How Much Does it Cost?
The AOC CU34G3S 34″ Ultrawide 165Hz Gaming Monitor is available now from many major retailers, with prices around £748. That’s a lot of money, but then again, this is a lot of monitor too. Keep in mind, it has a high-refresh-rate panel and it’s pretty massive, those two factors alone account for a significant chunk of that price. Having extra display inputs, a good USB hub, a good quality stand, etc, all fill in the gaps in that budget too.
Overview
AOC has hit the mark yet again. They’ve been delivering consistently impressive monitors for as long as I can remember, and really little has changed. Actually, that’s true of this monitor, it’s the 3rd revision of this model, and this year’s updates are nice, but not a huge departure from last years model. The panel has been upgraded from a 144hz to a 165hz panel, that’s not a huge upgrade, but it is better, and there’s no need to argue with that. With FreeSync Premium you get a much wider range of refresh rate for the panel to respond to, ensuring there are even fewer chances of screen tearing.
At 3440 x 1440, you get a lot of on-screen detail, and at 34″ wide, it’s a lot of screen to take in too, making every movie and game you play feel very engrossing. Admittedly, not a whole lot can make a spreadsheet exciting, but it’s also a nice display format for working on any kind of document. There’s one downside though, performance. Actually maxing out that refresh rate at this resolution takes some serious grunt, and AAA titles will need a beastly GPU to get the most out of it.
The panel performance was superb though, and the out of the box performance was very impressive. However, setting it to sRGB and enabling the uniformity setting netted an even better result, and very accurate gamma and tone response. However, from a personal preference, the default profile had a little more pop to it that looked great while gaming. That’s fairly subjective though, but at least out of the box, you really don’t have to tinker with much.
Should I Buy One?
Yes, if you’re looking for a large panel, curved ultrawide monitor with plenty of pixels and a bountiful refresh rate, you’ll love what the AOC CU34G3S has to offer. If I had last years model, I wouldn’t feel the need to upgrade, but it’s certainly an improvement overall and one of the best monitors of this format you’ll find (quite a lot) under £1000.
