Cooler Master Tempest GP2711 165Hz Mini-LED Gaming Monitor Review

How Much Does it Cost?

Unfortunately, the Cooler Master Tempest GP2711 165Hz Mini-LED Gaming Monitor isn’t in stock just yet, with the launch now set for early January. However, I’ll be updating this review and adding retail links when the time comes. Why did I publish this review early? To let you know it’s coming as if you’re on the market for a killer gaming monitor, I think this one is worth waiting for! The flagship IPS version was amazing, but at £799.99 it’s a wallet buster, and the switch to VA will see that price nearly cut in half to just £429, oh, now I have your attention don’t I!? You can check for stock on Amazon here.

Overview

Cooler Master has done nothing but make the right choices with their gaming monitors, they continue to carve a dominant path in the market, from smaller more affordable monitors to their flagship mini-LED models, and extremely competitive ultrawide displays. They’re constantly competitive on price, undercutting some of the big-name brands while delivering better colour reproduction and lightning-fast panel performance that I’ve yet to find fault with.

If money is no object, I’d have the IPS panel all day long, but at nearly £400 more, it’s hard to justify the diminishing returns. Yes, it has better colours, yes it has a very fast response time, and yes it’s bloody excellent, but at second best, the GP2711 really isn’t that far behind. The colour reproduction is likely better than what most of you reading this have ever had on your gaming monitors in the last few years. The refresh rate is plenty fast at 165Hz, and the resolution is perfect for a 27″ panel at 2560×1440. It’s brimming with gaming-friendly features, just like its IPS big brother.

The backlight technology is fantastic too, 576-zone mini-LED backlighting technology is really something, and offers many of the benefits you get from something like OLED, such as rich black levels and killer HDR performance. But you don’t get the pitfalls of OLED burn-in, you get significantly higher peak brightness, and compared to many of the OLED monitors I’ve used, this panel doesn’t have active cooling, so it’s completely silent to use. Oh, and it’s naturally about half the price too.

Should I Buy One

I absolutely love this monitor, it’s truly fantastic to see mini-LED backlighting technology come down from the £1000-2000 models of recent years to sub £500 models, putting them finally within the reach of PC gamers at long last. With Cooler Master equipping both their VA and IPS panels with the same levels of high-end features, it certainly gives you a choice as a consumer, but this new VA panel is going to justify the investment in the IPS so much hardware, as it’s 95% of the thrills at nearly 50% of the price.