The Corsair XENEON 32QHD165 is a 32 inch, 1440p monitor with an IPS panel. It's Corsair's first monitor, and overall, it's pretty impressive. Marketed mainly as a gaming monitor, it delivers an excellent gaming experience with low input lag and a superb response time, as well as FreeSync support for a nearly tear-free gaming experience. It has impressive colors, with one of the best SDR color gamuts we've ever measured, including complete coverage of the sRGB and Adobe RGB color spaces. Sadly, because of this wide color gamut, most content is oversaturated unless you use the built-in sRGB mode. As expected for an IPS monitor, it has wide viewing angles but low contrast, so it doesn't look its best in a dark room. It's not as feature-packed as some of the competition, though, and the pixel density is a bit low.
Our Verdict
The Corsair XENEON 32QHD165 is a great monitor for most uses. The large screen is great for office work or media creation, but it has just decent text clarity. It's an excellent gaming monitor with low input lag and a superb response time, and it supports FreeSync. Sadly, it's not a good choice for a dark room, as it has low contrast. Finally, although it supports HDR, there's almost no benefit to it, as it can't get very bright in HDR, and it has no local dimming feature.
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Wide horizontal viewing angle.
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Excellent gray uniformity.
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Great peak brightness.
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Low contrast.
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Colors look oversaturated before calibration or out of the sRGB mode.
The Corsair XENEON 32QHD165 is a very good monitor for office use. It has a wide horizontal viewing angle, and the stand can swivel, so it's great for sharing your screen with someone else. The large screen makes it easy to multitask but delivers just decent text clarity. It has great peak brightness and satisfactory reflection handling, so visibility isn't an issue. It also has excellent gray uniformity and an incredible SDR color gamut, great if your work requires accurate colors.
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Wide horizontal viewing angle.
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Excellent gray uniformity.
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Great peak brightness.
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Low contrast.
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Colors look oversaturated before calibration or out of the sRGB mode.
The Corsair XENEON 32QHD165 is an excellent gaming monitor. It has a fast refresh rate and a superb response time at both the max refresh rate and 60Hz, as well as exceptional input lag for a responsive gaming experience. Although it lacks HDMI 2.1 inputs, it has a Console mode that allows it to accept a 4k @ 60Hz signals. Finally, it supports FreeSync variable refresh rates, which helps reduce tearing when gaming.
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165Hz refresh rate and VRR support.
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Low input lag.
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Superb response time at any refresh rate.
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Great peak brightness.
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Low contrast.
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Colors look oversaturated before calibration or out of the sRGB mode.
The Corsair XENEON 32QHD165 is a very good monitor for watching videos, but not if you're in a dark room. The large screen delivers a more immersive video-watching experience, and the wide horizontal viewing angle is great for sharing your screen with someone else. Sadly, it has a low contrast ratio and just acceptable black uniformity, so it doesn't look as good in a dark room.
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Wide horizontal viewing angle.
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Incredible SDR color gamut.
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Excellent gray uniformity.
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Great peak brightness.
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Low contrast.
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Colors look oversaturated before calibration or out of the sRGB mode.
The Corsair XENEON 32QHD165 is a great monitor for media creators. The large screen makes it easier to see more of your work at once. It has amazing accuracy out of the box, as long as you choose the sRGB mode, and it has an incredible SDR color gamut, with complete coverage of both the sRGB and the Adobe RGB color spaces. Sadly, the sRGB mode locks you out of most picture adjustments, and all other picture modes are terribly oversaturated.
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Incredible SDR color gamut.
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Outstanding gradient handling.
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Excellent gray uniformity.
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Great peak brightness.
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Low contrast.
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Colors look oversaturated before calibration or out of the sRGB mode.
The Corsair XENEON 32QHD165 is a decent monitor for HDR gaming, mainly because of its excellent gaming performance. It has low input lag and a fantastic response time, resulting in crystal clear motion. Sadly, although it can display a very wide color gamut, overall, HDR adds very little. It has low contrast, no local dimming, and just okay peak brightness in HDR.
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165Hz refresh rate and VRR support.
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Low input lag.
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Superb response time at any refresh rate.
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Great peak brightness.
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Low contrast.
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No local dimming feature.
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Low peak brightness in HDR.
- 8.1 Mixed Usage
- 8.0 Office
- 8.6 Gaming
- 8.0 Multimedia
- 8.1 Media Creation
- 7.4 HDR Gaming
- Updated Nov 05, 2021: Review published.
- Updated Nov 02, 2021: Early access published.
- Updated Oct 27, 2021: Our testers have started testing this product.
- Updated Oct 25, 2021: The product has arrived in our lab, and our testers will start evaluating it soon.
- Updated Oct 12, 2021: We've purchased the product and are waiting for it to arrive in our lab.
Differences Between Sizes And Variants
We tested the 32 inch Corsair XENEON 32QHD165, which is currently Corsair's only monitor.
If someone comes across a different type of panel or their Corsair 32QHD165 doesn't correspond to our review, let us know, and we'll update the review. Note that some tests, like gray uniformity, may vary between individual units.
You can see the label for our unit here.
Compared To Other Monitors
The Corsair XENEON 32QHD165 is an excellent gaming monitor with impressive picture quality and fantastic motion handling. Sadly, it's not as feature-rich as many competitors, especially the Gigabyte M-Series gaming monitors, like the Gigabyte M32U, and it's far more expensive than most comparable 1440p displays. Unless the impressive colors are important to you, most people are better off with something else.
For more options, check out our recommendations for the best gaming monitors, the best ultrawide gaming monitors, and the best 34-49 inch monitors.
The LG 32GP850-B and the Corsair XENEON 32QHD165 offer nearly identical performance in most ways. The Corsair has a wider color gamut, so it's a bit better for content creators, and it has a USB-C port, great if you work with a MacBook or other compact laptop. On the other hand, the LG has slightly better reflection handling, so it offers better visibility in bright conditions.
The Gigabyte M32U is a bit better than the Corsair XENEON 32QHD165. The Gigabyte has a higher resolution screen, resulting in much better text clarity and a sharper image. The Gigabyte also has slightly better ergonomics, with a better height adjustment, and tons of extra features, including a built-in KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) switch, so you can control two computers with a single set of input devices. Finally, the Gigabyte is better for console gamers, as it has two HDMI 2.1 ports and supports 4k @ 120Hz gaming.
The Gigabyte M32Q and the Corsair XENEON 32QHD165 are very similar overall. The Gigabyte has a better height adjustment and has a better selection of additional features, including a built-in KVM (Keyboard, Video, Mouse) switch, meaning you can control two computers with a single set of input devices. On the other hand, the Corsair has better colors, with a much wider color gamut in both SDR and HDR, so it's a better choice for some media creators.
Other than the difference in size, the Gigabyte M27Q (rev. 1.0) and the Corsair XENEON 32QHD165 are pretty similar overall. The Gigabyte has a slightly faster maximum refresh rate, and the smaller screen size results in slightly better text clarity. On the other hand, the Corsair has slightly better ergonomics and a slightly faster response time at the max refresh rate.
The Samsung Odyssey G7 C32G75T and the Corsair XENEON 32QHD165 use different panel technologies, so the best one depends on your viewing conditions. The Samsung uses a VA panel, and it's better suited for dark-room viewing, as it has much better contrast. The Corsair looks better in a room with a bit of light, and it has better viewing angles. The Corsair has much better colors, with a much wider color gamut in both HDR and SDR.
The Acer Nitro XV272U KVbmiiprzx is a bit better than the Corsair XENEON 32QHD165. The Acer has a much better stand, with a wider range of ergonomic adjustments, including the ability to rotate to a portrait mode. The Acer also has a slightly faster refresh rate and slightly faster response time. Finally, the Acer's smaller screen results in a higher pixel density, so text is a bit clearer, and images are sharper.
Test Results
The Corsair XENEON 32QHD165 has simple, clean look with a very unique stand design and great build quality. It has one of the best cable management systems we've ever seen. Surprisingly, other than the stand, it has a fairly simple design, with a smooth finish on the back and no RGB lighting or other gamer aesthetic.
The stand has a very unique design, but it takes up a lot of space. The two-tiered stand blocks the front of the monitor, so you can't easily place other objects in front of the display. It's very solid and supports the monitor well.
The Corsair XENEON 32QHD165 has mediocre ergonomics. It has a good swivel range and great tilt range, but the height adjustment is a bit narrow. The ergonomic adjustments feel smooth, and it's easy to adjust it to a comfortable viewing position.
The back of the monitor is plain, with a smooth finish and an overall clean design. This monitor has one of the best cable management systems we've ever seen, with four adjustable clips that slide up and down the back of the stand. There's also a 1/4" mounting point on the top of the stand that allows you to mount a camera or other accessory to the top of the monitor using an Elgato Flex Arm.
The Corsair XENEON has very thin bezels on three sides, but even the bottom bezel isn't very distracting.
Due to the size of the stand, this is a pretty thick monitor overall. The stand leans back a bit, so the distance between the viewer and the screen changes as you adjust the height.
The Corsair XENEON 32QHD165 has great build quality. The aluminum stand has a premium feel to it. It's very solid, and it supports the monitor well with very little wobble. Unfortunately, the stand's premium build quality doesn't extend to the display itself, which appears to be entirely plastic. There's a bit of flex to it, and the bottom bezel is slightly uneven. The display isn't bad, really, but it's noticeably less premium than the stand, which is disappointing if you're planning on VESA-mounting it.
Unfortunately, as expected for an IPS monitor, the Corsair XENEON 32QHD165 has mediocre contrast, so blacks look gray if you're in a dark room. There's no local dimming feature to improve contrast, either. Contrast can vary between individual units, but these results are a bit higher than usual for an IPS display, and they're higher than Corsair's advertised typical contrast ratio of 1000:1.
Unfortunately, the Corsair XENEON 32QHD165 doesn't have a local dimming feature. We still film these videos on the display so you can compare the backlight performance with a monitor that has local dimming.
The Corsair XENEON 32QHD165 has great peak brightness in SDR. It's bright enough to overcome glare in most rooms, so visibility shouldn't be an issue. There's no variation in brightness with different content, which is great. These results are slightly lower than Corsair's advertised numbers, but it's not a noticeable difference.
We measured the SDR peak brightness after calibration in the 'Standard' Picture Mode with Brightness set to '100', and Gamma set to '2.2'.
Unfortunately, the Corsair 32QHD165 has just okay peak brightness in HDR. It's not bright enough to deliver a true HDR experience, and small highlights don't stand out at all. There's only one HDR mode on this monitor, and enabling locks out all other picture settings.
As expected for an IPS display, the Corsair Xeneon 32QHD165 has a great horizontal viewing angle. There's some brightness loss at wide angles, but most people won't notice it.
The Corsair XENEON 32QHD165 has just alright vertical viewing angles. Colors and gamma shift at moderate angles, causing the image to appear washed out to anyone looking at it from above or below.
The Corsair XENEON 32QHD165 has excellent gray uniformity. The sides of the screen are darker than the center, but it's not very noticeable with real content. There's almost no dirty screen effect, and near-dark scenes look almost perfect. Gray uniformity can vary between individual units, but it's rarely an issue on modern monitors.
Unfortunately, the Corsair XENEON 32QHD165 we bought has just acceptable black uniformity, but this can vary between units. The screen is cloudy throughout, and the backlight is bleeding through the edges a bit. Unfortunately, there's no local dimming feature to improve black uniformity.
The Corsair XENEON 32QHD165 we bought has amazing accuracy out of the box. The white balance is excellent, and there are no noticeable issues with color accuracy. The color temperature is slightly cool, but it's not noticeable. Gamma is closer to a flat 2.2 instead of the sRGB curve, which is a bit disappointing, as dark scenes are a bit too dark and brighter scenes are too bright
Unfortunately, the sRGB mode is almost a necessity with this monitor, as the other picture modes are oversaturated, as you can see in the CIE 1931 xy graph of the 'Standard' Picture Mode. This isn't a perfect solution, either, as all picture settings except 'Brightness' are locked in the sRGB mode. If you enjoy oversaturated content, the other picture modes are fine, but if you prefer accurate colors, it's best to either calibrate the monitor or use the sRGB mode.
After calibration, the Corsair XENEON 32QHD165 has superb accuracy. There are no noticeable issues with the white balance or colors, and gamma is much closer to the sRGB target curve. Visually, the difference between the out-of-the-box settings and the calibrated settings isn't very noticeable. Calibrating this monitor can still be advantageous, as it stops colors from being oversaturated outside of the sRGB mode, so you don't have to deal with the limits of the sRGB mode.
You can download our ICC profile calibration here. It's provided for reference only and shouldn't be used, as the calibration values vary per individual unit due to manufacturing tolerances, even for the same model.
The Corsair XENEON 32QHD165 has an incredible SDR color gamut, with perfect coverage of the sRGB and Adobe RGB color spaces. Unfortunately, it's a bit oversaturated in Adobe RGB, which may disappoint some users.
Thanks to the incredible SDR color gamut, this monitor has fantastic color volume in SDR. Colors are just as bright as pure white, but like most IPS monitors, it can't display dark saturated colors due to the low contrast ratio.
The Corsair XENEON 32QHD165 has an excellent HDR color gamut. It can display most of the DCI P3 color space used by most current HDR content. It also has one of the widest Rec. 2020 color gamuts we've measured on any display.
The Corsair 32QHD165 has good color volume in HDR. It's limited a bit by the incomplete color gamut, and like with SDR, it can't display dark saturated colors.
There are no signs of temporary image retention on our unit, which is great.
The Corsair XENEON 32QHD165 has superb gradient handling when sent a 10-bit signal, which, unfortunately, is only supported up to 120Hz. Above 120Hz, it can only display an 8-bit signal, and there's noticeable 8-bit banding.
Unfortunately, there's some vertical color bleed on our unit, but this can vary between individual units. It's rarely noticeable with real content, though, even on monitors that perform poorly on this test.
The Corsair XENEON 32QHD165 has decent reflection handling. Glare from bright lights or windows is still distracting, but the matte coating does a decent job reducing the intensity. Combined with the great peak brightness of this display, visibility won't be an issue indoors.
Unfortunately, due to the relatively low pixel density of the Corsair 32QHD165, it has just decent text clarity. The bottom photo with ClearType off shows some fringing around text, especially on curved or diagonal lines. Enabling ClearType vastly improves this (top photo), but it's still not great. If text clarity is important, a smaller 1440p monitor or a 32 inch 4k model would be a better choice.
| Response Time Setting | Response Time Chart | Response Time Tables | Motion Blur Photo |
| Normal | Chart | Table | Photo |
| Fast | Chart | Table | Photo |
| Fastest | Chart | Table | Photo |
The Corsair XENEON 32QHD165 has a superb response time at the max refresh rate. Like most gaming monitors, you can adjust the level of overdrive. We recommend the 'Fast' Response Time setting, as it delivers the best overall results, with a very fast rise/fall time, no overshoot, and no noticeable ghosting behind fast-moving objects.
At the max refresh rate, the 'Normal' mode is pointless, as 'Fast' is faster without adding any noticeable overshoot. The highest mode, 'Fastest', delivers a slightly faster response time, with all rise/fall times coming in under 3ms. That's fantastic, but there's significantly more overshoot and a noticeable inverse ghosting trail behind fast-moving objects.
| Response Time Setting | Response Time Chart | Response Time Tables | Motion Blur Photo |
| Normal | Chart | Table | Photo |
| Fast | Chart | Table | Photo |
| Fastest | Chart | Table | Photo |
The Corsair 32QHD165 has a fantastic response time at 60Hz. We recommend the 'Normal' Response Time mode this time, as it delivers the best overall results. The 'Fast' setting we recommend at the max refresh rate has more overshoot at lower refresh rates, so there's some inverse ghosting, but it's not too noticeable.
As this monitor lacks a variable overdrive feature, for the best results we recommend switching the overdrive setting to 'Normal' when changing to a lower refresh rate source. If you're looking for a "set and forget" mode, though, 'Fast' is the safest choice. Unfortunately, the 'Fastest' mode is pretty bad, with severe inverse ghosting behind fast-moving objects.
The backlight is completely flicker-free at all backlight levels, which is great as it can help reduce eye strain.
The Corsair XENEON 32QHD165 has an optional backlight strobing feature, commonly known as black frame insertion. Like most monitors, it's not available if FreeSync is enabled. Unfortunately, this feature is only available in a narrow refresh rate range, so it's not that useful. The team at Hardware Unboxed mentioned that they were able to get it working as low as 100Hz, which is a bit better, but that's most likely using a custom refresh rate signal. Keep in mind that our scoring is based on the flicker range and not the actual performance.
The Corsair XENEON 32QHD165 has a very fast refresh rate that most gamers will appreciate. It supports FreeSync variable refresh rate technology over both HDMI and DisplayPort, but over HDMI, the max refresh rate is 144Hz. Although advertised by Corsair as G-SYNC Compatible as well, it's not currently certified by NVIDIA. G-SYNC can still be enabled manually, though, and it appears to be working properly, but only over DisplayPort.
The Corsair XENEON 32QHD165 has exceptional low input lag, resulting in a very responsive gaming experience. Unlike most monitors, it even has slightly lower input lag with the variable refresh rate feature enabled.
Unfortunately, we couldn't measure the 10-bit HDR input lag because the highest refresh rate for 10-bit HDR over HDMI on this monitor is 60Hz, and we don't have the necessary tools to measure it at its max refresh rate over a DisplayPort connection. We don't expect HDR to increase the input lag. Strangely, this monitor is also limited to 120Hz with a 10-bit signal over DisplayPort. This is unexpected, as DisplayPort has enough bandwidth to support a 10-bit 1440p signal at 165Hz.
The Corsair 32QHD165 has a great amount of screen space to work with. The relatively low pixel density only delivers decent text clarity, though, but it's still great for multitasking.
There are two USB-C ports on the Corsair 32QHD165. One of them is the upstream port that goes to your PC, and the other is an input that supports DisplayPort Alt Mode and 15W of power delivery, which is, unfortunately, too low to charge any laptop.
The Corsair XENEON 32QHD165 isn't as well-equipped as most comparable monitors, but there are a few nice gaming extras:
- Refresh Overlay: Adds an overlay that displays the monitor's current refresh rate.
- Console Mode: More a feature of the device than an actual mode, it'll accept a 4k @ 60Hz signal from a supported console, and downscale the image to 1440p.
- Corsair iCue Integration: This monitor is fully compatible with Corsair's iCue software. This software can be used to adjust any setting on the display.
- Elgato Stream Deck Integration: Similar to the iCue integration, settings and inputs can also be assigned to Stream Deck buttons, so you can adjust your settings or change inputs with the push of a button.
- Warranty: Given that this is Corsair's first monitor, we feel it's worth mentioning that it comes with a 3 year warranty, which is uncommon.
