Best ultrawide gaming monitors 2023: Immerse yourself

Want to game on a huge, immersive monitor? An ultrawide monitor should be your next display. Ultrawide offers more viewing area than widescreen alternatives and a wider field of view that literally shows more in-game content. Today’s best ultrawide gaming monitors also offer the best motion performance and support for the latest adaptive sync standards.

These are the best ultrawide gaming monitors out there right now.

For recommendations on different monitor sizes at different prices, see our roundup of the best gaming monitors.

1. Alienware AW3423DWF – Best Ultrawide Gaming Monitor

Strong Points

• excellent contrast ratio

• Leading color gamut and precision

• Superior Motion Clarity

• Good HDR performance

• very competitive price

Cons

• the stand is a little big

• No USB-C

• Low HDR maximum brightness

The Alienware AW3423DWF is a great gaming monitor that brings the incredible contrast and realism of OLED to a 34-inch widescreen panel. At $1,099, it’s not cheap for most people, but it’s better value than most high-end gaming monitors.

The monitor’s excellent image quality provides a vivid, immersive and rich experience with deep black levels and bright highlights. Games seem to pop out of your display, like you’re looking through a window instead of staring at a computer screen. Gamers who like dark and moody genres such as horror games will appreciate the monitor’s ability to reach deep black levels with minimal loss of detail.

This monitor offers an enhanced refresh rate of up to 165Hz and supports AMD FreeSync Premium Pro for smooth frame pacing in games. It also delivers above average motion performance even at low refresh rates. This is an advantage of the fast pixel response time of OLED panels.

A dark room is best because the monitor is not bright and has a glossy display coat that can reflect light. I’ve also noticed that OLED panels have trouble rendering small fonts smoothly. These are minor issues and affect the game less than other scenarios.

Connectivity is acceptable with 2 DisplayPort inputs and 1 HDMI and a USB-A hub with 4 ports. There is a wide range of menu options to help gamers change the picture quality to their liking.

Read the full Alienware AW3423DWF review

2. LG Ultragear 34GN850-B – Best Ultrawide Gaming Monitor Under $1,000

Strong Points

• 21:9 panel on 34 inch screen

• curved monitor

• impressive gaming performance

• Ergonomic adjustment options

Cons

• Average power consumption only

• Expensive

Released in 2020, the LG Ultragear 34GN850-B was the best ultrawide gaming monitor to debut that year, only recently losing out to the Alienware AW3423DWF. In response, LG has slashed the price of the former champion from a suggested retail price of $999.99 to $699.99 at most retailers (sometimes selling for $599.99).

While no longer top of its class, LG’s Ultragear 34GN850-B is a compelling monitor with excellent color performance, high maximum brightness, and excellent motion performance thanks to its fast “Nano IPS” panel. Both look slightly sharper than the Alienware despite having the same native resolution. The LG definitely outperforms the Alienware for both productivity and gaming, as display glare isn’t an issue and small text doesn’t look pixelated.

The LG Ultragear 34GN850-B offers an enhanced refresh rate of up to 144Hz (160Hz overclocking mode) and is officially compatible with both AMD FreeSync and Nvidia G-Sync. Its overall motion performance isn’t as good as Alienware’s, but it’s closer and better than budget alternatives like the AOC CU34G2X.

what’s the catch? contrast. The monitor’s IPS panel has the lowest contrast ratio of the three monitors recommended here, and can appear hazy in dark scenes. It looks best in a moderately brightly lit room. This makes the lack of contrast less noticeable.

The monitor’s connectivity and features are the same as high-end monitors: 2 HDMI ports, 1 DisplayPort, and a 2-port USB hub. A few more USB ports would be nice, but the options available at this price point are acceptable.

Read the full LG Ultragear 34GN850 review

3. AOC CU34G2X – Best Ultrawide Gaming Monitor Under $500

Strong Points

• Ultrawide 21:9 format gaming monitor

• impressive gaming performance

• Large 34-inch curved panel

• Ergonomic adjustment options

The AOC CU34G2X is a rare budget-friendly ultrawide monitor that retails for under $349.99. It takes a few compromises to reach that price point, but image quality isn’t among them.

The 34-inch ultrawide monitor features a VA panel that provides excellent contrast and vibrant color performance. Its maximum brightness is a bit lower, but it’s similar to the Alienware AW3423DWF for SDR content (CU34G2X doesn’t support his HDR). The AOC monitor offers the same 3440×1440 resolution as the other monitors on this list, so it looks just as sharp. It will be difficult to tell the difference.

The AOC CU34G2X is an ultrawide gaming monitor with refresh rates up to 144Hz, delivering solid motion performance. However, neither AMD FreeSync nor his Nvidia G-Sync officially support it. Both standards should work unofficially, but the display is not certified and may experience flickering if the game frame rate drops too low. Gamers may need to rely on using V-Sync for some titles.

The monitor’s image quality is impressive for the price, but its aggressive red-and-black design stands out even more than LG’s Ultragear and may turn some gamers off. Material quality is also mediocre, so the monitor doesn’t look as premium as LG’s or Alienware’s alternatives.

Connectivity, on the other hand, is excellent, with 2x HDMI and 2x DisplayPort as well as a 4-port USB-A hub. This is better than any monitor on this list. Not what you’d expect from a budget display. The monitor also includes a height-adjustable stand.

Read the full AOC CU34G2X review

What to look for in an ultrawide gaming monitor

Ultrawide gaming monitors are a great choice for PC gaming, but they remain niche compared to the much more popular 27″ and 32″ widescreen gaming monitors. Less than 2% of all PC gamers on Steam use ultrawide monitors, according to the latest Steam Hardware Survey.

This is unfortunate and limits your options when purchasing an ultrawide monitor. Still, gamers should keep an eye out for these features when purchasing.

Panel type matters

Ultrawide monitors offer IPS, VA, and OLED panels. Each has advantages and disadvantages.

IPS panels are the most common, and for good reason. They display a wide range of colors, have excellent color accuracy, can reach high levels of brightness and look sharp at any resolution. IPS panels are best for mixed use in bright rooms.

VA panels are commonly found in budget ultrawide monitors, but some companies (especially Samsung) use them in their high-end displays as well. It offers higher contrast and similar color performance than IPS panels. VA panels can struggle with motion performance, and budget VA panels tend to lag behind his IPS in brightness.

OLED is the overall image quality leader. Get the best results in color gamut, color accuracy, contrast, and motion performance. Sharpness is often reduced compared to IPS and VA, but most people will find it a minor downgrade. OLEDs also tend to lead in HDR. Mini LEDs sometimes exceed that, but very few ultrawide monitors use Mini LED technology.

In general, OLED is better than IPS, and IPS is better than VA. However, some gamers prefer VA over IPS, especially when gaming in dark rooms.

Refresh rate and pixel response time

All recommended ultrawide gaming monitors share a similar refresh rate (144Hz to 165Hz). This means they have similar motion performance, but not only that.

OLED monitors like the Alienware W3423DW have the best overall motion performance. Not only does it have a high refresh rate, but it also has the shortest pixel response time (often 0.03 to 0.05 milliseconds), which means pixels transition quickly between colors. This reduces motion blur at both high and low refresh rates, giving OLED an edge.

IPS monitors tend to have the second best pixel response time, with models like the LG Ultragear 34GN850-B estimating a response time of 1 ms. VA panels can also achieve 1 ms response times, but some panels may lag behind this standard.

In summary, first check the refresh rate, then check the pixel response time and compare monitors with the same refresh rate.

Be careful with large ultra-wide displays

The only ultrawide gaming monitor we currently recommend is a 34 inch ultrawide gaming monitor with a resolution of 3440×1440.

A variety of large ultrawide gaming monitors are available. This includes his 45-inch ultrawide monitors like the Corsair Xeneon Flex 45WQHD240 and LG Ultragear 45GR95QE, as well as super ultrawide monitors like the Samsung Odyssey G9 series.

However, these large monitors tend to be expensive and have issues with overall usability. The larger 45-inch ultra-wide option doesn’t offer a resolution boost over the 34-inch model, so it can look a little soft and pixelated. The 49-inch ultra-ultrawide model has the potential to rival hardcore simulation gamers, but is not widely supported in mainstream gaming genres.

Extremely large, ultra-ultrawide gaming monitors are a niche within a niche. It may be your go-to choice in the future, but for now it’s best to stick with the more widely supported 34-inch, 3440×1440 monitor.

Don’t buy ultrawide for console games

Considering buying a monitor for console gaming? Don’t buy an ultrawide monitor.

There are currently no game consoles that support ultrawide resolutions. This also applies to games released on PC that support ultrawide.

A game console connected to an ultrawide monitor will display an image, but it will be limited to the normal widescreen viewing space, leaving black bars on either side of the screen.

How to test your monitor

PC World staff and freelance reviewers have spent hundreds of hours in in-depth testing comparing monitors across a wide range of price points and features, from budget monitors at $100 to legendary top-notch displays costing over $3,000. increase. I personally test dozens of monitors each year to find the best products for all categories and price points.

Use the SpyderXElite color calibration tool. It provides objective measurements of various metrics such as brightness, contrast, color gamut, color accuracy, color temperature and gamma. These results are logged so PC World reviewers can easily compare different monitors. It also eliminates subjective bias, as differences in room lighting, time of day, and type of content displayed can easily change a reviewer’s experience. This is an important point.