Gigabyte M27U  Monitor Review

The Gigabyte M27U has a rather simplistic design that features black plastic throughout, with both glossy and matte finishes. It isn't heavy on a gaming aesthetic, so it fits into any environment well.

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 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. If you have this monitor and experience the same thing, let us know in the comments.

The Gigabyte M27U has decent 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. The controls feel easy to use and register the inputs well.

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

The native contrast is mediocre. Blacks look gray next to bright highlights in SDR, and you can only use the local dimming feature in HDR. While local dimming improves the contrast, it still isn't good.

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, the recommended setting with it on is 'High.' 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 small highlights don't pop against dark backgrounds. 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 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 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. While it gets bright, small highlights don't pop against the rest of the image, and large highlights are dimmer due to the Automatic Brightness Limiter (ABL). The EOTF follows the target PQ curve well, but with a slow roll-off at the peak brightness, it doesn't let highlights get the brightest they can. 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. It only happens with Local Dimming enabled, and 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. There's some backlight bleed in the corners with local dimming disabled. While the local dimming improves the black levels and uniformity in zones that are off, there's a lot of blooming around bright objects.

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. One of the main advantages of calibrating it is that you have access to settings that are locked out in the sRGB mode.

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 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.

The HDR color volume is good. It displays bright colors well, but it's limited by its incomplete color gamut and low contrast, so it can't display dark colors very well. The color volume is better with local dimming enabled than with it disabled, too.

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.

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.

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

Your graphics card needs to use Display Stream Compression (DSC) to reach the max refresh rate over HDMI and DisplayPort.

On top of supporting FreeSync VRR and G-SYNC compatibility, it also supports HDMI Forum VRR.

The motion handling is good across the VRR range. The 'Picture Quality' overdrive setting is consistently fast, but there's some inverse ghosting and blur as the refresh rate drops. There's a 'Smart OD' setting that changes its performance based on the refresh rate, and the 'Speed' overdrive has such a high CAD that it passes the limits of the chart as you can see in an alternative chart here.

The refresh rate compliance is good. It's better than most LED-backlit monitors, but its response time isn't fast enough to make full color transitions before the monitor draws the next frame.

The CAD at the max refresh rate of 160Hz is very good. Motion looks sharp, but the 'Balance' overdrive has some inverse ghosting. If that bothers you, the 'Picture Quality' setting has less inverse ghosting but has more blur.

The CAD at 120Hz is good. There isn't too much motion blur, and unlike at the max refresh rate, the recommended overdrive is 'Picture Quality' because 'Balance' has too much inverse ghosting.

The CAD at 60Hz is decent. There's a bit of blur with fast-moving objects, but unlike at higher refresh rates, only the 'Off' overdrive doesn't have any inverse ghosting. This means you may have to change the overdrive if the frame rate of your game changes or you switch sources.

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 an audible coil whine noise with BFI enabled. It's loud and gets distracting, but it stops when you disable BFI. Let us know if you experience the same thing.

You can only enable it in the OSD with the refresh rate between 100Hz to 160Hz. If the refresh rate drops below 100Hz, the Aim Stabilizer toggle in the OSD is unavailable. This doesn't make the feature stop working as it continues to work down to 60Hz, but it's inconsistent, as it would stop working at 75Hz at times. This means it's best to use the feature between 100Hz and 160Hz.

This monitor doesn't have any noticeable VRR flicker with changing frame rates, which is fantastic for gaming.

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 with backlight strobing enabled.

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.

Since the Xbox Series X|S doesn't support HDR with 1080p or 1440p signals, this isn't a limitation of the monitor.

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. If you want a monitor that delivers more power over USB-C, check out the MSI MAG 274UPF.

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.