The LG 32GQ950-B is a 32-inch 4k monitor with a fast 160Hz refresh rate. It's part of LG's UltraGear lineup of gaming monitors, which have a great selection of gaming features. It's an updated version of the LG 27GP950-B, with a few improvements, including a new Advanced True Wide Polarizer, but it features a larger screen and isn't a direct replacement. It's one of the few monitors on the market that supports the full bandwidth of HDMI 2.1, making it a great choice for PS5 or Xbox Series X gamers.
Our Verdict
The LG 32GQ950 is a great monitor for most uses. It's amazing for gaming, with low input lag, a superb response time, and a great selection of gaming features. The large, high-resolution screen is great for office users or media creators. It has great accuracy out of the box and a superb SDR color gamut, making it a great choice for anyone who relies on accurate colors. Sadly, it's not a great choice for watching videos in a dark room or for HDR content, as it has a low contrast ratio, mediocre black uniformity, and a bad local dimming feature.
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Wide viewing angle.
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Low input lag.
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Very good peak brightness in SDR.
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Low contrast.
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Disappointing reflection handling.
The LG 32GQ950 is a great choice for office users. The large, high-resolution screen is great for multitasking, as you can comfortably work with multiple windows open at once, and it delivers exceptionally clear text. You can easily place it in an ideal viewing position thanks to its decent ergonomics, so you don't have to buy a mounting arm. Sadly, it has disappointing reflection handling, but this isn't an issue in most rooms as it still gets bright enough to overcome glare.
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Wide viewing angle.
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Very good gray uniformity.
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Superb SDR color gamut.
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Very good peak brightness in SDR.
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Large, high-resolution screen.
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Disappointing reflection handling.
The LG 32GQ950 is an amazing gaming monitor. It has excellent low input lag, ensuring a responsive gaming experience, and its fast refresh rate delivers superb motion handling, with almost no distracting blur behind fast-moving objects. It also has a great selection of gaming features, including support for both FreeSync and G-SYNC Compatible variable refresh rates. Both of its HDMI ports support HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, ensuring it can take full advantage of the PS5 and Xbox Series X.
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Superb response time at the max refresh rate.
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Wide viewing angle.
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HDMI 2.1 bandwidth for PS5 and Xbox Series X gaming.
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Low input lag.
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Low contrast.
The LG 32GQ950 is good for watching videos. The large, high-resolution screen and wide viewing angles are great for watching videos with a few people, and it delivers a more immersive movie-watching experience. Despite its disappointing reflection handling, glare isn't an issue in a bright room, thanks to its very good peak brightness. Sadly, it's not a good choice for a dark room, as it has a low contrast ratio, mediocre black uniformity, and a bad local dimming feature, so there's considerable blooming around bright objects with local dimming enabled.
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Very good gray uniformity.
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Very good peak brightness in SDR.
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Large, high-resolution screen.
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Low contrast.
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Disappointing reflection handling.
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Bad edge-lit local dimming feature.
The LG 32GQ950 is an impressive monitor for media creators. The large, high-resolution screen makes it easy to see more of your workflow at once, and the wide viewing angle ensures the sides of the screen remain uniform if you're sitting close to the screen. It has decent ergonomic adjustments, so you can easily adjust the screen to an ideal viewing position, but it doesn't swivel, so you have to turn the entire screen to show it to someone else. It has great accuracy out of the box and a superb SDR color gamut, which is great for content creators.
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Wide viewing angle.
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Very good gray uniformity.
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Superb SDR color gamut.
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Large, high-resolution screen.
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Low contrast.
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Disappointing reflection handling.
The LG 32GQ950 delivers a decent HDR experience overall. It has an excellent HDR color gamut and great color volume, so colors are bright, vibrant, and lifelike. It also has impressive peak brightness in HDR, and most content is displayed at the brightness level the content creator intended. Sadly, it has a low contrast ratio and a bad local dimming feature, so bright highlights don't stand out very well, and there's significant blooming in dark scenes with local dimming enabled.
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Displays a wide range of colors in HDR.
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Impressive peak brightness in HDR.
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Low contrast.
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Bad edge-lit local dimming feature.
- 8.2 Mixed Usage
- 8.2 Office
- 8.8 Gaming
- 7.6 Media Consumption
- 8.4 Media Creation
- 7.1 HDR
- Updated Oct 12, 2023: Added that the newer LG 32GR93U-B has much better Reflection Handling.
- Updated Oct 02, 2023: Corrected the depth of the Stand after we discovered an error with our original measurements.
- Updated Apr 18, 2023: Confirmed that 1440p works on this monitor with the PS5.
- Updated Jan 24, 2023: Noted that the newly-reviewed Samsung Odyssey G7/G70B S32BG70 has a faster Response Time At 60Hz than this monitor.
- Updated Jan 09, 2023: We checked for in-game flickering with some PS5 games, and found that it's noticeable with some games, especially Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales.
- Updated Aug 25, 2022: Review published.
- Updated Aug 23, 2022: Early access published.
- Updated Aug 16, 2022: Our testers have started testing this product.
- Updated Jul 26, 2022: The product has arrived in our lab, and our testers will start evaluating it soon.
- Updated Jul 12, 2022: We've purchased the product and are waiting for it to arrive in our lab.
Differences Between Sizes And Variants
We tested the LG 32GQ950-B monitor, which is part of LG's UltraGear gaming lineup. There are many other monitors in LG's UltraGear lineup with various configurations, some of which you can see in the table below. As they each have different specs, this review isn't valid for any of the other models.
| Model | Size | Panel Type | Resolution | Max Refresh Rate | HDMI 2.1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 34GP950G | 34" | IPS | 3440 x 1440 | 180Hz | No |
| 34GP83A-B | 34" | IPS | 3440 x 1440 | 160Hz | No |
| 32GP850-B | 32" | IPS | 2560 x 1440 | 180Hz | No |
| 27GP950-B | 27" | IPS | 3840 x 2160 | 160Hz | Yes |
| 32GQ950-B | 32" | IPS | 3840 x 2160 | 160Hz | Yes |
| 27GP850-B | 27" | IPS | 2560 x 1440 | 180Hz | No |
If someone comes across a different type of panel or their LG 32GQ950 doesn't correspond to our review, let us know, and we'll update the review.
Our unit was manufactured in May 2022; you can see the label here.
Compared To Other Monitors
The LG 32GQ950 is an amazing gaming monitor. It gets brighter than most similar monitors on the market; however, the lack of a full array or Mini LED backlight is disappointing and prevents it from delivering an impactful HDR experience. It's a great monitor, but there are much better alternatives available if you're willing to spend a bit more, including the Samsung Odyssey Neo G7 S32BG75.
Check out our recommendations for the best gaming monitors, the best monitors for Xbox Series X, and the best monitors for PS5.
The Samsung Odyssey Neo G7 S32BG75 is slightly better than the LG 32GQ950-B. The Samsung has much better contrast and a significantly better local dimming feature, resulting in better dark scene performance with less blooming around bright objects. On the other hand, the LG has better motion performance, as the Samsung shows significantly more smearing behind some transitions, and the LG has a much wider viewing angle, whereas the Samsung relies on an aggressive curve to keep the sides of the screen in your field of view.
The LG 32GQ950-B is a bit better than the Gigabyte M32U. The LG has a higher max refresh rate through an optional overclock, and it delivers better motion handling at all refresh rates, with less blur behind fast-moving objects. The LG also has full bandwidth HDMI 2.1 ports, whereas the Gigabyte relies on compression to achieve the highest formats. This isn't an issue for most sources, but the LG looks a bit better on sources that don't support the latest display stream compression format, including the PS5.
The LG 32GQ950-B is a higher-end monitor than the LG 32GR93U-B, but both monitors perform similarly. The main difference is that the 32GQ950-B has an overclock feature to boost its refresh rate up to 160Hz, but it doesn't work on all devices. The 32GQ950-B also has a local dimming feature, which the 32GR93U-B doesn't have, and while it helps improve the HDR brightness, it performs terribly overall. The 32GR93U-B is better to use in well-lit rooms thanks to its much better reflection handling, and it gets a bit brighter in SDR, too.
The Samsung Odyssey Neo G8 S32BG85 is a bit better than the LG 32GQ950-B. The Samsung has a higher refresh rate, delivering a smoother gaming experience and a sharper image, but there's a bit more black smear behind fast-moving objects. The Samsung looks way better in a dark room, as it has a significantly better local dimming feature, better contrast, and better black uniformity.
The Samsung Odyssey G7/G70B S32BG70 and the LG 32GQ950-B are both excellent 4k gaming monitors. They each have a 144Hz refresh rate, but the LG is overclockable to 160Hz for a slightly smoother feel. The LG gets much brighter in HDR to make highlights pop, but if you want to use the monitor in a well-lit room, the Samsung has better reflection handling. Also, the Samsung has better motion handling with 60Hz signals, but the LG has lower input lag at 60Hz for a more responsive feel.
The LG 27GP950-B and the LG 32GQ950-B deliver a very similar experience overall. The newer 32GQ950 has a larger screen, and it delivers a slightly faster response time, with less overshoot in the best mode. The 32GQ950 also has an updated design and feels better built, but overall, there's very little difference between the two.
The Cooler Master Tempest GP27U and the LG 32GQ950-B are both 4k monitors with a max refresh rate of 160Hz, but there are a few differences between them. The Cooler Master delivers better overall picture quality as it displays deeper blacks thanks to its better local dimming feature, and also gets much brighter in HDR for brighter highlights. The Cooler Master also has better reflection handling if you want to use it in a well-lit room. However, the LG has more accurate colors and wider viewing angles, so it's a better choice if your work requires accurate colors.
The LG 32GQ950-B is a bit better than the Sony INZONE M9. The LG has a faster response time, with no noticeable overshoot at the max refresh rate. The LG also has a better stand, with a wider range of ergonomics, so you can easily adjust it to an ideal viewing position. On the other hand, the Sony gets a bit brighter in SDR and has much better reflection handling, so if you're planning on using it for office work in a bright environment, the Sony is a bit better.
Test Results
The LG 32GQ950 has a slightly understated design from the front. The stand is slim but wide, and it takes up a lot of space. It has thin bezels on three sides, but unfortunately, there's a large gap of dead space between the side and top bezels and the first pixels, which is a bit distracting.
The LG 32GQ950 has good build quality overall. It feels a bit better built than previous LG UltraGear monitors, like the LG 27GP950-B. It's quite a bit thicker than most LG monitors, and it's very heavy. The base is sturdy and feels strong, and even though the back is made of plastic, it feels good.
The LG 32GQ950 has decent ergonomics. It has an excellent height adjustment and an okay tilt range, so it's easy to place it in an ideal viewing position. It doesn't swivel, and you can only rotate to portrait orientation in one direction, so the inputs will always be on the top.
The back of the monitor has a textured finish that gives it a definite gamer aesthetic. It has a hexagon RGB bias-lighting system, which you can customize to your liking. There's a hook on the back of the monitor for basic cable management.
The stand is wide, but there's a lot of space between the legs, so you can still place other things in front of the monitor. There's a bit of wobble, but the stand supports the monitor well, and it stabilizes quickly.
You use the easy-to-use joystick control under the front bezel of the monitor to navigate the OSD.
- Power cord
- Power supply
- DisplayPort cable
- HDMI cable
- USB-B cable
- Mouse holder
- User guide
The LG 32GQ950 has a mediocre contrast ratio, so blacks look gray in a dark room. Unfortunately, the edge-lit local dimming feature is ineffective at boosting contrast with most content.
Unfortunately, the LG 32GQ950's local dimming feature is bad. It's edge-lit, with 32 zones in two rows, so each zone covers a relatively large portion of the screen. Due to the large size of each zone, any object on the screen causes a large area of the screen to light up, resulting in significant blooming. The local dimming feature does very little with real content, as most scenes cause the entire screen to light up. On the other hand, there's barely any black crush, with very little loss of fine details in some scenes.
There are three different settings for the local dimming feature. Adjusting this setting adjusts how quickly the backlight reacts to fast-moving objects, but the difference between settings isn't very noticeable. The 'Faster' setting delivers the best results overall, but zone transitions can be very distracting with this setting, especially in very dark scenes with small, bright objects. Lower settings average out the backlight across more zones, which is a bit more distracting in very dark scenes, but the zone transitions aren't as noticeable.
The LG 32GQ950 has very good peak brightness in SDR. It's bright enough to overcome glare in a bright room, despite its disappointing reflection handling. There's very little variation in brightness with different scenes, and enabling or disabling local dimming makes no noticeable difference in the peak brightness.
These measurements are from after calibration in the 'Gamer 1' Picture Mode with Brightness set to max, and Local Dimming set to 'Faster'.
The LG 32GQ950-B has impressive peak brightness in HDR. It's bright enough to deliver an impactful gaming experience in HDR, and it's bright enough that even most video content looks close to the content creator's intent. Unfortunately, it can't maintain a high brightness level with large, bright scenes, and there's a significant decrease in brightness over time. The PQ EOTF follows the target curve perfectly until the peak brightness, where there's a gradual roll-off, ensuring bright highlights aren't crushed at all.
These measurements are in the 'Gamer 1' Picture Mode with HDR enabled, Local Dimming set to 'Faster', and Brightness set to max.
This monitor has a good horizontal viewing angle. The image remains consistent even if you're viewing it from the side, and the sides of the screen remain uniform even if you're sitting too close to it. The new ATW polarizer is supposed to improve contrast when viewed at an angle, but it doesn't make any measurable difference compared to the LG 27GP950-B.
The LG 32GQ950-B has a great vertical viewing angle. The image remains consistent even if you're sharing the screen with someone standing beside you or if you decide to mount it above eye level.
This monitor has very good gray uniformity. The sides of the screen are a bit darker than the center, but there's very little dirty screen effect. It's great for watching or playing sports or for anything with large areas of uniform color, including when browsing the web.
The LG 32GQ950-B has mediocre black uniformity. With local dimming disabled, the screen is cloudy throughout, and there's some distracting backlight bleed along the top and bottom edges. Enabling local dimming reduces cloudiness in dark areas of the screen, but due to the limited number of dimming zones, it's not very effective.
The LG 32GQ950-B has great accuracy out of the box. Color accuracy is good, and the sRGB mode limits colors to the sRGB color space, ensuring they're not over-saturated. The white balance is just okay, though, and brighter shades of gray are noticeably off. The color temperature is cold, giving the image a blue tint, and gamma doesn't follow the sRGB target curve well, as most scenes are darker than they should be.
Unfortunately, the sRGB mode locks you out of most picture settings. The Gamer 1 Picture Mode is the best alternative, but that results in a less accurate image as the colors are significantly over-saturated and the color temperature is even colder.
The LG 32GQ950-B has outstanding accuracy after calibration. Gamma follows the sRGB gamma curve well, ensuring everything displays at the correct brightness levels. Colors and the white balance are nearly perfect, and any remaining issues aren't noticeable. Unlike the vast majority of monitors, this monitor supports hardware calibration through LG's Calibration Studio, so you can enjoy an accurate image from any source, even if the source doesn't support ICC profiles.
The LG 32GQ950-B has a superb color gamut in SDR. It covers the entire sRGB color space and has great coverage of the wider Adobe RGB color space.
The LG 32GQ950-B has fantastic color volume in SDR. It fills out the sRGB and the Adobe RGB color spaces well. Its biggest issue is that it can't display dark, saturated colors very well due to its low contrast ratio.
The LG 32GQ950-B has an excellent HDR color gamut. It has nearly complete coverage of the DCI-P3 color space used by the vast majority of HDR content. Unfortunately, it has poor coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 color space.
The LG 32GQ950-B has great color volume in HDR. Colors are bright and vibrant, ensuring HDR content looks vivid and lifelike. It's mainly limited by its incomplete color gamut in the Rec. 2020 color space. Due to its low contrast ratio, it can't display dark saturated colors very well.
Unfortunately, the LG 32GQ950 has disappointing reflection handling. The semi-gloss coating doesn't do much to reduce the intensity of direct reflections. Thankfully, it has very good peak brightness, so you can still overcome glare by increasing the brightness. If you want something similar with much better reflection handling, check out the LG 32GR93U-B.
The LG 32GQ950-B delivers exceptionally clear text thanks to its high pixel density. Even in apps that aren't compatible with Windows ClearType settings (bottom photo), text is sharp and easy to read.
The LG 32GQ950-B has remarkable gradient handling. There's almost no banding in areas of similar color.
The LG 32GQ950-B has a fast refresh rate, delivering clear motion when gaming and a smooth desktop experience. It has an optional overclock to 160Hz, but unfortunately, it doesn't work with all devices and doesn't work consistently. We couldn't enable the overclock with our Radeon PCs, and on NVIDIA cards, it was occasionally unstable. In macOS, you're limited to 144Hz, and if you have an older graphics card that doesn't support display stream compression (DSC), the maximum refresh rate is 120Hz.
The LG 32GQ950-B supports AMD's FreeSync Premium Pro variable refresh rate (VRR) technology, but it's also certified to work with recent NVIDIA graphics cards over both HDMI and DisplayPort.
Response Time at 160Hz:
| Overdrive Setting | Response Time Chart | Response Time Tables | Motion Blur Photo |
| Off | Chart | Table | Photo |
| Normal | Chart | Table | Photo |
| Fast | Chart | Table | Photo |
| Faster | Chart | Table | Photo |
Response Time at 144Hz:
| Overdrive Setting | Response Time Chart | Response Time Tables | Motion Blur Photo |
| Off | Chart | Table | Photo |
| Normal | Chart | Table | Photo |
| Fast | Chart | Table | Photo |
| Faster | Chart | Table | Photo |
The LG 32GQ950-B has a superb response time at both 160Hz, with the optional overclock enabled, and at 144Hz on devices that don't support it. In both cases, the 'Normal' overdrive mode delivers the best results, with a very quick response time and no noticeable overshoot. The 'Fast' setting has a slightly faster rise/fall time, but there's more noticeable overshoot. Like most monitors, the fastest setting, 'Faster', has significantly more overshoot than the lower settings, but with real content, the overshoot isn't very noticeable. It's also one of the first monitors to be certified under VESA's new ClearMR certification program, receiving a ClearMR 6000 tier certification.
| Overdrive Setting | Response Time Chart | Response Time Tables | Motion Blur Photo |
| Off | Chart | Table | Photo |
| Normal | Chart | Table | Photo |
| Fast | Chart | Table | Photo |
| Faster | Chart | Table | Photo |
The response time at 120Hz is fantastic, and almost as good as at 144Hz or the max refresh rate. Motion is incredibly clear, with very little overshoot in the 'Normal' mode and almost no blur behind fast-moving objects.
| Overdrive Setting | Response Time Chart | Response Time Tables | Motion Blur Photo |
| Off | Chart | Table | Photo |
| Normal | Chart | Table | Photo |
| Fast | Chart | Table | Photo |
| Faster | Chart | Table | Photo |
The 60Hz response time is great. There's more noticeable blur behind fast-moving objects and more persistent blur due to the longer frame hold time. At 60Hz, the recommended overdrive setting is 'Off', as higher settings have more noticeable overshoot. If you prefer a single overdrive setting that performs well at all refresh rates, 'Normal' is a good alternative when gaming at 60Hz, and it's the best setting for higher refresh rates. If you want a similar monitor that has better motion handling at 60Hz, then look into the Samsung Odyssey G7/G70B S32BG70.
Unfortunately, the LG 32GQ950 doesn't have an option to introduce backlight strobing to improve motion clarity.
The backlight is nearly flicker-free at all backlight levels. It doesn't use pulse width modulation (PWM) to dim the backlight, but there's a high-frequency flicker pattern with a brightness setting of '29' or lower. It flickers at about 1282Hz below that setting, which isn't noticeable and likely won't bother people sensitive to flicker.
The LG 32GQ950-B has low input lag, delivering a responsive gaming or desktop experience.
This monitor is fully compatible with the PS5. Like a few other monitors we've tested with the PS5, some games flicker when local dimming and VRR are enabled. This appears to be an issue with the VRR implementation of certain games, and it's especially noticeable with Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales.
This monitor can take full advantage of almost everything the Xbox Series S and X have to offer. 1440p @ 60Hz requires a forced resolution on the Xbox, though, by using the HDMI Override settings. Unfortunately, this means that variable refresh rate support isn't available with a 1440p @ 60Hz signal, but 120Hz works fine, so it's not really an issue. Like all monitors, it doesn't support Dolby Vision gaming.
The headphone jack is located on the bottom bezel, so it's a lot easier to access than previous LG UltraGear monitors.
Unfortunately, the optional overclock doesn't work with MacBooks. Everything else works fine, though, and there are no issues with the variable refresh rate feature or HDR. When waking up a MacBook from sleep, windows return to their original position, but not if you just closed the lid.
The LG 32GQ950-B has a few extra features, including:
- Crosshair: Adds a virtual crosshair, allows you to cheat in games that don't normally allow for crosshairs.
- FPS Counter: Shows the current frame rate received from the source.
- Black Stabilizer: Adjusts gamma to make it easier to spot objects/players in dark scenes without adjust bright scenes.
- DAS (Dynamic Action Sync): Helps minimize input lag. This feature is enabled automatically when playing at the monitor's maximum refresh rate and can't be disabled.
The LG 32GQ950 has a very similar interface to other LG UltraGear monitors released around the same time, including the LG 27GP950-B. It's well-organized and easy to navigate.