LG 32GK650G-B 32" QHD Gaming Monitor with 144Hz Refresh Rate and NVIDIA G-Sync

Edit (11/24/19): I've owned this monitor for over a year now. I've had zero problems with it. It still works and looks great.I paired this monitor with a NVIDIA GeForce 2070 for gaming. For several years I've been gaming on a 24" 1080p 60Hz monitor, and was curious what all the craze with high refresh rate monitors was, and to try out GSync. Higher refresh rate 4k monitors are new, and really really expensive, both for the monitor and the rig to utilize them, so I went with a 1440p monitor.I've been blown away. I didn't think the move from 1080p to 1440p would be that drastic, but it has been. Also, when I first set the monitor to 165Hz, even moving the mouse in the Windows screen was a "woah" moment. The combination of the increase in resolution and higher refresh rate has made me feel like I've been cheating myself in gaming the last few years that this technology has been out. If you've been on the fence about upgrading, I recommend it.I ordered this particular model over a similar Acer Predator, because this one doesn't have that gaudy design being pushed as "for gamers" that I noticed with almost all of the higher refresh rate "gaming" monitors. Even though this one was slightly more expensive, I felt it was worth it. The design of the monitor is sleek and professional. The build is very sturdy (no wobble except when you're moving it), moving the screen is smooth, and even though the screen can articulate 3 ways (without moving the base) it only moves when you want it to.At first glance, if you've been using a smaller monitor like me, you'll notice that this thing is huge. It takes a while to get used to it, but you do. I would advise setting this monitor back 18-24 inches from your face, so you don't feel like you're sitting in the front row of the movie theater. The display port cable (that you need to use to utilize the higher refresh rates) that comes with the monitor is a little short, so you might need to purchase a longer one unless your computer tower sits close to the monitor. The installation software/driver CD is, like most hardware installation CDs, kind of crappy, but it's easily fixed by visiting the LG website. To set up Gync, you have to enable it in the NVIDIA software screen that comes with the video card driver updates. To turn on the higher refresh rate for the monitor you have to enable it using the monitor settings screen, accessed by a joystick button on the bottom of the bezel. The monitor settings screen (what many call the OSD) will tell you when the higher refresh rate and Gsync is turned on; allow you to change response times and black correction levels for different kinds of gaming, movie watching, or for reading (low level blue light to reduce eye strain); change the brightness, contrast, and gamma; turn on/off a center screen target reticle, which can be red or green, and dot or cross; unfortunately there is no FPS counter in the menu. Navigating the menu and using the joystick button is easy. The button to the right of the menu button utilizes the LED bias lighting, or "sphere lighting" as described in the product review. The bias lighting works well and it's meant to help reduce eye strain while looking at a bright screen in a dark room. You can turn it on/off, change the color (red, blue, green, cyan, different kinds of white, and rainbow), and the brightness.Upon testing the panel for imperfections and dead pixels, I couldn't find any. It was a huge sigh of relief because purchasing computer monitors can be a lottery. That's another reason why I chose this monitor. Upon reading a lot of product reviews it seems VA panels have better quality control than similar gaming style IPS and TN panels. Across manufacturers, all IPS, TN, and VA panels are made by a select few companies, sometimes only one. The IPS panels are having a lot of problems with edge bleed, and I didn't want the infamous IPS glow, which makes dark scenes and contrast kind of crappy, even though IPS panels are supposed to be the best at color reproduction. TN panels are having a lot of problems with dead pixels, and I wanted better color reproduction and contrast than they offer. It seems I chose right, because this VA panel is awesome; no IPS glow, no edge bleed, no dead pixels, and the response time (4 or 5ms gray to gray) is fast enough that almost no one would notice it being faster (that TN panels offer). Sitting at least 18 inches away from the screen you won't notice a loss in quality along the left and right edges from the viewing angle being off, since this screen isn't curved.For gaming so far, I've played The Witcher 3, Doom (2016 version), Path of Exile, and Heroes of the Storm, all on max settings at 1440p and 165Hz. The increase in resolution and refresh rate made the experience with all of them more enjoyable. The only stutter in gaming I saw was with The Witcher 3, and that was only because hair works was turned on (a huge drain on performance), even then the average FPS was still around 60. With hair works off it jumped 15-30 FPS and the intermittent stutter was gone. Even with the stutter, I noticed no screen tearing in any game, thanks to Gsync. Furthermore, Gsync made all the games, regardless of FPS, noticeably smoother.Beware that even though this monitor doesn't come with speakers, the provided software/driver will recognize it as having speakers, which can have your system switch to using them, which it did for mine, meaning I had no sound. I had to manually disable the ghost monitor speakers in the Windows settings back to my normal speakers to get sound again.Overall, I highly recommend this monitor for gaming if you pair it with a beefy enough NVIDIA card and overall computer system. Using it for office work or watching movies, it will work and not be out of place, but it would definitely be overkill.

This panel has excellent uniformity across the board, both colors and blacks/greys.The Pixel response times are far faster than the "5ms" advertised would lead you to believe. Particularly relative to the "1ms" response times advertised on other panels. Think of it this way: Those are the fastest response times and only ONE transition amongst literally millions... At 165 Hz a response time of 6ms would completely eliminate ANY blurring. And the response times are so fast on this panel that only high speed photography and fast on screen movements would even be able to capture any sort of evidence of blur.Ghosting from overshoot is almost entirely eliminated and can only be seen if you specifically find a environmental contrast like a dark object against a bright background and quickly move back and forth AND look very close to see it. There's no way you're going to notice this in games. So effectively this panel has no observable blurring or ghosting AND is 165 Hz so fast movements look SUPER fluid.The VA panel offers a night and day difference in static contrast relative to IPS and TN panels which normally have at maximum 1000:1 static contrast. This panel has a static Contrast of 3000:1. This is the total difference between the darkest dark on the screen and the lightest lights, and every shade in between. Not just blacks/greys/whites either, but the shading of colors too, which makes them POP. IPS and TN panels look washed out by comparison.And it has G-sync, a huger contributor to just how much this panel, a VA type that usually is known for smearing, completely eliminates it across all refresh ranges (due to it's ability to adaptively adjust its pixel overdrive). I was skeptical about G-Sync and high refresh before I bought this panel. G-Sync is real. The Adaptive Sync range is 1 FPS to 165 FPS. This is far beyond the capabilities of Freesync even in its best form. I've cranked up settings (5K+250% resolution) and played at 10-11 FPS, which although still only being a 10 FPS slide show, was also still smooth and playable.The only caveat I'd have with this panel is that the first one I received had a dead pixel just above the center on the screen. I cannot say this is due to generally poor quality control as most reviews have reflected otherwise. But it was there and there's no denying it. Which is why I'm so glad to have bought this panel on Amazon, who promptly sent me a new one which arrived two days after I made a ticket. I was allowed to keep the one I had until the new one arrived and return shipping was paid for by Amazon. I am happy to say that the new one is completely free of the defects of the previous one. And it was literally the next one on the assembly line. The serial number of every single component was exactly one number away from the defective panel. I would urge any consumer to promptly inspect all aspects of their product upon receipt no matter how glowing quality control reviews imply.In the end, this is a BIG and Beautiful display with functionality perfectly suited to PC gamers, particularly the overwhelming majority that are GeForce gamers, out there.It cost less than most UW displays and requires less GPU power to drive it, which only adds to the benefit that it's much higher refresh rate allows. It's uniformity and performance in terms of blurring/ghosting is far superior to even the very best UW displays. I find that having a bigger higher refresh 16:9 format display that allows you to flick back and forth quickly to take your environment in is far superior to an UW that forces you to move your head back and forth to truly take advantage of the panel's wider aspect ratio. Our eyes have a limited area were out vision is truly good enough to really distinguish elements anyway and having to move your head negatively effects both your immersion and your reaction time. Sitting back far enough from an UW to truly take everything in only makes everything so much smaller and harder to distinguish. UI interfaces on an UW's are extremely hard to take in all at once. I would urge anyone considering an UW instead of a 16:9 panel with the vastly superior performance of the LG 32GK850G-B to consider all these points....For $800 it's really a great deal relative to other offerings on the market. The 32" Freesync 2 Samsung CHG70 is a truly awful performing panel cross the board, all the highs of the LG are starkly contrasted by lows on the Samsung, which I wanted badly to buy before I read the reviews.... UW's are universally poorer performing panels due to thew limits of their aspect ratio and the manufacturing process. IPS panels suffer from slower response times and washed out colors (little shade gradation), not to mention greyer blacks. TN's only offer almost completely meaningless improvements to response times while returning the same poor contrast as IPS panels in addition to poor colors and viewing angles.