Gigabyte AORUS FI32U Monitor Review

The Gigabyte FI32U has a gamer-oriented design, with a very fancy stand with lots of sharp angles and an RGB backlight for bias lighting. The bezels are thin on three sides, and even the bottom bezel with the AORUS logo isn't very distracting.

The stand on the Gigabyte FI32U has a wide footprint, but each leg is thin, so it doesn't prevent you from placing objects in front of the display. The stand supports the monitor well, with just a bit of wobble when adjusted close to the maximum height.

The Gigabyte FI32U has good ergonomics. It has a great height and tilt adjustment, so you shouldn't have any difficulties adjusting it to the ideal viewing position. It also rotates to portrait orientation, but only on one side, so the inputs will always be on the left side of the screen.

The back of the Gigabyte FI32U has two chevron-shaped RGB backlights (seen here off). There's a separate RGB backlight on the back of the stand as well. Cable management is pretty basic, but you can route cables through a hole in the stand to help keep your desk somewhat tidy.

The Gigabyte FI32U has great overall build quality. The stand is metal and feels very sturdy. There's a bit of wobble when the stand is close to its maximum height, but it's not too bad. The display portion is almost entirely plastic but feels solid. There's a bit of flex in some of the panels, but nothing that seems likely to cause any problems.

The Gigabyte FI32U has mediocre contrast, resulting in blacks that look gray in a dark room. Contrast can vary between models, but these results are about what we expect from an IPS monitor. Unfortunately, the local dimming feature is ineffective at boosting contrast with our checkerboard pattern, likely due to the limited zone count.

Note: The contrast measurements with local dimming were taken at the maximum brightness, as local dimming locks the brightness setting at max.

The Gigabyte FI32U has a local dimming feature, but it's bad. It seems to have about 16 dimming zones, in a single row lit from the top and bottom at the same time. Due to the large size of each zone, there's considerable blooming but no black crush. Zone transitions can be noticeable in dark scenes, but in most content, there's simply not enough difference between lit and dimmed zones for it to be very noticeable. Subtitles on a dark background can be very distracting due to the blooming, but in bright content, every zone is usually lit anyway, so there's no blooming.

The local dimming feature is available in every Picture Mode, except for the sRGB mode. In HDR, it's enabled by default and can't be disabled in 'HDR400'.

The Gigabyte FI32U has very good peak brightness in SDR. There's no noticeable difference in brightness with different content, but small highlights are dimmed slightly by the local dimming feature.

These measurements were taken after calibration, in the 'Custom 1' Picture Mode, with the backlight at max and local dimming enabled. The peak brightness can change depending on which mode you're using.

The Gigabyte FI32U has just okay peak brightness in HDR. There's very little variation in peak brightness, but like with SDR, small highlights are dimmed slightly by the local dimming system, but this is hardly noticeable. It meets the requirements for VESA DisplayHDR 400, which is the most common DisplayHDR certification for monitors, but it offers the least impactful HDR experience.

These measurements are taken before calibration, in the 'HDR400' Picture Mode, with the backlight at max and local dimming on. The peak brightness can change depending on which mode you're using.

The Gigabyte FI32U has a reasonable horizontal viewing angle. Colors remain mostly accurate even at a wide angle, but reds shift as you move further off-center. Gamma remains accurate up to a moderate angle, but black levels rise at a small angle. Most people shouldn't have any issues sharing the screen with a few other people. This is expected for a monitor with an IPS panel, and much better than similar monitors with VA panels.

The Gigabyte FI32U has a good vertical viewing angle. The behavior is pretty much the same as the horizontal viewing angle. This is good if you often share your screen with someone standing next to you, or if you plan on mounting your monitor above eye level.

The Gigabyte FI32U we bought has great gray uniformity, but it's a bit worse than most similar displays on the market. The sides of the screen are a bit darker than the center, but there's little dirty screen effect. Gray uniformity can vary between units, but it's rarely an issue on recent monitors.

The Gigabyte AORUS FI32U has passable black uniformity, but this varies between units. There's a bit of noticeable cloudiness throughout the screen, especially along the top and bottom where the backlights are. The local dimming feature helps to reduce the overall cloudiness, but due to the limited number of dimming zones, it lights up a large section of the screen around the cross.

The Gigabyte FI32U we bought has good accuracy out of the box, but this can vary between units. Gamma follows close to the sRGB target curve in near-dark scenes but undershoots it most of the way, so all scenes are brighter than they should be. The sRGB mode effectively clamps the color space to the sRGB primaries, and there are no significant issues with colors out of the box. White balance is a bit off, and the color temperature is a bit cool, giving everything a bluish tint.

Out of the box, the most accurate picture mode is the sRGB mode. Unfortunately, this mode brings some limitations; all settings except for the brightness are locked and can't be changed, including the color temperature.

After calibration, the Gigabyte AORUS FI32U has nearly perfect accuracy. The issues with the white balance are gone, the color temperature is nearly perfect, and gamma follows the sRGB target curve almost perfectly.

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 Gigabyte FI32U has a superb SDR color gamut. It can display the entire sRGB color space used by most web and desktop content. Coverage of the wider Adobe RGB color space is great but might be a bit too low for some professional users. Strangely, it significantly oversaturates pure reds in the Adobe RGB color space, but can't display the full range of yellow, cyan, or green.

The Gigabyte AORUS FI32U has fantastic color volume in SDR. It can't display saturated colors at low luminance levels due to the low contrast ratio but otherwise fills out the sRGB gamut completely. In Adobe RGB, it's limited by its incomplete coverage of the color space, but it's still excellent.

The Gigabyte FI32U has a good HDR color gamut, and it can display a wide color gamut. It has excellent coverage of the DCI P3 color space used by most current HDR content, but can't display the full range of green, yellow, or cyan. Coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 color space is mediocre, so it's not very future-proof.

Note: The DCI P3 coverage is a bit lower than the advertised 90% coverage. This is normal and is due to the way we measure DCI P3. We measure DCI P3 by sending a Rec. 2020 signal, but unlike most reviewers, we limit the colors we're sending to the DCI P3 primaries. This results in a lower but arguably more accurate measurement.

The Gigabyte FI32U has decent color volume in HDR. It's mainly limited by the incomplete coverage of each gamut, and like with SDR content, it can't display saturated colors at low luminance levels.

There are minor signs of temporary image retention on the Gigabyte AORUS FI32U we bought, but it's not at all noticeable with real content. This can vary between units. Note that some minor retention was detected after 6 minutes, but this is just a flaw in the algorithms used.

The Gigabyte AORUS FI32U has fantastic gradient handling. Other than a tiny bit of banding in dark greens, everything else looks great, with no noticeable banding.

This model accepts a 10-bit signal and displays it well. It's advertised to use dithering to approximate a 10-bit panel, which is also known as 8-bit + FRC, but we can't test for that.

There are no noticeable signs of color bleed on our Gigabyte FI32U. This can vary between units, but is rarely noticeable.

The Gigabyte FI32U has decent reflection handling. The matte finish partially diffuses direct lights, but glare might still be distracting in some cases.

The Gigabyte FI32U has outstanding text clarity thanks to the high-resolution screen and high pixel density. While running Windows ClearType can help improve text clarity a bit (top photo), it's not necessary, as text looks good even without it (bottom photo).

The Gigabyte AORUS FI32U has a fantastic response time at the maximum refresh rate, resulting in very clear motion with almost no noticeable blur behind fast-moving objects. We recommend the 'Off' Overdrive setting, as the other modes all have significant overshoot. If blur bothers you, the 'Picture Quality' mode has much less blur behind fast-moving objects, but there's a noticeable inverse ghosting trail instead. The response time is fairly consistent across transitions.

The FI32U features a 'Smart OD' mode that's advertised to work similarly to a variable overdrive feature by automatically selecting the best mode, depending on the refresh rate. This saves you from having to adjust the Overdrive if you switch to a lower refresh rate. At both 144Hz and 60Hz, it appears to be in the 'Balance' mode, so we're not sure if it's doing anything.

The response time at 60Hz is excellent, very similar to the max refresh rate. We still recommend the 'Off' Overdrive setting, as all other modes have noticeable overshoot, even 'Picture Quality'.

The FI32U features a 'Smart OD' mode that's advertised to work similarly to a variable overdrive feature by automatically selecting the best mode, depending on the refresh rate. This saves you from having to adjust the Overdrive if you switch to a lower refresh rate. At both 144Hz and 60Hz, it appears to be in the 'Balance' mode, so we're not sure if it's doing anything.

The Gigabyte AORUS FI32U has a completely flicker-free backlight, which is great as it can help reduce eye-strain.

The Gigabyte AORUS FI32U has an optional backlight strobing feature, which is commonly known as black frame insertion (BFI). It's available over a great range of refresh rates, but it doesn't work at 60Hz, which is disappointing. There's a bit of strobe crosstalk, causing an offset duplicated image that can be distracting. Note that our scoring is based only on the refresh rates that support BFI, not on how well the feature actually works.

Unlike most monitors on the market, the BFI feature can be enabled at the same time as the variable refresh rate feature, but only if the refresh rate is set to at least 120Hz. BFI remains active even if your frame decreases as low as 80fps, but if decreases below that BFI stops working.

The high refresh rate of the Gigabyte FI32U is great for gaming. It's certified to work with AMD's FreeSync variable refresh rate technology, which works over both HDMI and DisplayPort, great for PC and console gamers alike. We also found it to work well with NVIDIA's G-SYNC Compatible mode, but it's not officially certified, so results may vary. Note that G-SYNC Compatible Mode only works over DisplayPort.

Like the Gigabyte M28U, the maximum refresh rate supported varies depending on the source. You can read more about what to expect and what's supported in our additional review notes.

Update 11/22/2021: Gigabyte has released a new firmware update for this monitor, F06, that significantly improves the input lag. The 60Hz input lag is still high, but everything else is much better.

The Gigabyte AORUS FI32U has fantastic low input lag at the native refresh rate. Similar to the Gigabyte M28U, the 60Hz input lag is higher but still decent. Enabling the variable refresh rate feature increases the input lag, but most people won't notice the difference.

These results were measured over HDMI 2.1 with an RTX 3070, but we also measured the input lag over DisplayPort 1.4. At the max refresh rate we measured an average of 11.5ms of input lag, an increase of about 0.8ms over HDMI 2.1. Display Stream Compression (DSC) is used for both HDMI 2.1 and Displayport 1.4 at the max refresh rate, so this difference appears to be a difference between the ports themselves and isn't caused by DSC. At 60Hz without DSC, we measured an average of 21.9ms, an increase of about 0.2ms over HDMI 2.1.

Unfortunately, we can't test the HDR input lag at the maximum refresh rate, as we can only test HDR over HDMI, and the maximum refresh rate of this monitor over HDMI requires an HDMI 2.1 port. Our test equipment is limited to HDMI 2.0, so we can't test HDMI 2.1 input lag at the moment. We don't expect HDR to make any difference to the input lag.

The Gigabyte AORUS FI32U has a 4k, 32 inch screen, which is incredible for multitasking. It delivers a great amount of screen space to work with, and it has outstanding text clarity. If you're looking for something a bit bigger, check out the Gigabyte AORUS FV43U.

Update 01/13/2022: We confirmed that one of the Analog Audio Outputs also supports Digital Optical Audio Out, and it works with a Mini Toslink cable.

Update 08/17/2021: We were able to confirm that although the Gigabyte AORUS FI32U supports HDMI 2.1, it's limited to 24Gbps, and relies on Display Stream Compression (DSC) 1.2a for anything that requires higher bandwidth. This introduces some limits on the supported resolutions, depending on the source device. You can read more about the supported resolutions here. That page is for the Gigabyte M28U, but the supported resolutions are the same for this monitor, as both displays have the same limitations.

The Gigabyte AORUS FI32U is one of the few monitors on the market to feature two HDMI 2.1 ports, but they're limited to 24Gbps instead of the maximum of 48Gbps.

The Gigabyte AORUS FI32U has a ton of additional features available, most of them gaming-oriented. It also supports Picture-in-Picture or Picture-by-Picture, allowing you to display two sources at once. Some of the other features include:

• Virtual Crosshair: There are four virtual crosshairs to choose from. Unlike software virtual crosshairs, these can't be detected by your games.
• Frame Counter: Displays the current number of frames per second received from the source.
• Black Equalizer: Adjusts gamma to make it easier to spot other players/enemies in shadows.
• ANC: One of the main features of the AORUS lineup. Unlike ANC on headphones, this feature works by connecting a microphone to the back of the monitor. The AORUS can eliminate ambient noise from your mic.
• KVM: Like Gigabyte's M Series monitors, the AORUS lineup also features a built-in keyboard, video, and mouse switch, but there's no dedicated button at the back. This feature allows you to switch between two sources, and work on both of them with a single keyboard, mouse, and monitor. You can assign it to one of the joystick shortcuts though.
• Dashboard: This feature allows you to display vital statistics from your computer, including CPU and GPU temps, fan speeds, memory usage, etc...

This is just a summary of the features available. AORUS monitors typically come with the same extra features, you can read more about each one here. Those notes are for the Gigabyte AORUS AD27QD, but they're valid for all AORUS monitors.

You can control the OSD using the joystick button on the bottom of the monitor. Unlike the Gigabyte M Series monitors, like the Gigabyte M28U, there's no dedicated button for the KVM switch.

• User manuals
• DisplayPort cable
• HDMI cable
• USB-B upstream cable
• USB-C cable
• 3 different power cables (Type B, I, and J)