AOC CU34G2X Review: 34 Inches, 1440p, 144Hz, Less Than $500

System · April 2020

AOC CU34G2X Review: 34 Inches, 1440p, 144Hz, Less Than $500

If you're shopping for an ultrawide but don't want to give up your resolution or refresh rate, AOC might just have the answer. The CU34G2X is 34 inches, 1440p, 144Hz, and tops it off with adaptive sync, all for less than $500. This is our full review.

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ghettoceleb · April 2020

Looks like a nice monitor to me!

irven · April 2020

10-bits color this monitor? is wrong it no?

kinido · April 2020

Checked Amazon .. it is in fact 900 dollars?, I can't seem to find it for under 500 on any of the websites.

GameByNight · April 2020

Panzerbeorne39 said:

Pretty nice review. Well written and covered most relevant issues. What about the 1440p resolution though? For this size, and with your 2080ti, wouldn’t a 4K be preferable?

I actually have a 4K on another PC with a 2080 Ti and prefer this one. Since it's ultrawide (3440x1440), the processing demands are still higher than normal 1440p (2560x1440). That allows me to keep everything maxed out in the graphics panel with enough headroom to still hit triple digit FPS in the games I play.

GameByNight · April 2020

kinido said:

Checked Amazon .. it is in fact 900 dollars?, I can't seem to find it for under 500 on any of the websites.

It appears to be out of stock right now.

GameByNight · April 2020

irven said:

10-bits color this monitor? is wrong it no?

When it was originally marketed, they were saying 8-bit. Nvidia Control Panel allows you to set it to 10-bit, full RGB color space.

perrin82 · April 2020

Great review Chris. It's about time I finally update my monitor.

Rennisa · April 2020

DMKano said:

Its curved - shame

The few non curved ultra wide that I have seen in the wild were enough proof to put aside curve screen bias, but only for ultra wides.

Never for just about anything else.

Scot · April 2020

For gaming you have to ask when are monitors getting too wide? The monitors in some professional gaming leagues do not use full wide screen. My monitor is 24" width and I think that's pushing it for some genres of competitive games, but for most competitive games I don't see it an issue, indeed some see it as an advantage. More than 24" would be an issue for me though and 32" would just be to wide. Finally VA panels are not the best for picture or gaming, pick an IPS or TN, most people know if they really need a gaming monitor if you don't go for the best picture.

Haki88 · April 2020

For me 24" is enough even it is hard to find good 144hz 24", atleast in my country and i still cant figure out how can people play on 27"+ monitors... they have same desk, same position to monitor etc, you need to position yourself like 80cm from 27"monitor...now imagine having 34"....

In future i belive there are going to be gaming tvs just use wireless keyboard,mouse and headset, imagine that with 100" tvs ^^

Khebeln · April 2020

Haki88 said:

For me 24" is enough even it is hard to find good 144hz 24", atleast in my country and i still cant figure out how can people play on 27"+ monitors... they have same desk, same position to monitor etc, you need to position yourself like 80cm from 27"monitor...now imagine having 34"....

In future i belive there are going to be gaming tvs just use wireless keyboard,mouse and headset, imagine that with 100" tvs ^^

I play on 42" for years and 34" wide is tiny for me. Wish there was bigger choice when it comes to large monitors. Otherwise your are forced to get a gaming TV. And I play from around 1m away. Got massive desk. Also 34" wide in reality is a lot smaller than you would expect. Just because its widescreen.

GameByNight · April 2020

Scot said:

For gaming you have to ask when are monitors getting too wide? The monitors in some professional gaming leagues do not use full wide screen. My monitor is 24" width and I think that's pushing it for some genres of competitive games, but for most competitive games I don't see it an issue, indeed some see it as an advantage. More than 24" would be an issue for me though and 32" would just be to wide. Finally VA panels are not the best for picture or gaming, pick an IPS or TN, most people know if they really need a gaming monitor if you don't go for the best picture.

For pure response time, TN is the way to go. I believe for most people, though, VA is a good choice. The colors and blacks are so much better and the response time (while usually not "real" 1ms) is still low enough to be fine. Like this one - 5ms is pretty much imperceptible. In fact, it wasn't long ago that TN gaming panels were being marketed with 5ms as the top of the line.

If you're looking to rise in the eSports scene, you'll probably want a TN, but realistically speaking, that's a tiny fraction of gamers out there. I'll take the better color over the extra 4ms any day, personally.

torke90 · April 2020

This is.. Beauty..

Iselin · April 2020

GameByNight said:

Scot said:

For gaming you have to ask when are monitors getting too wide? The monitors in some professional gaming leagues do not use full wide screen. My monitor is 24" width and I think that's pushing it for some genres of competitive games, but for most competitive games I don't see it an issue, indeed some see it as an advantage. More than 24" would be an issue for me though and 32" would just be to wide. Finally VA panels are not the best for picture or gaming, pick an IPS or TN, most people know if they really need a gaming monitor if you don't go for the best picture.

For pure response time, TN is the way to go. I believe for most people, though, VA is a good choice. The colors and blacks are so much better and the response time (while usually not "real" 1ms) is still low enough to be fine. Like this one - 5ms is pretty much imperceptible. In fact, it wasn't long ago that TN gaming panels were being marketed with 5ms as the top of the line.

If you're looking to rise in the eSports scene, you'll probably want a TN, but realistically speaking, that's a tiny fraction of gamers out there. I'll take the better color over the extra 4ms any day, personally.

I do photo editing as well as gaming and calibrate my monitors myself. I haven't had a TN monitor in more than a decade since they're virtually useless for true color reproduction. IPS is of course the best for color but they have the slowest response time. I have used Samsung PVA monitors (my current one is one of those) and found them to be a very good compromise between IPS and TN.

This one sounds like a bargain considering the size and features.

Scot · April 2020

Iselin said:

GameByNight said:

Scot said:

For gaming you have to ask when are monitors getting too wide? The monitors in some professional gaming leagues do not use full wide screen. My monitor is 24" width and I think that's pushing it for some genres of competitive games, but for most competitive games I don't see it an issue, indeed some see it as an advantage. More than 24" would be an issue for me though and 32" would just be to wide. Finally VA panels are not the best for picture or gaming, pick an IPS or TN, most people know if they really need a gaming monitor if you don't go for the best picture.

For pure response time, TN is the way to go. I believe for most people, though, VA is a good choice. The colors and blacks are so much better and the response time (while usually not "real" 1ms) is still low enough to be fine. Like this one - 5ms is pretty much imperceptible. In fact, it wasn't long ago that TN gaming panels were being marketed with 5ms as the top of the line.

If you're looking to rise in the eSports scene, you'll probably want a TN, but realistically speaking, that's a tiny fraction of gamers out there. I'll take the better color over the extra 4ms any day, personally.

I do photo editing as well as gaming and calibrate my monitors myself. I haven't had a TN monitor in more than a decade since they're virtually useless for true color reproduction. IPS is of course the best for color but they have the slowest response time. I have used Samsung PVA monitors (my current one is one of those) and found them to be a very good compromise between IPS and TN.

This one sounds like a bargain considering the size and features.

Iselin said:

GameByNight said:

Scot said:

For gaming you have to ask when are monitors getting too wide? The monitors in some professional gaming leagues do not use full wide screen. My monitor is 24" width and I think that's pushing it for some genres of competitive games, but for most competitive games I don't see it an issue, indeed some see it as an advantage. More than 24" would be an issue for me though and 32" would just be to wide. Finally VA panels are not the best for picture or gaming, pick an IPS or TN, most people know if they really need a gaming monitor if you don't go for the best picture.

For pure response time, TN is the way to go. I believe for most people, though, VA is a good choice. The colors and blacks are so much better and the response time (while usually not "real" 1ms) is still low enough to be fine. Like this one - 5ms is pretty much imperceptible. In fact, it wasn't long ago that TN gaming panels were being marketed with 5ms as the top of the line.

If you're looking to rise in the eSports scene, you'll probably want a TN, but realistically speaking, that's a tiny fraction of gamers out there. I'll take the better color over the extra 4ms any day, personally.

I do photo editing as well as gaming and calibrate my monitors myself. I haven't had a TN monitor in more than a decade since they're virtually useless for true color reproduction. IPS is of course the best for color but they have the slowest response time. I have used Samsung PVA monitors (my current one is one of those) and found them to be a very good compromise between IPS and TN.

This one sounds like a bargain considering the size and features.

I go for IPS with the fastest ms and htz I can get, I don't bother with being really competive these days. About the only game I missed that extra vroom was R6S, but if thats your obsession go TN obviously.

ironheart901 · April 2020

Thanks for the review. I have this same monitor and love it outside of the g-sync black screen issues. I have a 1080ti and the latest drivers and I still have the black screen issues with g-sync enabled. Do you mind sharing which GPU you have and your Nvidia driver version as well?

Thanks!

AnOldFart · April 2020

I just bought the AOC CQ27G2U and I have to say it's amazing imho.
People might think differently and its best to hunt down a good review.

If this is anything like the same it's worth the money.

Mine was £260

GameByNight · April 2020

ironheart901 said:

Thanks for the review. I have this same monitor and love it outside of the g-sync black screen issues. I have a 1080ti and the latest drivers and I still have the black screen issues with g-sync enabled. Do you mind sharing which GPU you have and your Nvidia driver version as well?

Thanks!

Not at all! Have you also tried to adjust your Adaptive Sync range with CRU? Before this driver update that helped a lot. For gaming it completely went away and only happened a couple more times in Zoom and Discord, of all things. I also had G-Sync enabled for Windowed and Fullscreen modes, which seemed to help but might have just been placebo.

Another review mentioned that they believed it was related to Low Framerate Compensation, so when you FPS drops below 70 with G-Sync enabled. They recommended enabling V-Sync and using Motion Blur Reduction as a workaround until a firmware or driver update was released.

I'm sorry to hear that this update didn't work for you, though! Hopefully the fact that it seemed to for me (a couple days running with no flashes!) means a future one will address it for you too!

My GPU is the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 Ti XTREME 11G and the driver version is the latest as of this writing, 445.87.

Ozmodan · April 2020

DMKano said:

Its curved - shame

Nothing wrong with a curved monitor, I have several and have no issues with them.

denka777 · April 2020

um excuse me, i've been shopping for a 34 ultrawide for hours now. and that one is 894$ USD on amazon currently. and for that price you can get way better. I would LOVE to find one under 500$ USD but THERES NONE, my guess is corona virus stopped production?

denka777 · April 2020

you cant find this monitor for under 500$ ANYWHERE. What a fucking lie lmao. Can you at least link a store page with your long ass article?

BaronMunchausen · April 2020

I was lucky and got this monitor when Amazon had a few in stock on 4-21-20 ($449.99 brand new) and was on my doorstep 2 days later. I am using a Radeon VII with this monitor and play mostly MMOs and not FPS game.

It is a beautiful monitor (was using a old ASUS VH236H) and the colors are excellent, for me, straight from the box. Plus there was really hardly no messing with the colors yet the brightness seemed a little too bright for me but then it could be going to a bigger monitor but I adapted quickly to that. I did find using the menu system (and the buttons) on the monitor a little awkward but then most people, once everything is set, will not touch the menu on the monitor for quite a while.

I went straight to a VESA mount on my Ergotech 3 arm stand which holds the AOC and my old ASUS (in protrait mode) verus nicely.

For the $450.00 price one really gets a bang for their buck with this monitor but with Covid-19 it looks like so many ultrawide monitors are hard to find/keep in stock.

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AOC CU34G2X Review: 34 Inches, 1440p, 144Hz, Less Than $500

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AOC CU34G2X Review: 34 Inches, 1440p, 144Hz, Less Than $500

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