We are days away from the next era of GPUs from both AMD and NVIDIA, so we have been taking a loot at a variety of higher refresh rate monitors to ensure that your monitor is ready for what goodness Lisa and Jensen drop on us! Whether you are looking for lightning-fast refresh rates at 1080p or budget-friendly, but compromise-limited, QHD, we have covered a couple of offerings.
However, if you are looking for a true, modern upgrade in performance and resolution, but have been suffering from a dearth of girth, Gigabyte has got you covered in a big, big way with monstrous enhancements in size and features. This is our review of the Gigabyte G32QC 32-inch Gaming Monitor - and big brother to the G27QC.
Specifications:
- MSRP: $349.99
- Display Size: 31.5 inches
- Display Resolution: 2560 x 1440 QHD
- Panel Type: VA 1500R
- Viewing Angle: 178°
- Color Saturation: 94% DCI-P3, 124% sRGB
- Display Color: 8-bit
- Refresh Rate: 165Hz
- Adaptive Sync: AMD FreeSync Premium Ready, G-Sync Compatibility Ready
- Response Time: 1ms (MPRT)
- Contact Ratio: 3000:1 (Static), 12M:1 (Dynamic)
- Brightness: 350 cd/m2 (HDR-Ready)
- VESA Mounting: 100mm x 100mm
- Connection Type: 2x HDMI 2.0, 1x Display Port 1.2 (G-sync/FreeSync compatible), 2x USB 3.0
- Sound: 1x 3.5 Headphone jack
- Accessories: Power cable with international adaptors, HDMI cable, Display Port cable
In case you aren’t familiar with them, Gigabyte has been in the PC parts game for a long time and in a variety of markets with AORUS product line geared toward enthusiast gamers. However, Gigabyte has been proving that the parent company still has a kick to the name! Gigabyte has been creating budget-conscious options for consumers with their AORUS pedigree providing the model to follow. In the case of monitors, what we have seen is a successful launch of both AORUS and Gigabyte series, both offering sets of premium gaming options. And with the Gigabyte line, at lower prices and with very little compromise.
As you read further, just a point of disclosure: I have spent the past month with the G27QC after reviewing it here. It replaced my daily driver - an older QHD monitor from BenQ - and it is nearly impossible to not compare the G27QC to the G32QC. While there are a lot of similarities, they are, however, not the same product. They do share a similar design philosophy, opting for a more subtle design, with contrasting matte and gloss parts, rather than the AORUS design convention of sharp lines and bright RGB-colors.
Another similarity between the two - which I would not want to change - is that both are feature-packed. Remember, this is a QHD (1440p) monitor, it’s 32-inches AND it has both a high, 1-ms response time as well as a 165 MHz refresh rate. Couple that with the series’ commitment to be Adaptive Sync agnostic, and you have a 32-inch, 1440p, high refresh rate, and NVIDIA G-Sync / AMD FreeSync Premium compatible monitor. The G32QC also has two extra USB ports… which is like the technological equivalent to finding a dress with pockets - so I’m told. But, that is not all.
The G32QC improves on a feature that was a little underwhelming on the G27QC: the HDR brightness. While it was not the brightest HDR on the market, it did meet the requirements to qualify for Windows HDR at 250-nits. The G32QC turns up the brightness to 350-nits, making the colors noticeably more vibrant and darker spaces brighter. If this is a feature you have never experienced, the addition of any extra HDR enhancement is a welcome one, much like the feature we are going to talk about next. That said, it falls slightly short of true DisplayHDR 400 certification and lacks core features like local dimming to provide an HDR experience similar to what you would find on something like the TCL 6-series.
In case you haven’t noticed, this big lad puts the “C” in the G32QC: it’s got curves! To put it plainly, the Gigabyte G32QC is a curved display. Curved displays are meant to provide an immersive, connecting experience much like an IMAX movie theatre. This design is meant to work, in theory, with the natural visual field of the human eye. While it may seem like an odd or superfluous feature in a modern monitor, if you have never experienced a curved display, it is worth the experiment! It does take a little while to adjust to the difference between flat- and curved displays, but the 32-inch design of the G32QC provides just the experience as theorized. Couple that with a nearly bezel-less design and the experience created a sense of closeness to your displayed content.
Recognizing the G32QC’s Sidekick
We talked about this feature in the review of the Gigabyte G27QC, but the G32QC also takes advantage of Gigabyte’s OSD Sidekick. OSD Sidekick allows you to adjust your monitor from your desktop while also allowing you to create and save customized profiles onto your desktop. These settings let you set up picture-in-picture/picture-by-picture displaying, to update monitor firmware, and to set up hotkeys to control your monitor in-game. Gigabyte’s OSD Sidekick gives you control to make your display an even more valuable extension to your peripherals, aiming to enhance your gaming experience.
Some of these settings can be beneficial in gaming situations where, at the flick of your hotkeys, you can quickly change settings. In competitive FPS arenas, a change in resolution profiles can assist you in seeing enemies hiding in dark spaces or turning on features like aim stabilizer may just bag you a win. In an MMORPG setting, OSD Sidekick allows you to keep an eye on programmed timers to assist in making raid calls. No more surprise enrage timers or missed DPS windows!
Out of the Box and On the Desktop
Having used the Gigabyte G27QC as my go-to monitor for over a month, jumping over to the G32QC was familiar, the experience was noticeable different. While the 1500R curvature is the same between models, the extra space draws you into the experience even more than the 27-inch model. This is in no small part due to the extra 100-nits of brightness provided in the HDR setting. Colors felt a bite more vibrant with darker spaces more visible.
Much like the G27QC, using OSD Sidekick definitely takes some practice to use. The option set times is rather helpful in boss encounters that demand precision and the option to turn on and off features like a crosshair is a big plus. Adjust brightness on the fly is incredible if you are playing games with darker settings. Overall, OSD Sidekick can be an incredibly powerful utility for those moments where every tool at your disposal can help - if you take the time to learn it. Speaking of settings, the G32QC has six picture presets with three customizable preset slots to ensure that you get the best possible settings for your needs. That being said, the existing presets provide a stellar range of color for the experience.
To gain a good understanding of just how the G32QC handles color in the day-to-day, I spent time testing the monitor in a game that I have spent a fair amount of time with: Destiny 2’s Shadowkeep expansion. This game serves as an ideal testing ground to put this monitor’s depth of color through its paces because of the diversity of environments, the use of light, and the contrast between effects.
What I discovered was that the G32QC builds upon the foundation of the G27QC and exceeds it! Well- and lower-lit areas had incredible levels of detail like the G27QC, but in darker areas where it had been impossible to navigate, the extra HDR brightness provided by the G32QC gave those spots a lot more depth.
To take a closer look at this to take my bias out of the equation, I turned to Datacolor’s SpiderX utility. Here is what I found:
The results were, as I also commented about the G27QC, “surprisingly true to advertising.” I say “surprisingly” because, typically when it comes to product specifications, often what is on paper is the “best case” scenario. The sRGB and P3 rating sets (which matter most in gaming) hit close enough to their advertised mark on the “Standard” preset. This means that the visual fidelity of the games you are playing will be more naturally matched to the color schemes developed by the developers.
Final Thought
This monitor is absolutely impressive. What Gigabyte delivers with the G32QC is a feature-rich monitor that provides an incredibly immersive experience without totally breaking the bank. While it is hard to consider $349.99 USD a “budget” price, the Gigabyte G32QC is hardly a budget monitor in its features set and delivery on those features. Remember: this is a curved 32-inch monitor with high refresh rates, mid-range HDR support, G-Sync and FreeSync Premium compatibility, and much, much more.
While a number of these features appeared on its little brother, the G27QC, the G32QC takes some of those features a step further. The HDR brightness is enhanced with this display, creating a crisp 1440p signal. Immersive at 32-inches, the display does not suffer from noticeably larger pixels with the extra size, while still being shy of DisplayHDR certification requirements. The one “feature” removed from this monitor are the built-in speakers, which…, to be honest, isn’t really a loss for the G32QC.
With the GPU race about to begin again, with promises to push frame rates and performance higher than previous generations, it may just be time for a monitor upgrade to keep up. The features set packaged into the Gigabyte G32QC represents a big shift in what consumers should expect from modern monitors: a true upgrade path that provides noticeably enhanced quality over from monitors of yesteryears.
