AOC U27G3X 4K 160Hz IPS HDMI 2.1 Gaming Monitor Review

AOC has hit it out of the park with this one. This is the U27G3X, a 4K 160Hz IPS gaming monitor with HDMI 2.1 and a price tag that’s literally HALF an equivalent display from someone like MSI – specifically the MAG 323UPF I reviewed at the start of the year. If you want a 4K gaming monitor, unless you have OLED money, this is one to watch. Why? Well let me show you everything in this thorough review!

Let’s start with specs and claimed figures. Like I said, this is a 4K 160Hz monitor that uses an IPS panel. That means colours should be great, as should response times. AOC claims this has a 1 millisecond grey-to-grey response time – although of course we’re gonna test that. The monitor is GSync Compatible and thanks to the HDMI 2.1 ports, that should work with consoles like a PS5 too. While we’re looking at the IO, I should note you get two HDMI ports and two DisplayPort 1.4 ports – no USB hubs here. 

Physically the G3X follows AOCs older design cues, with red accents and an otherwise smooth and fairly curvy aesthetic. It’s pretty inoffensive – although something that is are these damn OSD controls. The downward facing, individual, buttons are uncomfortable to use, and the OSD itself is the same design AOC has been using since at least the G2460PQU almost a decade ago. Just to emphasise this, this is what I looked like when I reviewed that monitor. It’s been a while. Anyway, the menu does contain all the usual settings, primary of which is the overdrive settings – the usual Off, Weak, Medium and Strong options are here as always. You do have the option to enable what AOC calls “MBR”, and what NVIDIA calls “ULMB”, basically their backlight strobing mode, although not at the same time as adaptive sync. One other interesting feature is the ability to limit the HDMI ports – independently I might add – to either 120Hz or 144Hz, I guess if you’re having some compatibility issues with a console? That’s pretty cool. Oh, and you get all the usual adjustment too – height, tilt, swivel, and even rotation to portrait mode if you want. The stand is pretty slim, but decently stable.

When it comes to more general usage – you know the stuff you do between games – this is pretty great. 27 inches at 4K is incredibly sharp, and with a claimed 450 nits of peak brightness, it’s pretty bright and vibrant. Colours look good to the eye, and content in general plays very well on the G3X. To put some metrics to those experiences, when it comes to colours, the SpyderX2 reported 93% coverage of the DCI P3 spectrum which is pretty decent. Brightness meets its claims too, with my results running at 454 nits at peak, and a slightly higher than claimed 1140:1 contrast ratio. While that is typical for an IPS panel, it is very clear there is a lot of IPS glow here. Happily the colour accuracy is on point, with an average DeltaE of just 0.44, with the worst result only reaching 1.13 – a frankly astonishing result. In short, this is a pretty great panel for content – both in consumption and creation.

Of course, this is a gaming monitor, and rightfully you’ll want to know about response times, latency, and how it feels to play. Luckily I have built tools to give you all that info (or at least the first two anyway) – namely the Open Source Response Time Tool. I specifically used my newest Pro CS version on this panel, and if you want to be able to test monitors like this yourself, head to OSRTT.COM and pick one of the hand-built kits up yourself! Anyway, looking at the response time results, with no overdrive on we can see essentially the native panel’s performance. This is actually pretty good for an IPS panel with no overdrive, averaging 7.2 milliseconds here. That’s equivalent to 138 hertz, which is really impressive. With the weak overdrive mode it improves to under the refresh rate window at 5.11 milliseconds on average with very minimal ghosting. This would be a pretty decent mode to use – although the next step up, medium, is my preferred option. That does introduce a bit of noticeable overshoot, but it helps reduce the initial response time to just 4.28 milliseconds, meaning the frames almost always get fully drawn, with time to spare. Either mode is more than serviceable though. Strong, of course, is what we in the biz call the “marketing mode”. It’s frankly ridiculous that monitor companies bother shipping this mode – it actually makes the perceived response time so bad that it ends up having a LONGER average than with no overshoot at all. For context, here’s Aperture Grille’s Frog Pursuit test in slow motion with just some of the worst overshoot I’ve seen on an IPS panel. Don’t use this mode, please.

I’m happy to report the on display latency is spot on, with the average OSRTT reporting coming in right around half of the refresh rate window, with very few results sneaking above one frame worth of delay. That’s exactly what I want to see, and that translates to a frankly phenomenal gaming experience. This level of sharpness, both from the hefty pixel density, and from the fast pixel response times, makes for a very compelling experience. Even fast motion looks smooth and sharp, and while it’s no OLED, when actually gaming, I didn’t mind much. It was plenty easy to hit shots, react to enemies popping up, and if it means anything to you, I scored consistently higher when playing on this monitor than I would usually, even with the same peripherals and setup. In short, it’s a great gaming monitor. 

By far the biggest surprise for me with this monitor is the price tag. This is for sale right now at Curry’s for £399. I think that makes it one of, if not the, cheapest 4K 144Hz+ gaming monitors on the market, let alone one with HDMI 2.1 and a 160Hz refresh rate, and that’s this good. This is an absolute steal at this price point. At its supposed MSRP of more like £499 it’s still a great deal, but for a full £100 off right now, that’s a buy-it-now for me. Naturally this gets a solid recommendation from me, and if you want to check it out I’ll leave a link in the description for you to see pricing when and where you watch this!