Gigabyte M27U Monitor Review

The Gigabyte M27U has a rather simplistic design that aligns with other Gigabyte monitors. It features black plastic throughout with both glossy and matte finishes, and while it's a gaming monitor, it doesn't have a heavy gaming aesthetic.

The build quality is good. The plastic body feels sturdy as there aren't any obvious issues, and the plastic doesn't flex easily. The screen is stable on the stand, but it wobbles more when you adjust the height to more than halfway up. The controls on the back, including the KVM switch, also feel easy to use and register the inputs well. The main issue with this monitor is that when you enable the Backlight Strobing feature, there's an audible coil whine noise that's very distracting, but it stops once you disable the feature. We don't know if this is a problem with our unit only or a widespread issue, so if you have this monitor and experience the same thing, let us know.

The Gigabyte M27U has okay ergonomics. You can easily move the screen up and down but can't turn it to show something to someone next to you. It also features basic cable management through the stand.

The V-shaped stand takes up some space, and there isn't enough room between the legs to put your peripherals, so your mouse and keyboard need to be in front of it. Other than that, it holds the screen well, but there's some wobble when you set the height past the halfway point.

The Gigabyte M27U features a joystick to control the on-screen display and a KVM switch to change between which sources you want to control with your keyboard and mouse.

• DisplayPort cable
• HDMI cable
• USB-B to USB-A cable
• Three different power cables (Type B, I, and J)
• User manuals

The native contrast isn't bad, but it isn't anything special. While its local dimming helps improve the contrast, blacks still look gray next to bright highlights in dark rooms. Because you can only enable local dimming in HDR, the contrast with local dimming measurement is done in HDR.

This monitor has an edge-lit local dimming feature with only eight zones, and it performs terribly. You can only turn it on in HDR, and while leaving it off results in less blooming, setting it to 'High' delivers the best results with it on. Like most edge-lit local dimming features, it doesn't do much to improve the picture quality in dark scenes because most content causes all the zones to turn on. Because of this, there isn't any visible black crush, but you also lose details in scenes with small bright highlights, like a star field. The zones are quick to turn on but slower to turn off, which is noticeable when fast-moving objects transition between zones. There's also some color shift in the process.

Unfortunately, the biggest downside to an edge-lit local dimming feature is the blooming between zones that are on and off. This is distracting when there are small bright objects in dark scenes or when there are subtitles. However, because brighter content causes all the zones to turn on, this isn't as much of an issue with most things you watch.

The Gigabyte M27U has great SDR peak brightness. It easily gets bright enough to fight glare, and there isn't any distracting change in brightness between different scenes. These results are from after calibration in the 'Custom 1' Picture Mode with the Brightness at its max.

The HDR brightness is good. It gets bright enough to make highlights stand out, but larger highlights are dimmer due to its Automatic Brightness Limiter (ABL). The EOTF follows the target PQ curve well, with a slow roll-off at the peak brightness. This means it's tone-mapping games, even if your PC already tone maps them, meaning highlights roll off earlier than needed. These results are with HDR enabled and Local Dimming on 'High'.

During testing, we did notice an issue with a full-screen white window, where brightness oscillates every few minutes at a consistent rate, as you can see in this graph. This is noticeable when it happens, but it only happens with Local Dimming enabled. While you won't experience this with most content as it's only when you leave a full-screen white window open, disabling Local Dimming eliminates this issue and results in similar HDR brightness, as you can see below:

• Real Scene 630 cd/m²
• Peak 2% Window 678 cd/m²
• Peak 10% Window 681 cd/m²
• Peak 25% Window 682 cd/m²
• Peak 50% Window 682 cd/m²
• Peak 100% Window 683 cd/m²
• Sustained 2% Window 677 cd/m²
• Sustained 10% Window 680 cd/m²
• Sustained 25% Window 681 cd/m²
• Sustained 50% Window 681 cd/m²
• Sustained 100% Window 682 cd/m²

The Gigabyte M27U has a decent horizontal viewing angle. While the image gets darker at wide viewing angles, it's still good enough to share the screen with someone next to you.

The vertical viewing angle is good. The image looks consistent if you stand up and look down on it or mount it above eye level.

The gray uniformity is good. The edges of the screen are darker than the rest, but there isn't any noticeable dirty screen effect in the center, which is good for browsing the web or watching content like sports.

The black uniformity is poor. The screen is blue due to its low contrast with local dimming disabled, and there's some backlight bleed in the corners. While the local dimming improves the black levels in zones that are off, there's a lot of blooming around bright objects. As you can only enable local dimming in HDR, the results and the picture with local dimming are done in HDR.

The accuracy before calibration in the 'sRGB' Picture Mode is excellent. The sRGB mode locks colors to the sRGB color space well, as most colors aren't oversaturated, but blues are a bit off. The white balance and color temperature are also good. Gamma follows the sRGB curve well enough, but most scenes are darker than intended.

Unfortunately, using the sRGB mode locks most settings, including Overdrive and Black Equalizer. It's better to use the 'Custom 1' Picture Mode if you want to enable those settings, but the image is less accurate, as you can see with these results.

The accuracy after calibration is incredible, and you won't notice any inaccuracies in the image. It still doesn't display saturated blues perfectly, but that's a common issue with LCD panels.

The SDR color gamut is fantastic. It has perfect coverage of the commonly-used sRGB color space, and it also has great coverage of the Adobe RGB color space used in professional content creation. However, it doesn't display the full range of greens, and reds are oversaturated in Adobe RGB.

The SDR color volume is exceptional. It displays bright colors very well, but due to its low contrast, it struggles with displaying darker colors.

The Gigabyte M27U has an impressive HDR color gamut. It displays a wide range of colors in the DCI-P3 color space used in most HDR content, but it doesn't tone map well, as most colors are inaccurate. It has the same tone mapping issues as with the wider Rec. 2020 color space.

These results are with local dimming enabled, and both the gamut coverage and tone mapping are slightly worse with local dimming disabled, as you can see with the results below:

• DCI-P3 Coverage 90.2%
• Tone-Mapped DCI-P3 Coverage 77.5%
• Rec. 2020 Coverage 66.2%

The HDR color volume is alright. It displays bright colors well, but it's limited by its incomplete color gamut and low contrast. The color volume is better with local dimming enabled than with it disabled, too, as you can see from the results below:

• DCI-P3 In ICtCp 63.9%
• Rec. 2020 In ICtCp 59.1%

The Gigabyte M27U has decent reflection handling. While it struggles with direct sunlight, it still gets bright enough to fight glare in most well-lit rooms.

The text clarity is incredible, thanks to its high pixel density. Enabling Windows ClearType (top photo) helps improve the clarity of letters, but it isn't necessary. These photos are in Windows 10, and you can see it in Windows 11 with ClearType off here, and with ClearType on here. It also uses a different panel than the Gigabyte M28U and doesn't have the same issue with stretched pixels.

This monitor has exceptional gradient handling, as there's minimal banding with shades of similar colors.

The Gigabyte M27U has an overclock feature that you can use over DisplayPort.

Both the FreeSync support and G-SYNC compatibility work with HDMI and DisplayPort connections.

The Gigabyte M27U has a fantastic response time at its max refresh rate, resulting in smooth motion. The recommended Overdrive setting is 'Picture Quality' because it has a faster response time than with it off, and there's less overshoot than the other settings. 'Smart OD' is supposed to adjust the overdrive setting based on the frame rate, and it performs like 'Speed' at its max refresh rate.

The response time at 120Hz is excellent. There's minimal blur trail with fast-moving objects with Overdrive set to 'Picture Quality', and the other settings have more overshoot. Unlike at its max refresh rate, 'Smart OD' now performs similarly to 'Balance'.

The response time at 60Hz is great. Although there's some blur trail, it's better to leave the Overdrive setting disabled, as even 'Picture Quality', which performs like 'Smart OD', has overshoot leading to some inverse ghosting. This means you might have to turn Overdrive off if the frame rate game of your game drops and overshoot bothers you.

Refresh Rate	VRR - On	VRR - Off
160Hz
120Hz

The Gigabyte M27U has an optional backlight strobing feature to reduce persistence blur, which is commonly known as black frame insertion (BFI). There are some quirks about it, though, as there's audible coil whine noise with BFI enabled. It's loud and gets distracting, but it stops when you disable BFI. We don't know if this is a problem with our unit only or a widespread issue, so if you have this monitor and experience the same thing, let us know.

You can only enable it in the OSD with the refresh rate between 100 to 160Hz. If the frame rate drops below 100, the Aim Stabilizer toggle in the OSD is unavailable. This doesn't make the backlight stop flickering as it continues to work down to 60Hz, but it's inconsistent, as it would stop working at 75Hz at times. BFI and VRR work as expected between 100 to 160Hz, and while it continues working down to 60Hz, you may run into some issues.

The backlight remains flicker-free with all brightness levels, which can help reduce eye strain if you're sensitive to flicker.

The Gigabyte M27U has very low input lag for a responsive feel, even if you enable BFI.

The Gigabyte M27U supports all common formats from the PS5, but there are some issues. With VRR enabled at a 60Hz refresh rate and HDR on, there's distracting flickering, but it stops if you disable VRR.

This monitor works without issue with the Xbox Series X|S.

As the Gigabyte M27U doesn't support the full 48 Gbps bandwidth of HDMI 2.1, your graphics card needs to use compression to reach demanding signals.

The USB-C port supports DisplayPort Alt Mode to display an image from a compatible device. Still, because it's limited to only 15W of power delivery, it isn't enough to charge laptops. It also works with the KVM switch, which you can use to control two devices with the same keyboard and mouse.

This monitor works well with macOS, including the KVM switch. The default resolution is 1080p, but you can change it to 4k. VRR works well in games, but there are some flicker issues on the desktop, so if that bothers you, it's better to disable VRR. HDR also works well and looks fine. If you're using a MacBook, windows return to their original position when waking the laptop from sleep or reopening the lid.

The Gigabyte M27U has a few extra features, including:

• Black Equalizer: Adjusts gamma to make it easier to see opponents in dark areas while gaming.
• Crosshair: Adds different virtual crosshairs that your system won't detect, giving you a competitive advantage.
• Dashboard: Shows information from your PC like CPU and GPU temps, along with other info.
• Frame Rate Counter: Displays the current frame rate of your game.
• KVM Switch: This feature lets you easily switch between two devices and use the same keyboard and mouse connected to the monitor. Your two devices need to be connected via HDMI with the USB-B cable and via USB-C. You need a USB 3.1 USB-C cable with 10 Gbps bandwidth for it to work.