Gigabyte GS34WQC review: budget gaming monitor with a large screen

Gaming monitors with large diagonals (30 inches or more) don’t always cost all the money in the world: this category also has its affordable models, and the manufacturer doesn’t necessarily skimp on image quality, preferring to give up various additional functionality such as backlighting, USB hub, etc. This category includes the 34-inch Gigabyte GS34WQC, which we will get acquainted with today.

Specifications

Design

The Gigabyte GS34WQC has a rather restrained look: practical black matte plastic, a relatively thin body (as far as possible in the case of a 34-inch curved screen) and a complete lack of backlighting or bright design elements. The only exception is a wide glossy strip on the back of the case.

The screen is made in the traditional “bezel-less” design, when it is framed only by a thin line of the side edge of the case. After switching on, an additional 7 mm wide frame around the image, hidden under the protective glass, becomes visible.

The stand is large and quite massive, with limited functionality: it allows you to adjust the screen tilt (-5…+20°) and its height (0…100 mm), but not to rotate left/right. The bottom part has a hole for cable management.

In general, despite the low cost of the materials used, the case is made of high quality, the screen sits firmly on the stand, and it is almost impossible to loosen it even on purpose.

All video connectors are located in a small niche under the stand mount: two HDMI 2.0, one Displayport 1.4, and a mini-jack for wired headphones. Gigabyte GS34WQC does not have a USB hub, the power supply is built-in.

Menu

The Gigabyte GS34WQC is controlled by a 5-way joystick located on the rear panel on the right. The monitor does not have a separate power button. Pressing the joystick brings up a quick menu with hot buttons and launches the main menu.

The first item is the Gaming section: here you can find gaming functions, such as enabling adaptive FreeSync frequency or setting up overdrive. The next section, Picture, contains a selection of video modes – Standard, Gaming, etc. And this monitor, like another model from the same manufacturer, the 27-inch GS27Q, uses a very convenient option with detailed image settings. They are not placed in a separate item in the main menu, as is usually done, but are available right after selecting a specific video mode: this way, the user can quickly see what settings are made in different modes and where manual adjustments are blocked by the manufacturer.

Accordingly, the Display section has a minimum of parameters – video input selection, RGB range when connected via HDMI or panel overclocking – for DisplayPort. The PIP/PBP menu allows you to activate the frame-to-frame mode and configure its parameters, System contains settings for the sound on the connected headset, OSD behavior, assigning custom functions to joystick deflection, and other system parameters.

A separate item in the main menu is the interface language – unfortunately, Gigabyte GS34WQC does not have Ukrainian localization. And the last item here is resetting all settings to factory defaults.

Features

The Gigabyte GS34WQC uses a 34-inch VA panel with an aspect ratio of 21:9 and a resolution of 3440 x 1440 pixels (WQHD). The dot density is ~109 PPI, the physical size of the dot is 0.2328 mm. For comparison, a more traditional 27-inch 16:9 panel with a resolution of 2560 x 1440 has almost the same density.

The screen is curved, with a curvature radius of 1500R (1.5 m). This is a fairly moderate curvature of the screen surface, and it is not noticeable in work, but in games, on the contrary, it helps to create the effect of “immersion” in the game world.

The maximum base refresh rate when connected via DisplayPort is 120 Hz, the monitor supports additional overclocking up to 135 Hz. Via HDMI, the maximum frequency is 100 Hz. The Gigabyte GS34WQC has support for AMD FreeSync Premium adaptive frequency technology

The brightness of this monitor is adjusted by changing the current, PWM is not used throughout the entire brightness range, so there is no screen flicker.

It’s worth noting that the manufacturer also has a very similar monitor with an almost identical name – Gigabyte GS34WQC A. According to the official specifications, the differences between these models are minimal: the A-model has a refresh rate of 144 Hz, maximum brightness of 350 cd/m², and built-in speakers (2×2 W).

Gigabyte GS34WQC image quality

The screen coating is matte, and parasitic reflections on a dark background are almost invisible. When tilted to the side, the screen retains its matte finish and does not become glossy, as is the case with semi-glossy displays. In the macro photo, you can see the barely noticeable “grain” of the matte layer and the typical VA pixel shape.

In the gaming section of the menu, you can activate overdrive – unlike most other gaming monitors, the Gigabyte GS34WQC does not have different degrees of overclocking, only the ability to turn it on or off.

VA panels are generally more inertial than IPS, so the non-record response time of this model was not a surprise. Nevertheless, the monitor generally copes well with dynamic scenes: blurring of fast-moving objects at maximum frequency and with overdrive is quite moderate. However, it is worth noting that the effect of overdrive on blur reduction in this case is minimal.

Overdrive on/off (135 Hz):

Yes, the Gigabyte GS34WQC is not the best choice for online shooters and other e-sports, but it does not have such a task – there are completely different requirements for refresh rates, response times, and even diagonal. At the same time, in all other game genres that are not as critical to reaction time, the gaming capabilities of this model are more than enough.

The black uniformity is mediocre: it seems that the curvature of the screen surface and the relatively small thickness of the case are at work. Thus, in a dark room, numerous spots on the right and left sides of the screen are clearly visible against a black background.

The glow effect is typical for a VA panel and much weaker than for IPS: when you look at the screen from the side and from above, a very moderate glow with a blue tint appears near the black background.

As for the viewing angles, they are, again, traditionally for VA technology, unimpressive: when viewed from the side, black turns gray, the overall contrast is greatly reduced, along with a significant loss of color saturation, and the image acquires a subtle warm tint. So it can be noted that the Gigabyte GS34WQC is not very suitable for group movie sessions – however, the curved screen initially “hints” at this very clearly.

The initial video mode, which is activated immediately after the first power on, is Eco with reduced brightness. However, all manual adjustments are available in it, including brightness, and in fact it doesn’t differ much from Standard or Custom: they all offer balanced settings suitable for most tasks, so any of them can be used as the main one.

We took Standard as a starting point. Its color coverage is extended and fully covers the sRGB space (87% Adobe RGB, 93% DCI-P3). Note that all the main modes have the same coverage, except for sRGB itself, where it is limited to the size of this space (75% Adobe RGB, 74% DCI-P3).

Color gamut, Standard (left) and sRGB (right) modes:

The maximum brightness is 360 cd/m² (significantly higher than the “passport” brightness, and almost the same as the one declared for the newer version of this model), and the static contrast (in User Define color temperature mode) is 3270:1. These are fairly typical figures for a VA panel, and in terms of brightness, this monitor significantly outperforms IPS models (in which this parameter usually does not exceed 1500:1).

The minimum brightness value is 41 cd/m², at which level you can comfortably play or work with the monitor even in an almost completely dark room.

It’s a bit unusual for a gaming monitor, but Gigabyte GS34WQC has the ability to select a gamma from as many as five different options – Gamma 1… Gamma 5, plus a slightly strange option in which this parameter is disabled. In the Off option it perfectly corresponds to the standard value of 2.2, switching from the first to the fifth gradually changes the gamut in the range from 1.8 to 2.5 in increments of 0.1-0.2 (by the way, the Gamma 3 setting is completely identical to the Off option).

The default color temperature is set to Normal, which is the average value among those offered by the manufacturer, and the real temperature value is 7300K. This is slightly higher than the standard (6500K), so the image may appear colder than it should. The next value, Warm, offers a significantly lower temperature (5600K) and, accordingly, a warmer shade.

However, it is still possible to get the desired 6500K (or any other value) with the Low Blue Light function. It has as many as 11 values – from 0 to 10, which gradually adjust the color temperature in the range of 7500-6000K, while the contrast is reduced to 2000:1.

The color temperature uniformity in different areas of the screen is mediocre: the maximum deviation ΔE for it exceeds 5 (the most accurate match is in the upper left corner of the screen, the least accurate is in the upper right corner). But the uniformity of the white field of this monitor is already good: the largest difference in brightness, between the upper corners and the lower part, is 12%.

In Standard mode, the Gigabyte GS34WQC has very good color accuracy for a monitor that is not factory calibrated: the average deviation of ΔE is less than two, the maximum is just over three. As a reminder, it is believed that the average user is not able to notice errors in the color display if this parameter is below 2 or even 3.

Other video modes differ in the initial brightness, contrast, sharpness, gamma and color temperature settings – you can visually compare them in the following gallery.

Standard — Gaming — Movie — Reader — sRGB — Custom — ECO: