What you get for the money is a serious consideration when shopping for the best gaming monitor. If you have a big budget, there are plenty of high-end displays that deliver a fantastic gaming experience. But for many, value is the deciding factor. Jumbo screens are especially prone to swings in price. A 32-inch monitor can cost over $1,000 or less than $400, and the performance difference isn’t as great as you might expect.

We’ve reviewed numerous monitors from Gigabyte's Aorus series before, but the Gigabyte G32QC is the first we're reviewing from the vendor outside of that line. The Gigabyte G32QC is a 32-inch panel with a 1500R curvature, 1440p resolution, a 165 Hz refresh rate. plus HDR support. Selling for $360 at this writing, it's a serious contender for those wanting to maximize the price-to-performance ratio.


Gigabyte starts with a high-contrast VA panel. When I say high contrast, that’s no exaggeration. The manufacturer’s claim is 3,000:1 but we measured over 5,000:1 in the G32QC’s default state. Meanwhile, a curved monitor in the 16:9 aspect ratio is more rare, as curves are usually reserved for ultra-wide monitors, but the G32QC's curve proved effective, as you'll see in the Gaming & Hands-on section below.

The native color gamut is DCI-P3, and unlike most of today’s gaming monitors, the G32QC offers an sRGB mode. (We’ll show you those results on page three.) As an edge-lit panel, you shouldn't expect this to be the best HDR monitor and compete with something like the Acer Predator X27. But that's not surprising at this price point, and the G32QC's high contrast proved to boost HDR delivery.

For gamers, Gigabyte has packed in a reliable 165 Hz refresh rate running at QHD (2560 x 1440) resolution. 93 ppi is lower than our pixel density sweet spot of 109 ppi, but when coupled with fast frame rates, detail is fine and solidly rendered. AMD FreeSync Premium Pro is the native Adaptive-Sync tech, and it's also Nvidia G-Sync Compatible.

Unpacking and Accessories

The G32QC’s panel, upright and base require assembly, and you’ll need to have a Phillips-head screwdriver on hand.

Hardware is included to bolt the upright onto the panel, which sports a 100mm VESA mount. Screw the base on with a captive bolt, and you’re ready to rock.

USB , HDMI and DisplayPort (cables are bundled in as well as a compact external power supply.

The G32QC has a metal back with a bulge on its lower two-thirds to house internal components. The upper third is just a few millimeters thick, as are three of the bezels that seemingly disappears when you turn off the power.

Gigabyte's monitor has a curve that's prominent but not super-tight. 1500R is a gentler-seeming radius on a 16:9 screen than on a 21:9 one. We saw no evidence of image distortion or grain artifacts. The anti-glare layer is fitted tightly, which renders a very sharp picture.

The G32QC sits on a very solid base, which gives the monitor a large footprint on the desktop. You get almost 4 inches of height adjustment and -5 degrees / 20 degrees of tilt but no swivel. Movements are of high quality with no slop or play.

Around the back-right side is a single joystick that controls everything, including power. It clicks surely and makes on-screen display (OSD) navigation an easy affair. Also in back are a few simple style cues, like the model number molded and Gigabyte logo. There is, however, no RGB lighting.

The input panel features one DisplayPort 1.2 and two HDMI 2.0 ports. DisplayPort supports HDR and Adaptive-Sync up to the full 165 Hz refresh rate, while HDMI tops out at 144 Hz. (For more on the difference between the two ports, see our gaming analysis on DisplayPort vs. HDMI.) You also get an analog audio output for headphones or powered speakers, but there are no internal speakers. USB 3.0 is supported by one upstream and two downstream ports.

OSD Features

The OSD is well-stocked with gaming features and calibration options, and navigation is easy, thanks to the joystick control. It's also handy with context sensitive information displayed at the top and a logical structure. Our only gripe is the menu takes up a large portion of the screen, including the center zone. It can’t be moved to the side, which makes taking measurements difficult.


Gaming options include a black equalizer to help bring out shadow detail, aspect ratio options, a three-level overdrive and a FreeSync toggle. Gamers should set overdrive to either Picture Quality or Balance settings because the more aggressive choice causes too much ghosting.

The Gaming menu's Aim Stabilizer is actually a blur reduction feature. It’s grayed out when Adaptive-Sync is active and won’t operate below 100 Hz. During testing, Aim Stabilizer only made a small improvement in motion resolution, but at least brightness is barely affected. Still, we preferred use Adaptive-Sync for gameplay over Aim Stabilizer.


There are six preset picture modes, and Standard is the default. The Standard preset is pretty accurate out of the box but still allows for calibration. The monitor has three custom memories, where you can store your setting. They correspond to the three Custom picture modes. All monitors should have this feature; it’s super handy.

In the third column of the menu, you can see all the different picture controls. There are five gamma presets, along with two color temps and a user mode. The RGB sliders are very fine, which allowed us to tweak in a small gain in accuracy. For reading, there's a low blue light mode with an intensity slider.