Best ultrawide gaming monitors 2023: immerse yourself

You want to play on a large, immersive screen? The next step is the ultrawide screen. Ultrawide offers more viewing space than the widescreen option and a wider perspective which literally shows more in-game content. Ultra HD gaming monitors are the best today, offering top-notch motion performance and support to the most recent adaptive sync standards.

These are the most powerful ultrawide gaming monitors currently available.

See our roundup for recommendations on a variety monitor sizes at a range price points. The best gaming monitors.

1. Alienware’s AW3423DWF is the best ultra-wide gaming monitor

Positives

• Excellent contrast ratio

• Highest quality color range and accuracy

• Amazing motion clarity

• Respectable HDR performance

• Very competitive price

Cons

• The stand is too large

• USB-C is not supported

• HDR maximum brightness is dim

Alienware AW3423DWF Gaming Monitor is a great monitor that brings the vivid contrast and real-life feel of OLED into a panel measuring 34 inches. Although at $1,099 — which isn’t cheap for most — it’s better value than most high-end gaming monitors.

The monitor’s superb picture quality ensures a rich, vivid and immersive experience. It features deep black levels and bright highlights. The screen seems to be jumping off of the monitor, almost as if you were looking out of a window rather than at your computer screen. Gamers who enjoy dark and moody genres like horror will love the screen’s ability reach deep black levels without sacrificing detail.

This monitor has a higher refresh rate of upto 165Hz and supports AMD FreeSync Premium Pro to provide smooth frame rates in games. It also offers better-than-average motion performance with lower refresh rates. This is due to the OLED panel’s fast pixel response time.

The screen isn’t bright and has a glossy surface coating that can reflect light. This makes it best in dark rooms. We also noticed OLED panelIt has trouble rendering small fonts smoothly. These issues are minor and have less impact than other scenarios.

Two DisplayPort inputs, one HDMI and a four port USB-A hub are all available for connectivity. There are many menu options to change the quality of the picture.

Read more
Alienware AW3423DWF review

2. LG Ultragear 34GN850-B – Best ultrawide gaming monitor under $1,000

Positives

• Panel size 21.9 with a screen size 34 inches

• Curved screen

• Incredible gaming performance

• Convenient adjustment options

Cons

• Only average power consumption

• Beloved

The LG Ultragear 35GN850-B gaming monitor was released in 2020. It was only recently beaten by Alienware AW3423DWF. LG reduced the price of the Champion’s model from $999.99 up to $699.99 at most retailers (sometimes selling for as low as $599.99).

The LG Ultragear 34GN850B is a beautiful display that, although it is not the best in its class, has excellent color performance, high maximum lighting, and good motion performance thanks to its fast “Nano IPS” panel. Despite having the same native resolution, it looks sharper than Alienware. Because screen glare isn’t an issue and small text don’t appear pixelated, LG is undoubtedly better than Alienware when it comes to mixed productivity and gaming.

The LG Ultragear 35GN850-B has a higher refresh rate of upto 144Hz (with 160Hz Overclock Mode) and is officially compatible both with both AMD FreeSync and Nvidia G-Sync. Overall motion performance isn’t as good as Alienware, however it’s close and better than budget options like the AOC CUR34G2X.

What is your interest? variance. The IPS panel of this monitor has the lowest contrast ratio among the three we recommend. It can also look blurry in dark scenes. This monitor looks its best in brightly lit rooms, which makes the lackluster contrast less noticeable.

Display connectivity and features can be used with high-end monitors. They have two HDMI ports, one DisplayPort, as well as a dual-port USB hub. Although a few more USB ports would have been appreciated, the options are acceptable at this price.

Read more
LG Ultragear 34GN850 review

3. AOC CU34G2X: Best ultrawide gaming monitor below $500

Positives

• 21:9 Ultra Gaming Monitor

• Incredible gaming performance

• 34″ Large Curved Plate

• Convenient adjustment options

The AOCCU34G2X is a rare budget projector that retails at $349.99 or less. It makes some compromises to get to this price point — but image quality isn’t among them.

The FHD 34-inch FHD display boasts a VA panel that delivers high contrast and vivid color performance. Its maximum brightness is a bit lower than the Alienware AW3423DWF, but it is comparable in SDR content to the Alienware CU34G2X (the CU34G2X cannot support HDR). The AOC display has a resolution of 3440×1440 just like other monitors on the list. It looks sharp. Gamers who don’t care about image quality will have a hard time discerning the difference between this monitor, and the more expensive LG Ultragear 35GN850-B.

AOCCU34G2X, an ultra-wide gaming monitor that can refresh at 144Hz, delivers powerful motion performance and is extremely wide. It does not support AMD FreeSync and Nvidia G-Sync. Although both benchmarks should work without certification, owners may experience flickering if the game’s frame rate drops too low. V-Sync may be necessary for some titles.

The screen’s picture quality is excellent for its price. However, the screen’s aggressive red-and black design may make some gamers uncomfortable. The screen’s material quality is also poor, so it doesn’t look as premium than the Alienware and LG alternatives.

Connectivity is excellent. It has two HDMI ports, two DisplayPort port ports, and a fourport USB-A hub. This is by far the best of any monitor on this list — not something we’d expect from a budget display. The monitor has a height-adjustable standing, which is something that many ultrawide monitors lack.

Read more
AOC CU34G2X review

What are the key features to look for in an Ultra HD gaming console?

Ultrawide gaming monitors can be a great choice for PC gaming but are still very niche in comparison to the popular 32-inch and 27-inch widescreen gaming monitors. According to the latest Steam hardware survey results less than 2% of PC gamers have an HD monitor.

This is a shame as it restricts the options when purchasing an ultrawide monitor. When making a purchase, players should be aware of these features.

It is important to choose the right board

Ultrawide displays are available with OLED panels, VA, and IPS. Each has its pros and cons.

IPS panels are the most popular, and for good reasons. They can display a wide variety of colors, are accurate in color, can reach high levels brightness, and look sharp at any resolution. For darker games, however, the low contrast ratio can cause blurry or lack of detail. IPS panels are best suited for mixed use in brightly lit rooms.

VA panels are used in ultrawide displays. However some companies, such as Samsung, also use them in high end displays. They offer comparable color performance and have a higher contrast than IPS panels. VA panels can have poor motion performance and budget VA panels often lag behind IPS in brightness.

OLED is the market leader in overall picture quality. OLED delivers the best results in color gamut and color fidelity, contrast, contrast, motion performance, and color gamut. Although sharpness is less than IPS and VA, most people will still find it to be a slight dip. OLED tends be the leader for HDR: Mini-LED may surpass it in certain cases but only a few ultrawide displays use Mini-LED technology.

OLED is generally better than IPS and IPS is superior to VA. Some gamers may prefer VA to IPS, particularly when playing in a darkened area.

Refresh rate, pixel response times

All of our Ultra HD gaming monitors have the same refresh rate (between 128Hz and 165Hz). They all have similar motion performance, but they offer more.

OLED screens like the Alienware W3423DW generally offer the best motion performance. OLED screens have the best motion performance. They also offer a high refresh rate and low pixel response times (often 0.03 to 0.0.05ms), which allows pixels to transition between colors quickly. OLED has an advantage because it reduces blurring at low and high refresh rates.

IPS monitors have the best pixel response time, with models such as the LG Ultragear 35GN850-B quoting a response time of 1 millisecond. VA panels can also achieve 1-millisecond response speeds, although some panels may fall below this benchmark.

In short, you need to first consider the refresh rate. Next, look at the pixel reaction time to compare screens that have the same refresh rates.

Be cautious with large displays

We recommend the Ultra Wide Gaming Monitors 34 inches with a resolution 3440 x 1440.

There are many Ultra HD gaming monitors available. This includes Ultra HD monitors measuring 45 inches, such as the Corsair Xeneon Flex45WQHD240 and LG Ultragear45GR95QE. As well as ultra-high resolution displays like the Samsung Odyssey G9 series.

These larger screens can be costly and have issues with usability. The Ultra HD models of 45 inches don’t have a higher resolution than the 34-inch models. This can make them appear a little soft and pixelated. Although the ultra-fast 49 inch models are great for simulation gamers, they are not supported in many popular games.

These monitors are very rare. They might be an option in the future but for now, it’s best not to go beyond the popular 34-inch 3440×1440 screens.

Do not buy a fast device to play console games.

Are you looking to buy a console monitor? You shouldn’t buy an HD screen monitor.

None of the current consoles support Ultra HD resolution. This is true even for games that are PC-compatible.

An ultrawide-display game console will still display an image but will have black bars on either side.

How can we test screens?

PC World staff and independent reviewers spend hundreds on hours comparing monitors across a wide range price points and capabilities. These include budget $100 monitors to top-tier monitors costing over $3,000. Each year, we test hundreds of monitors in order to find the best choice for each price and category.

We use the SpyderXElite colour calibrator. This provides objective measurements for a variety of metrics, including brightness, contrast and hue, color fidelity color temperature and color temperature. These scores are recorded so that computer world reviewers can compare screens. It also removes subjective bias—an important point, as differences in room lighting, time of day, and type of content shown can easily alter a reviewer’s experience.