Gigabyte CV27Q Review, Decent Gaming Specs, But There's a Catch

[Music] welcome back too hard wrong box today we're reviewing the latest gaming monitor from gigabyte a company that has done pretty well I'd have to say in the monitor market with their releases so far given that just starting out and they face quite a lot of competition these days the ad 27 QD has become very popular among buyers of 1440p 144 Hertz IPS displays while I was very impressed with the performance of the new KD 25 F when I reviewed it a few months ago today though we're looking at the Auris cv 27 q this is a 27-inch 1440p monitor like the ad 27 QD but it uses a curved VA panel rather than a flat IPS it's still a high refresh though hitting a maximum of 165 Hertz with adaptive sink of course it's also more curved than your typical curved display at 1500 our vs. 1800 are not a huge difference but gigabyte seemed to be emphasizing that this is the perfect curve for Triple A games not sure what classifies is a perfect curve and I'd actually prefer if the monitor was flat but nevertheless if you like curved monitors yeah this one is pretty curved we also get display HDR 400 certification and free sync to HDR support here so in other words pretty fake HDR I've mentioned many times in these reviews how I think display is gr 400 is a pointless spec but that doesn't stop this panel from delivering what could be a decent SDR experience with wide gamut colors as well the other important thing of course is the price I don't have u.s. pricing just yet if I get that I'll put it in the comments below but I do know this monitor costs 860 Australian dollars locally so that's pretty expensive in u.s. dollars we'd be looking at between 500 and 550 dollars which these days is high-end territory for these specs so did certainly want to perform well up against options like the LG 27 gl 850 which are also available in that price point one thing to see between 7q does have in its favor is gigabytes suite of features which is ported across from the ad 27 QD so we're getting active noise cancellation the aim stabilizer backlight strobing modes treat crosshairs and a built-in method of displaying PC stats through the OSD and of course we get black boosting and all that sort of thing that we typically see it's one of the best feature sets out there in a gaming monitor so even though gigabyte are new to this business gamers after these features aren't getting left behind gigabytes monitor design is also very strong here this isn't a cheap or budget build quality this is exactly what I expect from a high-end product The Stand looks great in my opinion and the legs are constructed from sturdy metal the front has reasonably slim bezels and a simple design with no seams or any build quality issues and I like that there's not as much visible gamer style elements as you'd get within a sous monitor the back has also received a simplification compared to the ad 27 QD with the matte finish and text across the top that says team up fight on is this some new slogan gigabyte are using yes you do get some RGB LED lighting here which i think is a bit pointless on the river monitor but for what it's worth it's integrated quite well and if you do see the side of the monitor it looks decent this stand is highly adjustable featuring a decent range of height tilt and swivel motion no pivoting here you can't use this display and a portrait orientation probably because it's curved now wouldn't make a lot of sense for ports we get two HDMI 2.0 and one DisplayPort plus a few USB ports and an audio jack fairly standard setup these days don't screen display where you can find all the features I was talking about earlier can be accessed through the directional toggle on the bottom edge you can also control it on your PC through gigabytes included software suite which is pretty neat either way lots of neat stuff to be found in there let's move into talking about performance now one of my big concerns going to this review is having a VA pal refreshing as high as 165 Hertz videos aren't known to be great performers when it comes to response times so trying to refresh the panel at that higher rate we're talking six point zero six millisecond refresh window here that can be pushing it for a panel type that often averages six to eight millisecond response times so smearing could be an issue and that would lead to a panel that might not deliver true 165 Hertz anyway let's see how it performs the CB 27 queue has three overdrive modes but the first two aren't going to be something you'll use the picture quality mode has a 13 millisecond average and the bounce mode has a millisecond average nothing spectacular and certainly not ideal for gaming it's the speed mode where this panel starts to perform closer to its limits but I don't 165 Hertz refresh rate i wouldn't say these results are particularly impressive and 8.63 millisecond greater great averages below average for a VA panel and there's a fair bit of dark level smearing here to the tune of a 14 point 6 3 millisecond dark level average unfortunately this means that we're only getting 56% of transitions within a one millisecond tolerance of the Refresh window so it's not really a 165 Hertz display this is 120 Hertz level performance not this is unusual for a VA as we'll see in a moment the good news and yes there's good news is the error rate you won't get inverse ghosting at all with this monitor because error rates are well under control I'd actually say here that the cv 27 q could be pushed a little further having overshoots up in the 5 to 10% range is fine and quite hard to notice but with that extra bit of overdrive it would help reduce smearing at these high refresh rates when you see how the C between 7 Q stacks up against other monitors it's not a particularly great showing with response times in that 8 millisecond range this monitor is slower than competitors like the LG 32 GK 650 F which is about 2 milliseconds faster granted the 32 GK 650 F is a bit different in that it's a larger flat VA but you can see where performance normally lies for a gaming grade VA something like the seuss XG 32 V QR is slower though so it just depends which comparison you want to make crucially the CB 27 Q is slower than popular IPS offerings like the LG 27 gl 850 by a significant margin normally this is only a passing comparison to make because IPS monitor is usually a fair bit more expensive than VA counterparts but with gigabyte giving the cv 27 q such a high price tag I feel this is more relevant comparison you'll see similar results been looking at dark level averages where the C between 7 Q sits at the bottom of the charts there is some really slow transitions here and the C between 7 Q suffers because of it and again the performance you've just seen dictates how the monitor performs in refresh rate compliance normally I'd like to see at least 80 percent of transitions fall within the refresh rate window to eliminate smearing but with the cv 27 q half the time of the transition complete within the allocated time some VA is really struggle with this as you can see here and the CV 27 cube would do better if it were a 144 Hertz monitor instead of 165 Hertz but it is possible to get above 80 percent compliance out of a VA so I'm still a bit disappointed here error performance we've seen this is very good just like with the gigabyte KT 25 F so I think this might be a design philosophy with gigabyte to deliver low inverse ghosting however as I mentioned earlier I think sacrificing a bit from the error column to put it into the response time column is a fine trade-off in something gigabyte should explore even if it's available through an optional overdrive mode in better news there is no issue with response times in the 60 Hertz mode where the CB 27 Q is greater great average of seven point one six milliseconds is more mid-table results you still get some dark levels marine but overall it's a bit faster than with the 165 Hertz mode input lag is both good and bad here processing lag is almost non-existent at under one millisecond which is why I like to see from gaming great monitors however slow response times push that total lag to around the 12 millisecond mark which again falls down the charts a bit here this is still fine for gaming but perhaps not as good as some people would like I'll also briefly touch on power consumption here where the CB 27 Q puts up typical figures for a VA monitor it's a few watts more efficient than the LG 27 GL 850 but this is a trivial difference in most instances moving into color performance now and there is some good news for bias here the CB 27 Q is a wide gamut monitor supporting 90% DSO p3 coverage which is becoming more typical from these types of displays as such I'll split the section into covering srgb performance which is relevant for most normal usage and p3 performance in case you want to use its wide gamut capabilities the first big issue with default out of the box srgb performance is the color temperature you can see here my review unit had a moderate blue tint which skews our grayscale delta-e performance to a pretty high 5.44 average value again my performance is great but just this temperature issue is going to be a problem throughout the rest of our testing saturation performance isn't terrible but it isn't amazing either an adult or a average of 3.86 isn't exactly as accurate as I'd like the main issues here being the incorrect white point which skews everything to the blue end of the chart and over saturation from unclamped gamut which sees srgb colors expanded to fill p3 by defaults there's no srgb clamp either so this can't be fixed without a software profile similar results with color checker and near 4.0 delta average is still within the usual range we see from gaming monitors but it's nothing to write home about the good news is that fixing the white point is relatively straightforward and this helps improve the monitors performance significantly without more difficult fixes you can see the OSD settings are used here although what's suitable may differ with different individual units with these OSD settings in place we see a massive improvement to performance with a much better CCT curve and a delta average of under 1.0 in grayscale that's a fantastic result which carries through to saturation now with the sub 2.0 Delta II yeah we still have over saturation but this is as good as it gets without a software profile and finally we have color checker sitting just above a 2.0 Delta a average if you want to take things to the next level a software profile is required which brings with it a proper srgb clamp when viewing srgb content allowing for sub 1.0 deltas across the board if you're interested in using the profile we generated that's available for our patreon members although again mileage may vary with different units for wide gamut performance by default again we fall foul of the dodgy color temperature which skews things significantly even though we're no longer facing an oversaturation issue but with the same tweaks as before we can actually get really good p3 performance here with the 1.2 3 Delta average in saturation and 1.29 in color checker that's excellent for a monitor without Hardware calibration and yeah top end performance isn't perfect just we're only getting 90 percent DCI p3 coverage but still I was impressed with what's possible here and of course no surprises with our software profile performs tightening things up a little bit further when using it in a wide gamut mode for brightness decent results here I achieved over 430 nits when calibrated which is much higher than some VI panels I've tested especially those that are 1080p contrast though is a bit lackluster this is one of those VI panels with just a 2400 to 1 contrast ratio which is a bit below the best va has to offer it's not unusual from a VA and still well above what you get from a TN or IPS thanks to deeper blacks but I wasn't blown away with its performance as for viewing angles they're decent but not quite at the level of an IPS which I guess isn't that much of a surprise given that's a typical experience for a VA as this monitor is curved you do typically want to be viewing it straight on but vertical viewing angles aren't too bad uniformity is very good from the CB 27 q given its curved wonders like this tend to have weak uniformed and your relative to flat screens but the central performance from the CB 27 q is great with only a bit of a fall-off along the top edge and top right corner this is one of the few curved screens I haven't had to worry about uniformly with which is always nice as for HDR performance year not gonna bother discussing this one too much as the CB 27 q lacks local dimming which is the cornerstone for proper HDR with an LCD panel peak brightness doesn't quite have the level required either color gamut is fine for HDR but the lack of local dimming prevents the higher levels of contrast you'd expect from HDR I'd prefer if this wasn't advertised as HDR capable now there at the end of this review you've probably heard all about the fairly lackluster performance of the gigabyte or SCB 27 q while it is a 1440p 165 Hertz monitor which I feel is a great combination for gaming response time performance is below average with typical VA issues like dark level smearing and poor refresh rate compliance I know VA isn't known to be lightning quick for gaming but even among VA s this is an entry level performing monitor several other areas of fairly average - we're talking contrast ratio out-of-the-box calibration and full chain input lag nothing terrible in fact really there's nothing here that's a deal-breaker like a standard falls apart or horribly slow performance nothing like that and there's even stuff here that's pretty good like the build quality feature set and uniformity but in general this isn't a monitor that provides a best-in-class va experience as I said it's more towards the entry of lent and there's nothing wrong with an entry-level monitor or entry level performance there's room for all sorts of different products in the market it just all comes down to pricing if you're offering high-end performance you can charge a bit more than usual if you have a lower range product lower range pricing is appropriate and this is where gigabyte have basically missed the mark entirely the C between 7 Q is far too expensive to recommend it basically has a high and price tag which makes it non competitive with true high-end monitors the LG 27g 850 is $100 cheaper in Australia and given its far superior performance that's the monitor you should opt for instead but even ignoring that for a moment I just don't understand why the CB 27 q has the same price tag as gigabytes of better higher-end ad 27 QD even if only gigabyte monitors existed I'd say go buy the ad 27 QD the fact these two monitors compete with each other is just a bit bizarre to me where the CB 27 q should be priced is around that u.s. 350 dollar mark like we're seeing from entry-level 1440p high refresh fare monitors such as and this is only giving one of many examples the msi mhz 271 c QR that'll be a decent price it had matched the performance of monitors in that category and given its strong build quality and great feature set might even have gotten a recommendation in australia that ideal price would be around $600 so you can see straight away that it's 860 dollar price right now is far too high and this isn't the first time gigabyte have launched their monitors with far too high prices the K t25 F is a great monitor in its own right in fact it has better performance for its class than the CV 27 q but it too was about $100 too expensive same with the 8027 QD which eventually found its home at a lower price point I do have faith at the C between 70 will drop in price over time like those other monitors which depending on where it lands could make it a decent buy but at launch right now I just can't recommend it that's it for this review as always we really appreciate the support of our patrons who make monitor testing like this possible you can subscribe for more review coverage including the gigabyte CV 27 F which is the 1080p brother of this monitor which we'll be getting to soon consider grabbing something from our merch store like this awesome hoodie which I'm now wearing in rent some pretty nice colour there's this other color options available too if you want it and I'll catch you in the next one [Music]

Channel: Hardware Unboxed

Views: 112,064

Keywords: hardware unboxed, gigabyte cv27q, aorus, gigabyte, monitor, review, cv27q, aorus cv27q, display, gaming monitor, va gaming monitor, va monitor

Id: tBghmXom6jg

Length: 15min 42sec (942 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 15 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/ajetert]

This seems pretty in line with the other reviews of the CV27Q I have found. Its just too expensive. MSI Optix MAG272QR that should come out very soon is listed 90-100 Euro cheaper on a danish website that also has the CV27Q. Its the exact same 27" 1440P 165hz panel with 1500 curve. The only thing weird about the MAG272QR is that the spec sheet on the MSI website says Brightness 300 nits. Compare that to the MAG271CQR 400 nits according to MSI.

I am looking to upgrade to a 27" 144hz 1440p monitor myself and I am leaning strongly towards IPS/Nano-IPS right now. I might get a VA in the future but the tech seems more suitable to perhaps an ultrawide for the immersion factor when you are not going to get 100+ FPS alot anyway when playing in 3440x1440

[u/Bo3alwa]

"1ms" "MPRT"

[u/sorceressjolena]

i have bought this panel and it works, but its only displaying 60hz, and there is no options anywhere to change it to anything higher :(literally there is no technical help info anywhere on google, its sad.