Gigabyte G32QC Review, A Strong Value 1440p 165Hz Gaming Option

[Music] welcome back to hardware unboxed time to check out another monitor in today's video and what we have for you is the new gigabyte g32 qc you'll notice here that unlike most of gigabyte's other monitors this display does not carry auris branding which gigabyte typically use for their higher end more premium products this means the g32qc is designed more to be a budget to mid-range monitor and personally i'm really excited to see what sort of impact gigabyte can have in that space specification wise once again we have a really nice combination that's perfect for modern gaming it's a 32-inch 2560 by 1440 curved va panel with a refresh rate of up to 165 hertz plus the usual adaptive sync features the use of a va panel won't get your hardcore display enthusiasts all that excited but va still has its place in the market particularly in the mid range and especially at 32 inches where right now there is a lack of ips offerings and of course right now monitor pricing is still all over the place with many options on back order and many more just completely out of stock but gigabyte are actually able to sell this display right now for 370 us dollars which is within the normal ballpark for these specs i've felt that most of gigabytes aurous monitors have been far too expensive at launch but the g32qc is not too bad considering other options on the market today this is a curved monitor 1 500 r curve to be precise and like a lot of 16 9 aspect ratio displays i'm a bit indifferent as to whether the curve is actually a good or bad thing at 32 inches this is a reasonably large display at normal desk viewing distances so if you sit close enough that it occupies most of your field of view having a small amount of curve might help but unlike with ultrawide monitors i don't think it's much of a selling point either and those more interested in a monitor for productivity may prefer a flat panel the overall design is rather interesting with a huge wide stand base this really does occupy a lot of space on a desk i think i would have preferred something a bit more compact that said the stand does offer height and tilt adjustability and thanks to the massive bass it is very sturdy the top section of the monitor is also thinner than i was expecting you don't often see this design with curved monitors but it looks pretty good nothing fancy in terms of materials most of the outer shell is plastic including the stand simple matte black finish and thankfully no crazy game of rubbish you're not paying extra for unnecessary rgb and that's definitely a good thing ports include two hdmi 2.0 ports one displayport 1.2 and a 2 port usb 3.0 hub plus an audio output jack the on-screen display is controlled through a directional toggle on the rear of the monitor and it includes most of the features you'll find on gigabyte's more premium display so that's pretty nice so you still get game assist features like the crosshairs and timers plus the dashboard feature that allows you to display various statistics when paired with a utility running on your pc there's also a number of handy image quality controls and a picture in picture mode the only major emission is active noise cancellation which is a neat feature available with auris displays but it makes sense to drop it for this cheaper offering let's move on to response time performance and like other gigabyte monitors there are three overdrive modes that dictate how the display performs the first is picture quality and this is a straightforward situation with overdrive disabled delivering slow response times these sorts of samsung va panels deliver around the 15 millisecond mark with no overdrive and you can see that in effect here at 165 hertz this is far too slow the balanced mode is the default mode and we do see an improvement compared to picture quality however with an average greater growth response time of over 10 milliseconds and significant levels of dark level smearing this still isn't a great mode to use at 165 hertz and leads to noticeable ghosting and smearing in practice with just 40 of transitions completing within a reasonable tolerance of the refresh window it's expected that smearing will be an issue the fastest mode on offer is the speed mode and it's a bit of an interesting one the slowest transitions here is still very slow in particular anything transitioning from black or very dark gray but the fastest transitions are quite fast there is a band of light to light transitions that are in the two millisecond range and that brings with it overshoot 23 of transitions with an error rate above 15 percent leads to somewhat noticeable inverse ghosting or bright trails in practice but given 80 of transitions are fast enough to keep up with the 165hz refresh rate i choose this mode over the balance mode for this high refresh it is slightly clearer in practice and has less ghosting as overshoot levels are already quite high at 165 hertz with the speed mode in practice this setting is only suitable for the upper refresh rate range dropping down to 144 hertz and 120 hertz increases performance and overshoot slightly but by the time we reach 100hz despite sub 6 millisecond response times the high level of overshoot leads to noticeable inverse ghosting i wouldn't recommend using this mode with lower refresh rates on the other hand the balanced mode as we've seen isn't suitable for 165hz gaming as a 10 millisecond greater great average is too slow for the refresh rate and that leads to regular ghosting but by the time we get down to 100hz the balanced mode is reasonable and ends up delivering a refresh rate compliance of around 80 which is very good however with an average greater grade response of 9.38 milliseconds which improves to 8.38 milliseconds at 60 hertz you're not getting a particularly fast or clear experience in the 100 to 60 hertz range so what we are left with here is a pretty classic overdrive setting split if you're playing to game at higher refresh rates between 165hz and 120hz i'd recommend the speed mode below that i drop down to balanced so you don't experience unsightly inverse ghosting while it's a shame there is no single overdrive mode that handles the entire refresh range this is typical behavior for mid-range monitors when comparing performance to other monitors we've tested the gigabyte g32qc delivers mediocre results using the speed mode an average response time of around 7 milliseconds is typical from a va panel but the level of inverse ghosting to hit this performance is higher than normal lg's 32 inch 1440p va monitors deliver up to one millisecond better performance with lower inverse ghosting a product of using an ao optronics panel instead of samsung on the flip side some other va's we've tested are slower than this gigabyte such as the cv27q and xg32vqr so it is a bit of a mixed bag naturally as well the g32qc can't keep up with the mid-range ips offerings in this chart such as the vue sonic vx27582kp mhd and the asus tough gaming vg27aq both of which are usually in the 300 to 400 price range however these are smaller 27 inch displays and like i mentioned earlier there are just no 32 inch ips alternatives to the g32 qc right now dark level smearing is poor from this monitor and with some transitions exceeding 30 milliseconds this is a noticeable issue again we can see from this chart that lg's monitors handle dark level performance better with ips another step up with essentially no dark level issues better overdrive tuning potentially could have helped here but realistically this is a problem with all va monitors as for refresh rate compliance when using the monitor in the speed mode the g32 qc is borderline fast enough for a 165hz experience but it's really pushing it given the levels of overshoot i did notice a small improvement compared to 144hz but as i've said in the past in general the difference between 144 and 165hz is small and shouldn't influence your buying decision all that much the extra refresh rate is a nice bonus but it's not a significant selling point at its maximum level of performance the gigabyte g32qc has the worst average error rate in our chart i'd have really liked to see an overdrive mode between the balanced and speed settings that tries to offer a slight reduction in greater grade speeds in exchange for less overshoot it could be time for gigabyte to revisit only offering essentially two overdrive modes given the picture quality mode is not suitable for use at 60hz you'll be wanting to use the balance mode to avoid significant overshoot and again the g32qc offers mediocre performance here unlike the xg32vqr the g32qc is usable at 60hz so if you had console inputs you'll be fine but we're not looking at amazing transition times in better news for this display's game in prowess input lag is very low at around a 0.3 millisecond processing delay due to slower response times we're not quite below that 10 millisecond overall mark for great input lag performance but still you'll get a quick reaction out of this monitor nothing unusual or interesting to report about power consumption mid-table performance here which is respectable given the 32 inch size gigabyte also offer a backlight strobing mode with this display which they call the aim stabilizer it can only be used at fixed refresh rates with adaptive sync disabled and due to slow response times and a poly synced backlight strobe there is significant strobe crosstalk and repeated images this mode delivers a really ugly picture quality so i wouldn't recommend using it if you want a good backlight strobing experience you'll need to pick a much faster display while response time performance may not set the world on fire it's a different story when it comes to colour reproduction the gigabyte g32qc is a wide gamut monitor it features a rather pointless display hdr400 certification there's no true hdr functionality here but it does bring around 88 percent coverage of the p3 color space this isn't that unusual for a mid-range va but it does give it an edge over some other ips and flat va alternatives which are pure srgb only options default out of the box color performance from my retail unit was very strong the color temperature of the panel was only slightly off as was the gamma so we ended up with a delta e 2000 average of 1.83 as well as a delta e itp of 5.49 this is well above average for the monitors i've tested and shows that gigabyte are keen on delivering some sort of factory calibration unfortunately there is no srgb clamp available in the monitor settings and the srgb mode is a bit of a fail from a grayscale standpoint so by default the g32qc leaves the gamut unclamped and we get oversaturation as srgb images are expanded up to fill the p3 colour space that said delta e performance is still respectable you do get that increased level of vibrance but no other funky business here so if that's the look that you're after this is a good monitor for that with again above average delta e performance with strong factory calibration aside from the lack of an srgb toggle there is not much else that can be done to improve performance in the osd controls i was able to slightly tighten up the white balance but that's about it so let's move on to a full calibration given i wouldn't recommend changing too many settings here with our usual display cal treatment the gigabyte g32qc holds up well delivering excellent grayscale performance and almost full coverage of srgb with proper saturation levels colorchecker also delivers a sub 1.0 delta e 2000 average and sub 3.0 delta e itp average which is strong for a gaming display as for calibrated p3 performance with only 88 coverage we do see a few errors at the top end of the color space as performance is clipped to what the monitor can actually produce this doesn't make the g32 qc a great choice for content creators working with p3 as a good ips display can usually do 95 p3 coverage but for more casual users this is still a great result in general as always the icc profiles we create for these reviews are available for our patreon members the g32qc is capable of strong maximum brightness over 400 nits peak which is better than some other va displays but also not unusual minimum brightness is also decent for those that like gaming in the dark without having their eyeball scorched away going down to around the 50 minute mark is what we like to see what really impressed me about the gigabyte g32qc is the outstanding contrast ratio of over 5000 to 1 with my sample which is well above the average va panel that i've tested gigabyte only lists a 3 000 to 1 typical static contrast ratio on their spec sheet so i'm not sure if i have a golden unit or not even though this was ships new directly from a retailer but nevertheless it is very impressive you get rich deep blacks for an lcd which delivers great picture quality especially in dark environments playing darker games at night with this panel is leagues ahead of what an ips can produce especially as there's no ips glow whatsoever viewing angles are only okay with this panel the curve doesn't help when it comes to viewing angles but it also means it is designed for viewing head-on uniformity though is very good not as good for darker shades but at full white this is a very uniform monitor and continues the trend of modern curved panels solving uniformity issues that plagued the first batch overall the gigabyte g32qc is a tale of two almost opposing stories on the one hand we have response times which are mediocre we get either pretty slow response times with limited overshoot or moderately slow response times with moderate overshoot and compounding that issue is dark level smearing this is a typical budget va experience there's no crazily bad things here but i do feel gigabyte could have tweaked the overdrive a bit better to squeeze every last drop out of this samsung panel on the other hand the picture quality on offer here is very good in fact i'd say it's excellent given the positioning of this monitor in the market we're getting a wide gamut panel but more importantly excellent factory calibration with few greyscale issues that's backed up by an elite contrast ratio great brightness and solid uniformity if what you're after is a top quality picture that's especially awesome in dark environments the g32qc is a great choice at the moment with such volatile pricing it's really hard to make firm comparisons to other monitors on the market especially with wild differences between each region but i will give a few general comments here if you're after a 32 inch 1440p high refresh monitor primarily for gaming without solid ips options my recommendation is still the lg 32 gk650f it's a similar price to the g32q sometimes cheaper but has better response times and a flat panel but expect to lose out on image quality as this lg monitor is not wide gamut has less than half the contrast ratio and is not nearly as well calibrated from the factory it really is the response time option if you are more interested in image or color quality i think this gigabyte g32qc will be hard to beat in this category based on the options i've tested and really this is a good strategy for monitor makers to take we know vas aren't going to be as fast as the best ips panels but they can produce a great image if the focus is on factory calibration contrast ratios and things that an ips just can't do like come without any ips glow but i wouldn't be ruling out ips monitors entirely there are some compelling options in the 300 to 400 price range including the vue sonic vx27582 kpmhd and the lg 27g83a if you're happy to sacrifice size and settle on something 27 inch these are excellent choices for gaming but you will also miss out on stuff like a wide color gamut with the lg option an adjustable stand with a view sonic option and great black levels so choosing a monitor in this highly competitive market is a real balancing act between which aspects are the most important to you what i'm most happy about overall is that gigabyte haven't priced themselves out of the market with this display their previous offerings were too expensive and largely uncompetitive at launch over time that did improve but often gigabyte were charging a 100 or higher premium for their auris line with the g32qc i feel the price tag is quite reasonable at 370 usd is not the cheapest monitor on the market but with its color performance it is offering decent value in this space if that's the most important thing to you that's it for this monitor review as always you can subscribe to get more monitor reviews in your inbox got a few more coming up shortly if you're interested in supporting the channel highly recommend you sign up to our patreon page links are in the description below you'll get access to our icc profiles discord community monthly live streams all that sort of thing and yeah that's it like the video if you enjoyed it hope you learned something and i'll catch you in the next one [Music] you

Channel: Hardware Unboxed

Views: 260,188

Keywords: hardware unboxed, gigabyte, g32qc, best 1440p monitor, best gaming monitor, 1440p 165hz, best 165hz monitor

Id: buiMW-J3KTI

Length: 17min 15sec (1035 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 02 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/ripitup2004]

I have this monitor. I've also had Asus 240hz monitors and 120hz IPS. I can confirm that unless you are Superman, you will not notice anything "slow." I play Apex, COD etc... There is a diff between 240hz and 165hz, but as far as input lag, smearing and overall response I'd say it's fine, even for competitive gaming. It's plenty fast.

[u/TheWeirdPianist]

I wish more VA monitors had 5000:1 contrast ratio, then I'd consider buying one if it wasn't too slow but this one is insanely slow.

[u/1AGRESSOR]

maybe i don't understand the charts but Gigabyte is faster in GTG and input lag than XG32VQR correct ?

i also watched he's review of the Asus again numbers are worse than Gigabyte