most part it's invisible. And even when it is visible, it's fairly subtle. But it is visible—and that's not something you'll typically have to put up with on an LCD monitor.

Meanwhile, Rtings has also been assessing burn in on a larger and more formal scale with 100 OLED panels on test running the CNN news channel 24/7. Rtings only has a trio of actual PC monitors in the test, with the remainder being TVs. 

They added the Dell Alienware AW3423DWF, the Samsung Odyssey OLED G8/G85SB S34BG85, and the LG 27GR95QE-B in March 2023 and in the latest update in July this year had this to say: 

"As for the three monitors on this test, there's very little change over the last update. The CNN news banner is faintly visible on all three, but it's still relatively minor and not really noticeable with real content."

Again, there's definitely visible burn in. But again, it's only mild. What you'll make of all this is somewhat of a subjective call. Some may consider any visible burn in as unacceptable, especially considering how expensive these displays are. Others may deem it all good so long as it's not distracting.

For us, one remaining major concern involves the warranty. Pretty much all current OLED monitors, at least those from the big brands, come with three-year cover that includes burn in.

That's great, but it's not totally clear what constitutes burn in for warranty claim purposes. Will any given manufacturer replace your screen at the faintest sign of burn in? Or does it have to be pretty obvious?

And if the latter, will you find yourself a couple of years into ownership with a bit of burn, pondering whether to attempt an RMA? Might you even be in the odd position of hoping it gets worse before the warranty expires so that you can be confident of a claim? 

Ultimately, the status of OLED monitors remains in something of a limbo. Burn-in is definitely a problem, but it's not catastrophic and how much of an issue it is will vary from person to person. It's a subjective call. Which probably isn't the simple, declarative answer you were looking for—but it is the reality of the situation.

When you dig down into the details, OLED's shortcomings can often be traced directly or indirectly to limitations involving blue OLED subpixel technology. The problem with blue OLED tech is that it's much less efficient than red and green, the other two primary subpixel colors.

That means that at a given power, blue OLED produces less light than red or green. Conversely, it uses much  more power and produces much more heat at comparable brightness. Fix the blue OLED problem and you fix OLED tech more generally.

Well, that's what LG claims to have done with its new "Dream OLED" panel technology (via ET News). The innovation involves a new panel utilising so-called blue phosphorescence. 

Previously, blue OLED technology was restricted to less efficient fluorescent emission tech, while red and green OLED could be manufactured with more efficient phosphorescence emission.

In fact, the new LG panel reportedly uses a dual-stacked technique with both phosphorescence and fluorescent blue OLED in an effort to achieve both better efficiency and longevity.

Of course, the detailed implementation of such a technology is complicated. Neither LG nor Samsung, the two main players in OLED panel tech, actually implement a pure OLED RGB substructure. LG's WOLED panels have an all-white OLED emission layer that is then passed through RGB filters, while Samsung actually has all-blue OLED emission which then excites an RGB quantum dot layer.

When you drill down even further into those OLED emission layers, you'll find they have a further substructure, which is where the blue OLED solution will pay dividends. Anyway, blue OLED tech has long presented a barrier to creating OLED panels that can offer both strong full-screen brightness and good longevity with resistance to burn in.

This new Dream OLED panel tech from LG is said to be under production evaluation and could be commericialized "within the year". Of course, that just means LG could begin manufacturing the panels for sale within a year. Actual PC monitors or TVs with the new panels would take a little longer.

But the take home here is LG seems to be addressing the big questions concerning OLED technology, namely how to match LCD for full screen brightness while also putting burn-in worries to bed.

It's unclear exactly how far LG's Dream OLED panels will go in delivering all that. But it certainly seems like they will be another step in that direction.

As Jacob explained before, the main attraction of the new Samsung Odyssey 3D is stereoscopic 3D visuals without the need for special glasses. The Odyssey 3D achieves that with what is being called Light Field Display (LFD) technology. Long story short, it combines a lenticular lens with a pair of eye-tracking cameras, plus some clever algorithms.

That's how the display can send a slightly different image to each eye, which is what creates the 3D effect, without the need for glasses. Samsung says the displays can seamlessly switch between 2D and 3D modes and will be offered in both 27-inch and a novel 37-inch panel size which we haven't seen before.

Both models offer full 4K resolution, 1 ms response times and 165 Hz refresh. FreeSync Premium, one DisplayPort 1.4 and two HDMI 2.1 ports round out the specs Samsung has released thus far.

Samsung isn't providing any further specs for now, but the 1ms response makes it clear enough that these are LCD rather than OLED panels. Likewise, if these monitors have fancy local dimming features, Samsung certainly isn't shouting about it. So, the level of HDR support remains open to question.

As for the actual viewing experience, Jacob only had five minutes with the display back at CES. He didn't find the 3D effect entirely convincing.

"For the most part, the game environment appears as one plane and your game character on another—closer to the player. Though occasionally during my brief experience with the tech, I'd spot a tree branch or sign that'd reach out towards me," Jacob said.

Of course, Samsung will have refined the product in the meantime, so the final experience may differ. Indeed, at the time it wasn't clear if Samsung was going to actually launch the monitor as a shipping product or if it was jut a concept.

Now we know it's something you'll actually be able to buy, albeit pricing hasn't been released. That all leaves us with a couple of questions. Firstly, this is far from the first time the display industry has had a crack at stereoscopic 3D. Numerous attempts have been in the past, including Nvidia's 3D Vision. All have ultimately failed.

Will the Samsung Odyssey 3D be any different? Color me skeptical, for now. The other open question is whether we might see the 37-inch 4K panel used in the larger of the two models deployed in another non-3D display.

37-inch 4K is not a panel format we've seen before and it could make for an interesting compromise between sheer scale and resolution, what with 40-inch-plus TVs really being too big for ergonomic desktop use. Ironically, that could end up being the most interesting development from this product announcement if the whole 3D thing fails to catch on. Again. Watch this space.

In 2013, Nvidia launched G-Sync, a system that allows monitors to vary the refresh rate so that when the GPU has finished rendering a frame, the display can instantly display it instead of having to wait. In that situation, there's a risk of the frame being swapped during the display process, resulting in a 'tear' across the screen.

VRR also greatly reduces any stuttering induced by differences between the display's refresh rate and a game's frame rate.

G-Sync isn't the only variable refresh rate (VRR) technology though, as DisplayPort 1.2 or newer, and HDMI 2.1 both feature it. AMD also has a VRR system called FreeSync, which is based on the DisplayPort version, though it has been substantially improved since it first appeared in 2015.

FreeSync doesn't require any additional hardware inside the monitor, just that the display has to be able to adjust its refresh rate over a given range (e.g. between 30 Hz and 144 Hz). However, if a monitor manufacturer wants to offer full G-Sync support, it needs to purchase and fit a separate add-in board, with Nvidia's G-Sync chip and a little bit of RAM.

That adds to the bill of materials and since FreeSync is also royalty-free, vendors such as Asus, Acer, Gigabyte, MSI, et al have preferred to go with AMD's system (especially since it works with AMD, Intel, and Nvidia GPUs).

Hence why Nvidia has teamed up with MediaTek to produce a scaler chip, with the full G-Sync feature set built into it, including the latest Pulsar technology—this is a system to reduce motion blur, keeping small details as clear as possible, even when whipping the camera about in a game.

Three vendors—Acer, AOC, and Asus—have already announced some gaming monitors that will use the chip. They're all 27-inch, 1440p gaming monitors with a maximum refresh rate of 360 Hz.

There's no word on how expensive the Predator XB273U F5, Agon Pro AG276QS2, and ROG Swift PG27AQNR will be, or when they will be available to buy, though I should imagine that an announcement will be made soon enough.

The more important question to ask, regardless of the price tag, is "Why should I buy a G-Sync monitor instead of a FreeSync one?" On paper, there's little to separate the two technologies and it comes down to the individual application of each one in a gaming monitor.

A display that supports G-Sync Ultimate will meet a certain level of hardware capabilities, whereas you're not necessarily guaranteed that with a standard FreeSync one. AMD does have FreeSync Premium, with higher specifications and more features than the original FreeSync, though.

While you might think that having a GeForce RTX graphics card requires you to be using a G-Sync gaming monitor, the reality is far from being that specific. Nvidia has a list of monitors that it certifies as having G-Sync Ultimate or standard G-Sync features, or just being G-Sync Compatible (i.e. it's a FreeSync monitor but it will work with Nvidia GPUs).

That said, G-Sync Ultimate monitors do have a very wide VRR range, typically from 1 Hz up to the monitor's maximum refresh rate, whereas G-Sync Compatible displays have a narrower range, e.g. 48 Hz to 144 Hz. With those monitors, if a game's frame rate drops below the lowest value in the VRR range, it might activate blur reduction, LFC (Low Framerate Compensation), or simply double the refresh rate to keep things in the VRR range.

With these new MediaTek G-Sync equipped monitors, you should get the complete G-Sync Ultimate features without the big cost of having to pay for the additional G-Sync module. How all of this pans out in the real world… well, we'll let you know when we get one in for review!

The thing is, LG's take on the high-refresh 4K OLED gaming monitor riff isn't on a totally different level to those QD-OLED panels. In fact, it's very similar. But it is undeniably and unambiguously—even if ultimately pretty marginally—better. Hold those thoughts.

On paper, the LG UltraGear 32GS95UE is very similar to the likes of, say, the Alienware 32 AW3225QF, Asus ROG Swift OLED PG32UCDM, Samsung Odyssey G8 OLED G80SD, or MSI MPG 321URX. Whether it's the 32-inch panel size, 4K native resolution, 240 Hz refresh or 0.03 ms response performance, LG's OLED monitor looks like a dead ringer for that quartet of Samsung QD-OLED panels.

LG's 275 nit full-screen brightness rating is actually a little brighter. But that's a "typical" rating, with LG rating the panel at 250 nits "minimum". If it's a close run thing in theory, full-screen brightness is the one area where you might have come into this review with some doubts.

That's because this LG monitor inevitably uses the WOLED panel technology from sister company LG Display, the subsidiary of the sprawling LG empire that makes the actual OLED panels which go into everything from monitors like this to TVs, phones, watches, cars and the rest. And the one metric by which LG WOLED tech has fallen short previously, is full screen brightness.

If that's now at least on par with Samsung QD-OLED, this particular 32-inch 4K beauty has something none of the Samsung-powered competition currently offers, namely a Dual Mode functionality which uses pixel doubling to essentially run as a native 1080p panel but with an extremely quick 480 Hz refresh rate. 

The idea is to provide the best of both worlds. You get both full 4K capability for ultrasharp and detailed image quality in games and which also benefits things like font rendering day to day, plus the ability to run 1080p at sky-high frame rates and ultra-low latency, just without the need to interpolate a 1080p image over a 4K panel. Doing the latter always ends up looking soft and a little blurry compared to a native 1080p monitor of the same size. What's not to like?

Other highlights include 98.5% coverage of the DCI-P3 digital cinema color space, Nvidia G-Sync compatibility, DisplayHDR True Black 400 certification, plus HDMI and DisplayPort connectivity along with a USB-A hub. In fact, really the only notable omission is a USB-C port.

Depending on your point of view, that may or may not be an issue. But at this extremely lofty price point, it hardly seems like an onerous expectation. Moreover, it's something of a pity given that the 4K resolution and pixel density, not to mention mostly excellent color accuracy, means this monitor does such a stellar job of bridging the void between gaming and productivity.

Put simply, it would be nice to able to have both a proper gaming rig hooked up via DisplayPort and a laptop running in single-cable mode and picking up a desktop keyboard and mouse, all courtesy of USB-C. Odds are, if you can afford this monitor and you're into gaming, you'll also have a laptop to hook up via USB-C.

With that USB-C themed pico-rant squared away, that's the pre-game considerations covered off. Oh, with the exception of design and ergonomics. In truth, that aspect of the LG UltraGear 32GS95UE is somewhat forgettable, which is why I almost did forget. The slim bezels on all four sides of the panel ensure a slick, contemporary look, while the broad stand adds a touch of individuality. And it's certainly well put together and offers plenty of adjustability including rotation into portrait mode, if that's your thing. But it's not quite up there with Samsung's Odyssey monitor for sheer physical desirability.

But what, then, of the actual image quality? I'll tease you no longer. Here's why this LG is better than those Samsung QD-OLEDs. First, it doesn't suffer from the slightly warm color balance of those 4K QD-OLED monitors. Second, the panel doesn't turn slightly grey in bright ambient light, again as QD-OLED panels do and thus marginally detracting from contrast performance and black levels. Third it does or doesn't do all that while absolutely matching if not bettering the QD-OLED competition for full-screen brightness.

Now, those factors may not immediately seem like an absolutely overwhelming roll call of advantages. But we're talking about very expensive displays, so even a small edge matters. More to the point, those wins come with no discernible downsides. In other regards, this monitor is at least as good.

The net result is a ridiculously enjoyable monitor to use for just about anything. The best bit is probably the HDR performance. There's a particular sequence in Cyberpunk 2077 that's a great test of peak brightness. It's an underground bar scene, mostly dark and moody. But the actual bar is surrounded by banks of neon lights. And they absolutely, positively sizzle on this monitor. It's the most impressive rendering I've yet seen.

HDR video looks stellar, too, and really delivers on the whole High Dynamic Range premise. The contrast, the bright highlights right next to inky darkness, these are things that LCD monitors with local dimming just can't compete with.

They can't compete with the speed, either. Pixel response is essentially a solved issue with these OLED monitors. It's questionable whether you'd be able to tell the difference were they any faster. Of course, the 240 Hz refresh ensures very low latency, provided you have a GPU powerful enough to drive this monitor at high frame rates. And you can improve can lower the latency yet further with the aforementioned 1080p mode.

Quick side note on that subject: The Dual Mode feature works slickly. There's a button on the bottom bezel you hit to jump between 4K@240 Hz and 1080p@480 Hz modes. The screen does blank out and the display will resync with your PC, but it happens fast enough. So, the big question is whether you'd mistake the 1080p mode for native 1080p on a 32-inch monitor.

The answer is no, you wouldn't. For sure, it looks a bit better than 1080p interpolated on a 4K 32-inch panel in the usual manner. And, in game, the experience looks closer to native than it does on the Windows desktop, the latter being really pretty fugly. But there's still a softness that belies any true pretence at native rendering. So, it's a welcome enough feature viewed as an extra. It just doesn't quite deliver on the dual-native premise.

Oh, and one last thing. Throughout all of this, we haven't touched on something that's typically fairly critical on an OLED gaming panel, the panel coating. Horror of horrors, the LG UltraGear 32GS95UE doesn't have a glossy anti-glare coating, something that normally I'd say was a substantial disadvantage on an OLED monitor.

But somehow, the matte coating is just fine. Is it a little "glossier" than a typical matte finish? Possibly. But either way, the sense of contrast and inky black levels, not to mention highlight dazzle is barely, if at all, compromised. Consider my glossy-panel prejudices largely, if not quite comprehensively, dismantled. Oh, okay, were this monitor glossy it would probably look even better. But as it is, it's still my new favorite OLED monitor.

A shout out, too, to both full-screen brightness and SDR content handling. Regarding the former, you can set the panel at either constant full-screen SDR brightness around 250 nits or allow it to vary according to how much of the screen is lit up. The latter has been a bit of a distraction on previous monitors with LG OLED panels.

However, this one is bright enough, full-screen, that it doesn't dim infuriatingly if you open up a large white app window, like a text doc or webpage. In fact, I think it works best in variable mode, which allows it to go that bit brighter most of the time. LG has also managed the calibration of SDR content in HDR mode very nicely. So, you can realistically run this thing in HDR mode all the time. Short of pro-level content creation, there's no need to jump between modes.

But wait, one definitely last thing. Font rendering is just fab on this panel. Again, it's down to the 4K native on a relatively small 32-inch panel. The pixel density is plenty to cover up the non-standard subpixel structure of these OLED panels compared to conventional RGB LCD monitor.

As for negatives, if you really must insist the panel color balance has the very slightest green tinge. It's very minor and not as apparent as the overly warm skew of those QD-OLED alternatives. But for the record, it is there.

All of which means this is one heck of a monitor. It's an HDR killer, the SDR handling and brightness is good, the pixel response is ridiculous and the Dual Mode is a nice little extra even if it isn't quite as advertised. The only thing missing is that USB-C interface, which I can forgive. What's harder to wish away, however, is the price.

This is definitely my favorite 4K OLED monitor. But does that justify the monstrous $1,400 price? After all, you can get a 32-inch 4K OLED for $900, fully $500 less. In the end, it's a personal call. If I could easily afford the extra money, I'd cough up. But if the added $500 was any kind of stretch, I'd be in quite the quandary. I really would.

That's right, folks, both the Alienware and Samsung versions of the hot new 32-inch 4K gaming OLED monitor thing have had haircuts to the tune of at least $200. That puts the Alienware at $999 and the Samsung at just under $1,050.

Arguably, neither has actually achieved genuine "cheap" status, but you've got to get off the pot at some point, and thus my metaphorical flush has been pulled.

Quick links

• Alienware 32 AW3225QF | 4K 240Hz OLED| $999 @ Dell
• Samsung Odyssey G8 OLED G80SD | 4K 240Hz OLED | $1,650 @ Best Buy

4K OLED monitor deals

More specifically, let's begin with the Alienware 32 AW3225QF. It feels like I only reviewed it a few weeks ago (it was actually April), but already Alienware has cut $200 off the asking price, which now sits at $999 on Dell's website.

Notably, the Alienware has a curved panel, whereas pretty much all of the 32-inch 4K opposition is flat. I'm not sure if curved on a 16:9 screen really adds much, but nor does it really take anything away.

In other regards, it's much of a muchness with other 32 inchers using the Samsung 32-inch QD-OLED 4K panel. So, that's 240Hz refresh, ludicrous levels of HDR sizzle, and ridiculously rapid 0.03ms pixel response.

There are limitations to these screens. They all top out at 250 nits for full-screen SDR brightness, which is tolerable but not exactly ideal. And there's the ever-present worry of OLED burn-in.

But then it's risk versus reward, isn't it? The reward is the stunning combination of 4K crispness with perfect per-pixel OLED lighting, plus the aforementioned speed. I'm sold.

As for the Samsung Odyssey G8 OLED G80SD, I was pretty turned off by it thanks to the combination of high price and some infuriating SmartTV gunk. But with $257 off the price, now $1,041 on Amazon, it suddenly looks a whole lot more appealing.

Notably, it's the only 32-inch 4K OLED we've reviewed with a matte anti-glare coating. Personally, I prefer glossy coatings on OLED panels, as it really makes the most of the contrast and HDR zing. But if you prefer matte, and there are good reasons why you might, then this Samsung is obviously the pick of the bunch.

With a lower price, it's easier to view the SmartTV as a nice extra. You can also appreciate the premium design vibe and build quality in the knowledge that you've got quite the deal.

Now, where is that spaniel hiding. Here, boy!

As it turns out, it's a pretty close call. But there's a couple of things holding the Optoma UHZ55 back.

Out of the box, the Optoma UHZ55 is pretty understated. No flashy design, just your average black projector with a hatch of wide slits on the sides for exhausting all that air. And it needs them, because this thing really blows at higher refresh rates. You definitely notice it fire up when you switch up into gaming mode. Which isn't so fantastic when the projector is placed right by your head.

Thankfully the keystone correction and vertical lens shift make it a lot easier to project from an angle other than directly in front of your chosen wall. Not only are there digital and physical controls for zoom, focus and lens shift, all are easy to set. It's important to note, however, that the keystone or "geometric correction" can't be changed once you've set the lens tilt. Moreover, in gaming mode, the keystone resets so you kinda do have to put it behind your head or get it rigged up to the ceiling if you want the full speed the beamer offers.

The UI is easy to navigate, either with the controls on the top of the projector, or the little light up controller. But as much as the UI is gorgeous, the saddest thing about the Optoma UHZ55 is that it runs on a custom Android operating system. Aside from the few apps on the Optoma Marketplace, such as Netflix, TED, Prime, there's not a lot to choose from. Google Play services are completely off the cards, meaning no YouTube.

That could be a dealbreaker for some, but if you're always going to have your rig hooked up it shouldn't be too much of a problem as you'll have that for programs. Otherwise, you'll need to invest in an Amazon Fire Stick or similar, which means spending out on yet another device if you just want to catch up on your subscriptions without moving your gaming laptop, or whatever.

Hooking it up, it becomes clear where Optoma's focus was pointed. There's absolutely no noticeable latency from inputs with the Optoma UHZ55. Whether in 4K or 1080p in gaming mode, the movement is smooth as anything, and I could make the most of the super high frame rates with V-Sync on.

The image is damn sharp when you perfect the focus, too, even looking great with the curtains open on a sunny day thanks to all those lumens.

But how does it fare against the rest of the best gaming projectors?

You can get the BenQ TK700STi—currently on our best projector list as the fastest at 240 Hz/4 ms—for $1,699/£1,340. That's a saving of $400/£160 over the Optoma, for essentially the same specs, and a speaker that's just as terrible. Of course, the BenQ's lamp life is rated to nowhere near as long as the Optoma UHZ55, which starts to look real good for the long haul and maybe worth spending the extra money on. 

That said, compare it to the current top beamer on our list—the BenQ X3100I—and you start to see why speed isn't everything. The Optoma UHZ55 is almost £200 more ($800 for those in the US) for a higher refresh and half the input latency. So if you're packing a monster rig with one of the best graphics cards around, you'll likely want to make the most of the high refresh rate on the Optoma, but if you're barely hitting 120 fps at 1080p, there's not much need to spend the extra dollar. 

Sure you're sacrificing some speed with the Benq X3100I, but it's generally a more well-rounded projector, with the same lamp-life rating and fantastic image quality, but with 5W stereo speakers and an actual Android TV dongle backing it up.

Essentially, unless you already have one of the best speakers for PC gaming, a machine that can pump out 200+ fps—and an Android dongle/Fire Stick if said machine is a gaming laptop and not always around—it's a little harder to recommend the UHZ55. It's difficult to justify the extra cost against its (ever so slightly slower) competitors, plus all the extras you'll have to get hold of. But if you're all set with a surround sound system and a monster gaming PC, it'll eat through those frames like nobody's business. 

You ever get the feeling the world's spinning faster than you can keep up? I certainly do. I mean, I take a measly four-year (partial) hiatus from gaming hardware to pursue a PhD and come back to a PC gaming landscape that's barely recognisable.

Back in 2020 I headed PCGamesN's hardware coverage and now I'm back covering the same kinds of wonderful gubbins at PC Gamer, but in between I escaped to the ethereal land of philosophy to try and learn the meaning of life and increase my number of brain wrinkles. I kept my toes dipped in hardware by freelancing, but things move fast in tech (who knew?).

I witnessed some changes from the sidelines with envy while others passed me by completely. Now I'm back in the game, I feel a little like a neolithic human who's been dropped into Times Square.

I know, I know: "Times change and technology improves, so what's new?" But I feel like the past four years have bucked the usual iterative trends and slapped some absolute bangers in their wake. I guess the difference between myself and some others is I'm only grasping these developments right now, all at once.

What froths up to the surface is, I think, a healthy portion of childlike wonder and an unhealthy dollop of retrospective FOMO, AKA regret. I'm kinda kicking myself for missing out on so much, but instead of sulking about it, I'm here to share a bit of positivity by reflecting on and marvelling over some of the changes in PC gaming technology that we've seen over the past few years.

Let's kick off with monitors, shall we? Now, I'm a notoriously late adopter when it comes to certain things, including moving up in resolution (it took me until 2022 to admit 1440p might actually be a good idea). But when it comes to high refresh rates I always prided myself on being an early adopter. I had a 144 Hz monitor back before even 120 Hz was cool—well, before it was a mainstream recommendation, anyway. I remember trying to convince people that 144 Hz at 1080p is better than 60 Hz at 1440p (which it is, by the way).

So, slap my noggin and call me Humpty Dumpty, I'm genuinely flabbergasted that my monitor's refresh rate is behind the curve of mainstream gaming monitor recommendations today. In fact, not only is my current 1440p 144 Hz baby behind mainstream recommendations, it's behind cheap ones.

This, I think, is what's surprised me the most about new PC gaming tech, and it's what inspired me to write this needlessly gushy article in the first place. You see, during my Prime Day stint I reported on some of the best gaming monitor deals, and this is where I realised just how cheap decent high refresh rate monitors are these days. 

We're not talking my 144 Hz refresh rate, either. No, it looks like 165 Hz is standard now. For context, I paid about £220 (about $280) for my 144 Hz 1440p IPS monitor back in 2022. Now, for about $100 cheaper than this, you can pick up a 165-180 Hz 1440p IPS monitor. At the time of writing, for instance, the 180 Hz Acer Nitro VG271U is on sale for $190. This is just two years later.

Don't even get me started on OLED panels. I tried one for the first time this year when I got my hands on the HP Omen Transcend 14, and I'm convinced OLED monitors are the way forward despite there currently being some problems with using them for PC gaming. I genuinely (cross-my-heart) didn't know games could look so good.

Enough about monitors, though, what else have I missed? Oh, yeah, the birth of an entirely new way of playing video games: handheld gaming PCs. Sure, they technically existed before, but there weren't any affordable mainstream options. Now, big brands are rushing to make their own ones the most affordable. 

Being the luddite I am, when I heard Steam had made a handheld gaming PC back in 2022, my initial and embarrassingly persistent thoughts were (1) "How's that going to work, then?" and (2) "How many PC gamers are really gunna buy that?"

As it turns out, a fair few PC gamers did. So many, in fact, that an entire handheld gaming PC industry flourished all around me while I marched on, oblivious, head-down and eyes set on the outdated games (hello Counter-Strike and Overwatch) that I was playing on my outdated monitor.

Well, I've tried a handheld gaming PC, now, and I can safely say that I see what all the hype was about. (I also get to enter the handheld scene after all the initial experimental wrinkles have been straightened out. Hurray for me!)

What else? Oh yeah, DLSS (and now FSR) frame generation. I mean, come on. I turn my back for what seems like two seconds and you go and make super-smart AI networks that can literally generate frames out of seeming nothingness. Which, combined with some similarly magical upscaling, can make for 2.5x the frame rates with no changes to end-user processing power.

Imagine I leave the room to grab a coffee and when I return you nonchalantly tell me you've learnt how to focus your mind to produce, apparently out of nothing, tiny pictures on your fingertips. "But don't worry," you tell me, "there's no magic going on here, it's all science, it's just complicated stuff going on in the neural network of my brain. And it's not produced out of nothing, it's produced from the air in-between each finger." 

Okay you wizard weirdo, I don't care, just keep doing what you're doing because it's cool and I like it.

Did I mention how AMD decided to start stacking things on top of its chips in an entirely new kind of processor structure that outmatches any previous design for gaming? AMD's 3D V-Cache technology—found in its X3D CPUs such as the current best CPU for gaming, the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D—is a genuinely cool and radical solution to the cache bottleneck problem for gaming. 

And there I was, at the time focusing only on Intel Alder Lake's hybrid core strategy, which was, coincidentally, yet another 2022 development. (There's definitely something Mayan going on with that year. Do we know what alignment the stars were in back then?)

I'd better not even begin thinking about some of the changes that might have occurred in other areas over the past four years, or I'm likely to get that FOMO again. I've already started to notice that gaming keyboards are becoming surprisingly well-built, which could put my old pro-custom and pro-office keyboard prejudices to shame if I'm not careful. 

Heck, it's starting to look like there's overlap, now, with some of the best gaming keyboards making for mighty fine, high-quality and not-too-outrageous office clackers. You don't even really need to add your own dampening, these days. And if you're looking for switches better than Cherry MX ones, you might not have to crack open the third-party stores, either, because loads of keyboards today come with great stock switches.

Look at the past few years from a height and you're liable to miss just how awesome all these developments are, not to mention how fast they've come about. But look too closely and you miss the wonder entirely. 

I could be bitter about sleeping through all this, and at my baser points, when my lizard brain wins out, I am. But actually, I think it's great that I can now submerge myself in a PC gaming landscape that sometimes seems two steps away from sorcery, where some seriously wondrous tech is ripe for the picking.

P.S. Note how I've not mentioned actual AI in any of this. That's because AI is dumb, genuinely threatening, and can go do one. What? I never said I wasn't bitter about anything.

Are you looking for the fastest monitor money can buy, with a refresh rate that dwarfs all others? Well, technically you should be hunting for a used IIyama Vision Master Pro 512, as this YouTube channel has just forced the old CRT beast to a frankly astonishing 700 Hz.

This isn't RetroGamingBase's first dalliance with the Vision Master, as it's previously managed to push this particular unit to 500 Hz, a mere 40 Hz away from literally the fastest gaming monitor currently available, the Asus ROG Swift Pro PG248QP. 

That display does manage a full 1080p resolution, however, whereas the poor IIyama was cranked down to 320 x 200 in order to achieve the effect. You could game on it though, at least!

This time around, even more extreme measures were applied. After a successful test of 600 Hz at 150p resolution (in which the monitor refused to display its actual refresh rate on the built-in interface), the Vision Pro was then run at 700 Hz at a magnificently letterboxed 320 x 120 resolution. 

After an initial test, showing a hugely cut down confirmation window with the settings mostly obscured, RetroGamingBase decided to call it quits before potentially damaging the monitor itself. CRT monitors in good condition are increasingly hard to find, so now the hunt is on to find a model that's not in such good shape for some actual gaming testing.

That's if Windows 11 will display correctly at such a low resolution, a notion which the channel expresses some doubt towards. Still, it turns out the old CRT really can beat the fresh-faced newcomers in terms of raw refresh rate performance, even if you do end up reduced to looking at your programs through a tiny fraction of the available screen space.

And what a screen it is. According to the IIyama Vision Master Pro's product page, it features a screen size of 22 inches, and, err, nothing else but a broken PDF link. Some more digging reveals a maximum resolution of 2048 x 1536, a built-in four port USB hub (luxury!) and a stated weight of 65 lbs.

At which, my back twinges in memory. I know I'm far from the only one that remembers heaving CRT monitors into the back of a car to take to that much missed event, the late-night LAN party, in my much misspent youth. 

Back then, we dreamed of flat screens. Little did we know that all these years later, it'd be these big clunkers throwing out refresh rates that makes even the most modern monitors look slow on their feet.

The Xiaomi G34WQi isn't the largest ultrawidescreen out there, and it doesn't have the most aggressive curve, though it is an impressively affordable one. The smartphone maker first touted its monitors back in 2019, and it's taken a while to start selling them outside of China.  It offers a gentle 1500R—that's R for radius, and the 1500 bit describes a circle which measures 1500mm to the middle; the monitor thus describes an arc along the circumference of that circle. Remember the bits of geometry at school you slept through, thinking you'd never need? Well this is it, here in the real world. And there's no point always having a calculator in your pocket if you can't remember the formulae.

Naturally, no one at PC Gamer can remember the formulae either, but it doesn't matter. What you need to know is the higher the number, the more gentle the curve, because you're arcing along the outside of a larger circle. So 2000R would be less curved, closer to flat, while 1000R would wrap further around the sides due to the imaginary circle being smaller. 

The aspect ratio of this 34-inch Xiaomi screen is 21:9, making it perfect for watching movies such as Avatar 2 which were shot with such a slim, wide view in mind. Monitors like the Samsung Odyssey OLED G9 offer a 32:9 aspect ratio, exactly like having two 16:9 screens side by side but without the gap down the middle or the hours of fiddling about trying to get them at the same height. With a resolution of 3440 x 1440 pixels, AKA WQHD, and a panel height of about 14 inches, it's more like having one and a half 27-inch 16:9 1440p monitors, just with a curve.

Still, this makes a difference. It's not too thin, allowing you to display documents side-by-side and still read them, while Windows 11's ability to tile windows at one-third intervals across the screen comes into its own. Excessive spreadsheet enthusiasts can indulge their twisted desires with a maximised window and more columns than the original designers of Excel ever thought possible, while content creators can push their editing tools well toward the edges to maintain a clear view of what they're working on, and streamers will be able to run OBS in a big enough window to actually see what's going on.

The screen is well packaged, and while curved monitors often come in absolutely enormous boxes  to protect them in transit, the moderate proportions on display here means it's less bulky and easier to handle. It has an external power adapter, which in the case of our review model has a US-style two-prong plug on it. You may need an adapter depending on where you live in the world and where you buy it from, but it had no problem with our 240 V electrics.

The stand goes together with actual screws rather than something you turn with your fingers—though a screwdriver is included in the box—and there are four of them. They're pretty small, so it's important not to drop any of them, and you'll need to use them as any attempt to simply push the stand together and have it hold in place through good old Newtonian gravity is doomed to failure as it tips forward under the weight of its own screen. So, don't do this. 

Even when tightly screwed in the stand can be a little wobbly; a stable desk makes all the difference, but anything that moves the surface it's on will set up a sympathetic wobble from the corners of the screen.

The stand clicks positively into a recess on the back of the monitor, where you can also attach a 75 mm VESA mount. A ring of LED lights surrounds the mounting point, which can be customised via the OSD, proving that there is no escape from RGB even on the back of a monitor where you'll never see it.

Unlike the cheaper Xiaomi G27i, the inputs for this screen are downward facing and come with a clip-on cover to keep them tidy—another clue that the rear of this screen is designed to be looked at, possibly at some sort of tournament as no one has LAN parties any more. While the number of inputs is increased over the budget screen, it would have been nice to have had a KVM or USB-C input here too. Still, it's factory colour-calibrated and you do get Freesync Premium, so there's not too much to moan about, given the price. 

The OSD is a development of Xiaomi's standard menu, which means brightness is easily accessible from the purple joystick on the back of the monitor. Freesync is off by default, and you'll want to change the pixel response time to its fastest setting to avoid ghosting at higher frame rates. The colourimeter showed a colour response that covers 100% of the sRGB gamut, with 89% of Adobe RGB and 94% of the P3 gamut that will attract video types and other content creators. 

A peak brightness figure of 400 nits is also good to see, though it's worth noting that  as a VA panel its HDR capabilities are somewhat limited. It can only display 16.7 million colours (10bit is 1.07 billion) and there's no local dimming, so even if you feed it an HDR signal—it can be enabled in the OSD and Windows, though you'll have to ease back on the refresh rate to 144Hz—it's not certified and can't display it anyway.

There are a few budget ultrawides with similar specs to the Xiaomi G34WQi, such as the ASRock Phantom PG34WQ15R2B. Alternatively, you could buy two of Xiaomi's own G27i 1080p screens, put them next to each other, and still have money in your pocket. Xiaomi's offering is decent enough, but this newcomer to the western market has a lot of competition, and the best ultrawide alternatives really do bear looking into. 

To put that into perspective, this is a brand new gaming monitor that we scored 90% in our recent G9 OLED review. Though we looked at the cheaper model, the G93SC. The one discounted over the weekend was the version with smart TV functionality built-in, the G95SC. We thought that smart functionality pretty needless on a gaming monitor presumably connected to a fully-functioning gaming PC and yet I wouldn't say no to it at that price.

Unfortunately, I didn't reach the screen in time to secure one for myself. I caught wind of the offer on TikTok, through a video of a user claiming to have scored an order in time via Samsung's eBay page, which also had a similar deal running—it must be an automated system. 

By the time I had reached the page, it had already sold out.

The low price was still listed on the sold out product, however. I snapped a few screenshots before the price shot back up. The monitor is still sold out on Samsung right now.

That sort of discount is one way to move stock fast. Though I very much doubt Samsung intended to discount its brand new OLED screen to little more than a 1080p panel. As someone that previously managed an ecommerce website, I can admit to cocking up a product's price on a handful of occasions, only to realise my mistake when the first order rolls in. The stakes were pretty small—a mug worth £7.99 discounted to £6.99 didn't exactly break the bank.

Samsung, on the other hand, just lost out on over a thousand pounds sterling for every monitor sold at this price. That may have only been a handful but that's still a lot of cash. Hey, don't feel bad for Samsung, it's worth billions. But maybe feel bad for the person that has to admit it was their fault.

For what it's worth, while we won't see a deal anywhere close to this (though fingers crossed), there will be some cheap gaming monitor deals for Prime Day over the next few weeks. Don't get your hopes up for £1,400 off, though.

Which brings us neatly to the Xiaomi G27i, an extremely cheap IPS monitor. It definitely lacks sex appeal in its specs—for a 27-inch monitor we'd usually be expecting a 1440p resolution, and the Xiaomi is defiantly stuck in 2015 at 1080p. But it does sport a 165Hz refresh rate and, at just $140, would make an excellent budget choice if you're into pushing lower resolutions at many frames per second. And chances are that if it's at this price already, future sales are going to drop down mighty close to that $100 point.

To get to this price point there have had to be sacrifices, and the G27i comes without speakers (but you never used the built-in speakers on your monitor anyway) and a sparse selection of inputs—just a single HDMI 2.0 and a lone DisplayPort.

There's a 3.5mm audio jack to pipe the sound to your headphones or desktop speakers, and a connection to the external power brick, which on my review model came with a US-style two-pin plug despite the fact I reside in a country with a superior style of power socket. International buyers might like to look out for this, and prepare to purchase an adapter. 

The inputs are also at 90° to the plane of the monitor, meaning the plugs stick out when they're inserted rather than being flush to the back. This means you may encounter an annoying gap when trying to place it against a wall. The stand that comes with the screen is also somewhat basic, requiring two screws to assemble (though there's a screwdriver in the box) and lacking any vertical adjustability. 

Even the tilt is limited, and once you've got it properly situated in your eyeline using a stack of PC Gamer back issues, you won't want to move it around too much. Fans of adjustable arms attached to a VESA mount will be able to attach it to four screw holes bored through the plastic casing, but there's no moulded recess for the connection plate to slot into. It's what you might call basic.

Despite all this moaning, it's important to remember that you've only paid the equivalent of a three-pint lunch in a London gastropub for this screen, and its performance is really not bad at all. Under the baleful eye of a colorimeter it gave us 99% of the sRGB colour gamut, and 80% of the more specialised Adobe RGB and P3 colour ranges. That's better than some laptops, and while its (tested) maximum brightness output score of 275 nits (Windows 11 claims a 400-nit peak in its Advanced Display panel) is lower than many other screens, it's perfectly good enough unless you're intending to use it in direct sunlight. 

Any screen is an outdoor screen if you're brave enough, but the natural habitat of a monitor like this is more likely to be on a desk than in the middle of a field. Unless your desk is in the middle of a field, of course.

An extra little bit of brightness is always good if you're going to be displaying an HDR picture, and while the G27i supports HDR10 it's off by default and you'll need to delve into the menu to enable it. You will lose the ability to adjust other picture settings once HDR mode is switched on, meaning the brightness is out of your hands.

The OSD Xiaomi has chosen to integrate into this monitor is an example to other manufacturers about how things should be done. The simple purple multi-way controller (a joystick by any other name) on the back of the screen brings up a simple series of menus with the important functions, such as brightness adjustment, right at the top. Freesync Premium needs to be switched on in this way too, and you can improve response time with game mode. A warning about increased power consumption appears if you push brightness up above 50% and enable HDR, but with 1,000W PSUs thundering away inside our rigs, when have PC gamers ever cared about that?

So, buy cheap buy twice? Not here. This may be a particularly cheap example of the IPS arts, but if its 1080p resolution is enough for you—perhaps you're more interested in the 165Hz refresh rate—then having a 27in screen is a nice step up from a 21 or 24in model. Sure, there are bigger, brighter, sharper, faster monitors on the market, but some of them cost ten times as much, and building a gaming PC is not exactly the cheapest way to get into first person shooters as it is. There's always space in the market for a budget screen—you can even get two and look like Hollywood's idea of a hacker for the same price you might pay for a 'premium' model—and when such reasonably priced displays are as good as this one, you can end up asking yourself why you need to part with more cash.