Conclusion
Final Words & Verdict
You know, I'll be the first to admit that our monitor reviews are more subjective rather than objective. I mean it's great to get all the data from the Spyder hardware including precise brightness levels and color gamuts, in the end though, often once you've calibrated a monitor, you'll still alter settings to match your personal preference. For me, a monitor works out the best if it offers a combo of features. I am an IPS man myself, TN for me is a gnarly word, for you however that might be exactly the opposite as you care less about dark blacks, viewing angles but are all for incredibly fast refresh rate screens. Then you have people that are willing to chuck down 1500 to 2000 bucks for a monitor, others go "hell nooo" and find their limit at 250 USD. It's all these variables that make choosing the right monitor very difficult, let alone recommend one. Today, however, we tested a gaming monitor that ticks most of the right boxes for many of you.
- Screen size: 32-inch, 16:9 aspect, curved (1800R)
- Native resolution: 2,560 x 1,440
- Refresh rate: 144Hz
- Panel type: VA
- Contrast ratio: 3,000:1 (typical)
- Brightness: 350cd/m2 (SDR); 600cd/m2 (HDR)
- Response time: 1ms MPRT
- Display inputs: 2 x HDMI 2.0b, 1 x DisplayPort 1.4
- USB hub: Yes, 2-port USB 3.0 with fast charging
- Tilt: Yes
- Raise: Yes
- Swivel: Yes
- Other: Headphone jack, audio input, AMD FreeSync 2, HDR.
Samsung has a properly nice offering with the C32HG70 aka CHG70 Quantum Dot series monitor. A Wide Quad HD 2560x1440 monitor that can do 144Hz. Next to that, it is able to handle adaptive sync, and, the big buzzword of 2018, HDR. In my subjective experience, at its price of just under 600 bucks, the display has got a lot to offer in terms of speed, performance, color accuracy, HDR, Quantum Dots and, albeit somewhat limited, local dimming.
Is the screen perfect? No, but then again is there a perfect gaming screen? The needs, desires, and requirements differ per person. I can tell you though, it's a pretty damn good display. You can easily tweak the color output to your preference, it's razor sharp in image quality and fast with its 144 Hz refresh rate. On the AMD side, FreeSync/Adaptive is lovely, however (and we assume you run the ultimate setting) FreeSync will only kick in at 48 Hz, and manages that up to 144 Hz. That means that all and any game will need to run at an FPS of 48 or higher for FreeSync to work. Anything below that will be compensated for by frame doubling, LFC. While overall a compromise, you need to be willing to deem it acceptable, I really want the lower threshold in Hz for FreeSync to become better. Really we need ranges starting at 30~40 Hz. My blaring and shouting here are a bit unsubstantiated, as FreeSync is (ergo it's in the name) a Free feature, there's no price premium for it compared to the 199 USD board that Nvidia charges for GSYNC. That high refresh rate then - 144Hz is a personal thing, for a generic majority of people 60 Hz screens are more than sufficient, true gamers like 144 Hz, especially fast ones with really low response times. The trend, I happily agree with, is slowly moving towards 144Hz becoming a new standard norm and, yes, the C32HG70 does a wonderful job at it - faster is better - but it also requires the corresponding expensive hardware, of course. The Samsung C32HG70 claims a 1ms Motion Picture Response Time, and that is a different value to the G2G times we normally can read. Typically, all VA panels sit at around 4~5ms MPRT. We measured this value at 5.4ms (MPRT).
The monitor overall
Samsung is offering a pretty compelling product with the C32HG70 but also the smaller C27HG70. See, the one comment I need to make though, it's big! You'd probably want to go for the 27 inch C27HG70, that will also get you a bit more pixel density. Ironically, both cost roughly the same and sit just under that 600 Euro marker. The performance seems really good, it also has very good contrast, color precision, and viewing angles. With just eight local dimming zones I expected blooming, but it was so hard to spot that I can say little negative about it. More local dimming zones would be better, of course. The screen offers nice black-levels and contrast, display quality and color precision overall. In SDR we normally see 350cd/m2 in whites, which is pretty spot on, we reached well over 400cd/m2, but once you are in HDR mode brightness can peak higher at a notch over 600cd/m2. HDR is terrific if the game supports it well enough; FFXV offers great HDR, Battlefield 1 really looks crisper, F1 2017 offers more contrast but lacked a little in color and Far Cry 5 was eye searing, yet oversaturated. HDR at this time in games still seems to be a bit of a wild-west, tone mapping from BT.709 colors into BT.2020 or vice versa with whatever color space format. It's a bit of a hit and miss here and there. For HDR movies and series or your 10-bit Windows 10 desktop, no... just no. If you like to watch HDR movies and series, invest in a proper HDR Ultra HD TV and run Netflix / Amazon Prime in HDR from the smart TV apps. On a PC (IMHO) it's just not worth the effort, time and irritation trying to get things working.
However, things need to be looked at from all points of view and, from an HDR investment point of view, at this price level, this display does a pretty good job with its 600 nits rated peak HDR brightness. It is a great SDR panel, and once games and Windows properly support HDR, that's when you are ready on the HDR side of things. But again, for gaming, right now it'll be hit and miss currently with some exceptions here and there. The games that do properly get support honestly bring in more detail with a dynamic range that will make your game more immersive, seeing is believing. The Standard and Ultimate FreeSync modes with varying functional ranges bring tear-free performance, give them both a try, we had no issue with the fastest Ultimate mode though we wish the lower frequency range was lower opposed to the 48 Hz it is now. As mentioned, out of the box color precision is good and, with the push of a button, pretty much color precise, or you can just as easily configure the screen to a color preference of your own. A calibrated monitor is not for everybody, it is, however, a reference point we use. In terms of color space, you will reach 100% of the sRGB color space. Gamma is spot on at 2.2, even uncalibrated. The black levels are great. Brightness uniformity shows offset under 15% but are within very good margins. The screen, once tweaked to your preference, will absolutely impress. Power consumption will sit in the 55 Watt range. With HDR perhaps add another 10 Watts in the peak brightness 600 nit segments. In standby mode, the monitor uses close to nothing at 0.2 Watts.
The Pre Verdict
Before I jump to the final conclusion, I wanted to make a few comments. I've been working with this monitor for a couple of weeks and also did quite a bit of homework on it. The screen, when released back in Q3 2017, initially had a lot of early release issues. I've read through the Samsung and popular forums and was quite amazed about stuff I read. This review and thus my experiences are based on Q2 2018 results and firmware, ergo the issues that some of you had, we, fortunately, have been able to skip. Our monitor however shipped to us with a 1013 series Firmware, and it caused all kinds of issues with HDR. Most games did not kick in. For this monitor to work out for you in HDR two variables are important, the first being that you need the latest firmware installed, the second... this monitor really needs to be paired with an HDR capable Radeon graphics card. We tested the latest firmware with a GeForce GTX 1080 and half of the games I tried did not work properly with HDR (SDR is fine of course). With the monitor firmware 1016.2 for the 32" model, we reached true gaming nirvana. With these updates we got the game titles working properly in HDR10 with a Radeon RX Vega. Also, the new Freesync range is 48-144Hz as of the latest update in DP Ultimate mode. With that said, now you can move onward to the verdict.
The Verdict
The Samsung C32HG70 truly is a proper good gaming monitor that ticks the most boxes. I like local dimming, I just wish it had way more zones. Then again I had a hard time spotting any blooming. You need to like the 1800R curve; for gaming, it's very comfortable and just works, for desktop PC OS usage however it can look weird browsing, say, that favorite website of yours, what was it called... yes, Guru3D. Also, the monitor stand runs pretty deep, albeit by design looks fantastic. The screen size at 32 inches is huge, in fact, let me put some more emphasis on that; really huge and you need to be aware of that fact before you purchase it. Remember there's a 27 inch model available as well. My advice, go to a local store and check out what feels the most comfortable for you, both models are roughly priced the same. The combination of FreeSync, FreeSync 2, 144 Hz and 600 nits for your HDR experience is lovely. Any problems with HDR are not the hardware, it's often the content. We need more properly developed HDR games and some pretty huge improvements and advancements in Windows 10. The upside, you are HDR ready with a screen that already offers really good SDR quality and performance. Color reproduction is good, screen uniformity is damn good. It has Displayport 1.4 and HDMI 2.0b and then some extras like a headphone connector (but not speakers) as well as the USB 3.0 hub with two ports. From an aesthetics point of view, the screen looks lovely, the bezels, however, are on the thick side. The FreeSync range starts at a 48 Hz frequency (with the latest firmware), in the Ultimate mode that does run upwards to 144 Hz. The screen quality overall is great though, the viewing angles rock, contrast is good as well as the maximum brightness level. The monitor sells for roughly 599 USD / 549 EURO and with everything the Samsung C32HG70 offers and does, we feel that it is worth the money in the first step towards HDR. I do strongly recommend a Radeon RX 4xx or better graphics card paired with this monitor as, in that combination, HDR worked really well (and yes, again remember to install the latest firmware). With a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080, HDR compatibility was disappointing with most titles. Paired with a modern AMD Radeon graphics card this monitor is a superb match and, once it hits that dynamic adaptive sync range in combo with HDR and a proper game, you will most certainly be impressed.
- Sign up to receive a notice when we publish a new article
- Or go back to Guru3D's front page
