The Gigabyte G34WQC is a great budget gaming monitor with an ultrawide screen. It has a 34 inch screen with a 21:9 aspect ratio, providing incredible immersion in video games and plenty of space for multitasking. It's well-suited for bright and dark rooms, as it gets bright enough to fight glare and can produce deep blacks. It has exceptionally low input lag, great response time, and a 144Hz refresh rate, delivering a gaming experience that feels smooth and responsive. It supports FreeSync natively and is compatible with NVIDIA's G-SYNC as well. Unfortunately, it has poor ergonomics and sub-par viewing angles, which isn't ideal if you want to share content or play co-op games. It gets decently bright in HDR, but the color gamut is somewhat limited.
The Gigabyte G34WQC is a good monitor overall. Although it's designed primarily for gaming, it's suitable for a wide range of uses. Its large screen and high resolution are excellent for work and media consumption. It has a low input lag, a quick response time, and a high refresh rate, resulting in smooth and responsive gameplay. However, it isn't ideal for sharing content due to its poor ergonomics and narrow viewing angles.
The Gigabyte G34WQC is decent for office use. You can work comfortably with multiple windows opened side-by-side thanks to its large ultrawide screen. It has a high resolution to render text clearly, and a low input lag to provide a responsive desktop experience. It handles reflections well and gets bright enough to fight glare. Sadly, it has poor ergonomics and sub-par viewing angles, making it harder to place the screen at your ideal viewing position or share work with colleagues.
The Gigabyte G34WQC is a great gaming monitor. It has low input lag, and it delivers smooth gameplay with its fast response time and 144Hz refresh rate. It has both FreeSync support and G-SYNC compatibility to reduce screen tearing. It has a high contrast ratio to produce deep blacks, making it a good choice for gaming in the dark. It isn't ideal for co-op gaming, though, as it has poor ergonomics and narrow viewing angles.
The Gigabyte G34WQC is good for media consumption. It has a large screen to provide immersion and a high resolution to deliver sharp images. It's well-suited for both dark and bright rooms, as it can produce deep blacks and gets bright enough to overcome glare. Unfortunately, it has poor ergonomics, making it difficult to adjust the screen to your ideal viewing position. Also, its narrow viewing angles make the image look washed out at the sides if you sit up close.
The Gigabyte G34WQC is good for content creation. Its ultrawide format is excellent for multitasking, and its high resolution allows you to see all the fine details in your work. It has an outstanding SDR color gamut, but you may need to calibrate it first, as its out-of-the-box accuracy is only decent. Unfortunately, it has poor ergonomics and narrow viewing angles, so it isn't the best option if you need to share your work with coworkers or clients.
The Gigabyte G34WQC is decent for gaming in HDR. It has a large screen with a high resolution to deliver an immersive experience. It has a low input lag, fast response time, and a 144Hz refresh rate to provide smooth and responsive gameplay. It gets decently bright in HDR, but the color gamut is just okay, and there's no local dimming.
The Gigabyte G34WQC has a simple design that looks almost identical to the Gigabyte G32QC but in an ultrawide format. It has the same V-shaped stand and thin borders.
The back of the monitor is plain except for the branding and the glossy top portion. There's a small cutout at the bottom of the stand for cable management. There's no quick-release feature to remove the stand for VESA-mounting.
The Gigabyte G34WQC has a good build quality, similar to the Gigabyte G32QC. It's mostly plastic, and although there's a bit of flex on the back panel, it feels sturdy overall. The stand supports the monitor well and doesn't wobble much. The height and tilt adjustments feel stable and solid, but the plastic covering the hinges feel cheap, and the same goes for the plastic covering the stand's base. There aren't any brackets holding the monitor to the stand, so they're attached with screws only. This means that if you need to remove the stand to VESA-mount it, you have to be careful not to let the monitor fall after unscrewing it from the stand.
The Gigabyte G34WQC doesn't have a local dimming feature. The video above is provided for reference only.
The Gigabyte G34WQC has great SDR peak brightness, a little above the advertised 350 cd/m². It's remarkably consistent when displaying different scenes, and it's bright enough to overcome glare in nearly any lighting conditions.
We measured the SDR peak brightness after calibration in the 'Custom 1' Picture Mode and with Brightness set to max.
The Gigabyte G34WQC has decent HDR peak brightness and meets the required 400 cd/m² for its DisplayHDR 400 certification. Like in SDR, the brightness is very consistent across different content. It's bright enough to deliver an okay HDR experience in video games, especially if you game in a dark room, but it isn't enough for HDR movies.
We measured the HDR peak brightness in the 'Custom 1' Picture Mode with HDR on. The Brightness is locked to max when HDR is enabled.
As is expected of most VA panels, the Gigabyte G34WQC has sub-par horizontal viewing angles. You lose image accuracy as soon as you move off-center, which isn't ideal for sharing content on your screen or playing co-op games.
The vertical viewing angles are poor, making images look inaccurate if you have the screen mounted above eye level.
Before calibration, the Gigabyte G34QC has decent accuracy, although this varies between individual units. Most colors and shades of gray are somewhat inaccurate, and it has a cold color temperature that gives the image a slight blueish tint. Gamma doesn't follow the target curve at all. Most scenes appear too bright, and very bright scenes are too dark.
After calibration, the Gigabyte G34WQC's accuracy is exceptional. The remaining color inaccuracies shouldn't be visible to the naked eye, and white balance is nearly perfect. The color temperature is much closer to our 6500K target. Gamma is much improved, but dark and bright scenes are over-brightened.
You can download our ICC profile calibration here. This is 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 G34WQC has an okay HDR color gamut. It has decent coverage of the commonly-used DCI P3, but its coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 color space is mediocre.
Our measurement of the DCI P3 coverage is lower than the advertised 90% due to how we measure it. We measure it by sending a Rec. 2020 signal, but unlike most reviewers, we limit the colors to the DCI P3 primaries. This results in a lower but arguably more accurate measurement.
There's a tiny amount of image retention after exposing a high-contrast image for ten minutes. However, it dissipates quickly, and this can vary between units.
The Gigabyte G34WQC has exceptional gradient handling. There's only a little bit of banding in the grays and greens. This monitor is advertised as having an 8-bit panel; however, it's identified as a 10-bit panel in the NVIDIA control panel and the Radeon app. It may be 8-bit+FRC, but we're unable to confirm it.
Good reflection handling. The matte anti-reflective coating works well in reducing the intensity of reflected lights. Combined with the screen's high peak brightness, you shouldn't have any visibility issues.
Overdrive Setting | Response Time Chart | Response Time Tables | Motion Blur Photo |
Picture Quality | Chart | Table | Photo |
Balance | Chart | Table | Photo |
Speed | Chart | Table | Photo |
Update 12/03/2020: We mistakenly indicated the dark total response time as 185.1ms instead of 18.1ms. It has been fixed and the score has been adjusted accordingly.
The Gigabyte G34WQC has a great response time at its max refresh rate, but just like the Gigabyte G32QC, there's black smearing behind fast-moving objects. The best overdrive setting is 'Balance', as it provides the best performance with minimal overshoot.
Overdrive Setting | Response Time Chart | Response Time Tables | Motion Blur Photo |
Picture Quality | Chart | Table | Photo |
Balance | Chart | Table | Photo |
Speed | Chart | Table | Photo |
The response time at 60Hz is good. The best overdrive setting is again 'Balance' because the 'Picture Quality' option is slower and results in a blurrier image, and the 'Speed' option has too much overshoot.
The Gigabyte G34WQC has an optional Black Frame Insertion feature to improve motion clarity called 'Aim Stabilizer'. There's less black smearing when enabled, but it causes slight image duplication. It isn't usable while VRR is active, and it locks the overdrive setting to 'Speed'.
The Gigabyte G34WQC supports FreeSync natively to reduce screen tearing when gaming. It's compatible with NVIDIA's G-SYNC as well, but it only works over a DisplayPort connection. The refresh rate is limited to 100Hz over HDMI.