Gigabyte G27Q Review – Cheap 1440p 144Hz IPS
I’ve tested a whole load of 1440p 144Hz displays, including a few IPS ones even Gigabyte’s own Aorus FI27Q-P, and my reigning champion, the Acer VG271UP, so how does this more budget oriented Gigabyte model stack up? Lets find out, but first, if you haven’t already, consider subscribing for more videos every Monday, Wednesday and Friday!
On paper, it stacks up incredibly well. For almost half the price of their own FI27Q-P, you get a 1440p 144hz IPS freesync display. In practice, well see for yourself. 95% coverage of the DCI P3 spectrum, almost an exact match for the fi, vibrant, if not quite as bright colours, and an enjoyable gaming experience to boot. I’m not sure why you’d buy the FI now.
The panel isn’t perfect, the response time is nowhere near the “1MS” gigabyte claim on their site. This isn’t the first time I’ve called Gigabyte out for deceptive marketing on displays, and it probably won’t be the last, but man this is off. The black to white response time I measured with the overdrive set to medium was 7ms, and white to black was a whopping 17ms. The results in a reasonable amount of ghosting, visible in the fairly long trail behind the UFO here. The saving grace is that while the trail is obvious, the clarity in the most current UFO is great. It’s also not too noticeable in games, and turning overdrive up can help reduce it a little.
The gaming experience was pretty good, I’m actually using an FI27Q-P as my main display now and I can’t say I noticed a significant difference in playing with this one – which is actually pretty high praise. I can’t imagine many genres where this wouldn’t be a good fit, and considering its much more accessible price tag, I feel fairly confident in recommending it for gaming.
For content consumption, or creation, it’s pretty good too. It’s a similar brightness to the FI, and both technically support DisplayHDR 400, although I personally wouldn’t bother with that as the experience isn’t fantastic. Colours are nice and vibrant, the viewing experience is good, nice and crisp for sure. Covering well over 100% of the sRGB spectrum, 86% of AdobeRGB and 95% DCI P3 makes it a great fit for creators too. Whether you are just editing your gaming clips, or more heavy photo or video editing, this definitely isn’t a bad option. Of course that’s not its primary objective, but it means it’s a great all rounder.
The stand is something I had issue with on the larger 32” model, the G32QC, although this one is better. You’ve got a good amount of tilt and height adjust built in, a pretty wide foot and a lot less wobble built in. The stand, and the whole back of the monitor, is pretty subtle. There is no flashy RGB, just black plastic. You’ve got 2 HDMI ports and a DisplayPort, as well as a 2 port USB 3 hub, which doubles as your connection for their OSD Sidekick software that lets you control all the on screen menu options from Windows.
The menu looks fairly barebones although has more features than you’d expect. You can turn on “Aim stabiliser”, aka backlight strobing, if Freesync is disabled, you can change the overdrive to one of 3 options, black qualizer, and a number of “Game Assist” features like a crosshair and a stats dashboard all drawn on display rather than inserted into games from your system.
Overall, this is a pretty comprehensive option. Sure, the panel isn’t quite as fast as I’d like, but it’s a great gaming experience, ticks all the boxes in terms of features, and has an astonishing price to match. For me, this ties the VG271UP as your best options for 1440p 144Hz monitors. Don’t bother spending double to get the FI, when you can get either of these instead.
As an interesting note, Gigabyte also offer the M27Q, which looks identical, but has a rather interesting feature. A KVM built in. Linux gaming anyone? I’ll be doing a full video on that one soon too, so make sure you are subscribed so you don’t miss that.
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TechteamGB Score
