Gigabyte Quietly Unveils 4K And 1440p QD-OLED Gaming Monitors With A Burn-In Warranty

Regular readers probably think of Gigabyte primarily as a purveyor of motherboards and graphics cards. In the last few years, though, the component vendor has been positioning itself as a provider of premium PC display panels, and it has garnered itself a following among gamers for its reasonably-priced screens with seriously impressive specs.

Well, specs-wise, it doesn't get much more impressive than QD-OLED, and that's what we're looking at here -- two very fancy QD-OLED screens from Gigabyte. The MO27Q2 is a 27" gaming display in QHD resolution—that's 2560×1440, yielding a PPI of 109 at 27"—while the MO32U is a 31.5" monitor in UHD resolution (3840×2160, 140 PPI). Both, as you could guess, are pretty high-end displays.

Starting with the MO27Q2, we have a typical SDR brightness of 250 nits, while the HDR brightness tops out at 1000 nits over a maximum of 3% of the screen area. Those specs are enough to earn it a VESA DisplayHDR TrueBlack400 certification, meaning that while it isn't particularly bright, the overall contrast should still be very good thanks to OLED's inky blacks.

Arguably the more exciting VESA certification is the ClearMR rating of 13000. That score is very literally off the charts, as the ClearMR tiers actually stop at 9000. So yes, this display is in fact "over 9000". In practical terms, that will translate to extremely clear motion—certainly helped by both near-instant OLED response times and the 240Hz refresh rate.

Meanwhile, the MO32U trades some refresh rate (and thus, motion clarity) for 2.25x the pixels and an overall larger size, although it still gains 28% PPI despite the size increase. It has the same brightness ratings, but it will seem brighter due to the larger size. It also has the same perfect viewing angles, near-instant response times, and DisplayHDR TrueBlack400 certification. The refresh rate drops to "only" 165Hz, but that's still very nice for a display of this caliber.

Features shared by both displays include the input cluster, one each of DisplayPort and USB-C connections, as well as a pair of HDMI 2.1 ports. The USB Type-C cable supports both video and data, and there's a two-port USB 5G hub built-in. There's also AMD FreeSync Premium Pro support, which likely means G-SYNC Compatible mode as long as you use a DisplayPort or USB Type-C cable.

With any OLED panel, users will naturally have fears about image retention, as that's an inherent problem with the OLED technology. Well, Gigabyte says that both monitors come with "Gigabyte OLED Care", a feature that apparently uses "AI-based" algorithms to minimize burn-in. If that doesn't give you confidence, how about a three-year warranty that covers image retention?

Unfortunately, we have to stress that this information comes to us by way of ComputerBase, who operate out of Germany. Germany is well-known for its strict consumer protection laws, and it's not necessarily a given that the three-year burn-in warranty will come to the US when those monitors find their way here early next year. Hopefully it does, though, and hopefully these screens are reasonably priced, too.