Welcome back to Techspin, and we picked up this ultrawide Gigabyte G34WQC-A for our office admin, and we got to test it out for work, media and gaming, but be warned, it doesn’t work for PS4. There are cheaper ultrawide monitors, but some are wide 1080p, and some are just 75Hz, whereas this one is 3440 by 1440 at 144Hz.

Important to note that HDMI can support 1440p at 144 hertz, however being ultrawide, the extra 34% more screen maxes out over the HDMI 2.0 inputs at just 100 hertz. Only the dual DisplayPort 1.4 connectors will reach the panels’ maximum 144 hertz. And to reach your maximum cooling, here’s our sponsor, Noctua.

Gigabyte G34WQC-A 144Hz Ultrawide: Amazing & Immersive Gaming

Just a reminder you’ll need DisplayPort to get 144 hertz, as HDMI 2.0 is limited to 100 hertz at this ultrawide resolution. 1440p is often called 2K, but it’s WQHD or Quad HD, wiki link for more information.  This monitor is UWQHD, and we’ll throw in the link for displayninja.com which has a chart halfway down the page with HDMI resolution and max framerate based on HDMI spec.

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Quick Summary: Gigabyte G34WQC-A 144Hz

So the Gigabyte G34WQC-A is a 3440 by 1440 VA panel with an 144 Hertz refresh rate, 1 millisecond response and low 4.2 millisecond input lag. The 1500R curved screen is bright, delivering over the rated 350 cd/m2, and it has fairly good color accuracy, being a bit cool for white balance. But these become excellent after calibration. The off-curve gamma initially is a bit bright, but gets better also.

Viewing angles on the panel are pretty good, to be expected of an ultrawide VA panel with a tighter curve, and tilt and height are easy to adjust, however even at the max height i feel it sits maybe 4 centimeters too low. We tested the HDR10 capability with PS4 Pro 4K Netflix and you get the white pop and vibrant colors you’d expect at the 480 cd/m2 level. With Freesync support and G-Sync over DisplayPort only, it’s PIP and PBP capable.

For gamers the Overdrive ‘balance’ setting seems to do the best, with a bit of overshoot. Gaming on this screen is really great, the ultrawide area really immerses you in the action, however the challenge will be tweaking your game settings to actually hit 144 fps. Even Fortnite with an RTX 3070 required medium settings, often hitting from 95 to 120fps with some stutters and frame dips. You’ll need a 3080 or better to hit the higher settings.

Dual 2 watt speakers provide sound which gets drowned out too easily, though music at max is alright. The menu is nice and responsive, and smaller than the Gigabyte G32QC-A. There’s no dedicated power button, and it was rough in our wobble test. Although ultrawides need more care when handling, this ultrawide G34WQC delivers more desktop real estate for multi-window use, and watching movies was fun, and the gaming experience was pretty awesome.

Gigabyte G34WQC-A 144Hz Specs & Features

This ultrawide Gigabyte G34WQC-A lists for $400 in the United States, though we saw it on sale for 380. At 540 pounds in the UK, 690 Canadian, around 610 Euro, no Amazon listings for India, Australia or Japan. Normally 16,000nt in Taiwan, we pounced on a summer sale at a steal of just 11,800nt.

This 34 inch 144 hertz edge lit VA 1500R curved panel has is non-glare with a 1 millisecond MPRT response, and 8 bit color with HDR400 handling. Contrast is good at 3000 to 1, bright with 350 cd/m2 (candala/nits), and the max power draw is 80 watts.

Suitable for HDR and media creation with 90% DCI-P3 and 120% sRGB coverage, the 178° horizontal and vertical viewing angles have a gamma shift around 20 degrees left and right, brightness dims around 30 degrees. Vertically the gamma falls off faster, so you’ll need to sit fairly centered, though you shouldn’t really notice this in normal use.

While having vibrant colors out of the box, they are a little off accurate along with greys, and a blueish white balance according to Rtings.com. After calibration, the G34WQC-A’s color accuracy is amazing, with a leveled white balance, though the gamma is still over-bright. Freesync works and over DisplayPort only, G-sync is supported. Very low input lag at 4.2 milliseconds isn’t affected using VRR or black frame insertion, and at 60 hertz the lag goes up to 9.2 milliseconds.

The tilt and 10 centimeter height adjustment is useful with a monitor this size, and build quality is quite good being plastic, with a little flex on the back. The flat legs are useful as you can put stuff on them, though the unit suffers from a fair bit of wobble. *wobble test*

Gigabyte G34WQC 144Hz
-5° to 20° tilt, 100mm height
no swivel / pivot / rotate
809 mm wide (no stand)
489 mm high 363 mm
235 mm deep 115 mm
8.4 kg / 18.5 lbs

While this Gigabyte G34WQC-A does have a nice thin 2 millimeter bezel, the screen border adds to a total of 10 millimeters pixel to air. The dual 2 watt speakers on the Gigabyte G34WQC are easily overpowered by like, anything, and even in silence it was challenging to hear a quiet conversation on Netflix. So budget for a pair of speakers like the Creative Pebble v2’s. The panel does 144 hertz over DisplayPort only, while the two HDMI is capped to 100 hertz due to bandwidth limitation, though having dual DP connectors is great.

Gigabyte G34WQC-A 144Hz Setup, Testing

Cables in the G34WQC-A’s box were power, DisplayPort and HDMI. Ultrawide screens tend to be more fragile so take care when setting up. 100 millimeter VESA holes have an indented mount, and when mounting this, you’ll likely need a box and probably a helper too. The right side has a 5-way joystick for control but unfortunately no power button, which helps when troubleshooting issues.

Out of the box, the screen looks really good, it’s colorful and vivid, with that slight blueish white balance shift we mentioned earlier. Gamma doesn’t follow the curve well being too bright, though it’s better after calibration, which makes color accuracy excellent and delivers the right white balance. Check Rtings.com for their profile calibration.

With no local dimming, SDR peaks around 372 cd/m2, with HDR at 487. Gray uniformity is very good, and we saw the same backlight bleed with the G32QC-A, except with 5 apparent top and bottom hotspots. It’s only slightly noticeable on a full black screen, so in normal usage, you’ll maybe only see this a bit while watching a movie. For the menu, we’ll throw the link here for the G32QC-A review, almost exactly the same except for HDMI compatibility options, which leads into the PS4 testing.

The G34WQC-A does NOT work with PS4.

You shouldn’t buy this G34WQC-A for PS4 gaming, not sure about better compatibility with PS5. Connecting the PS4 Pro on either HDMI1 or HDMI2 there’s no signal, and we tested with 5 different cables and both ports. We tried it set to 4K, Automatic and 1080p, and it wouldn’t come up. We did find a workaround, which is to turn on your PC, then in monitor settings, down to PIP mode, turn on. Back in monitor settings, PIP again, source HDMI2. Back in monitor settings, PIP, Display Switch. Back in monitor settings, PIP, off. And you’d have to do this every time.

So we were able to test HDR with Netflix on our PS4 Pro, and watching the ‘Coastal Seas’ episode of Our Planet the colors were vivid and popped a bit more, and the whites also had the punch you’d expect at the 480 cd/m2 level, they hit a bit brighter than normal SDR white levels. Please take a moment to hit like, get subscribed, and click the bell, it supports us making new episodes, and you’ll get notified when we release new videos.

Unmatched PC Gaming experience on the G34WQC-A

First time using an ultrawide is interesting. Multi-tasking with several windows open feels more spacious, though if you’re the type to maximize one window, reading your inbox entries in gmail will have you turning your head. Watching Netflix on PC can be a bit weird with 16:9 shows being vertically letterboxed, like a lot, while most movies have no letterboxing which is pretty cool, and the curve to the monitor feels right for this width.

Color accuracy gets better after calibration but the panel looks great out of the box, and is suitable for media creation with good DCI-P3 coverage. The menu is responsive and the direct access directions on the 5-way joystick can be customized, though the reset all has no confirmation dialog. Build quality is great, though the height may be too low for Stream Decks and audio mixers that streamers have above their keyboards, so you may need to VESA mount this.

But you’re probably looking at the Gigabyte G34WQC-A for gaming, and it’s really immersive, perfect for racing games and any FPS games will give you a lot more area to see enemies and loot. The panel feels snappy and movement on screen is great. This doesn’t work for PS4, but it’s reported to work with XBox at 4K and 1440p at 60 hertz, and 120 hertz at 1080p. PS5 is reported to work on Rtings.com at 4K and 1080p at 60 hertz, but we don’t have either to test, so do your research.

Lack of PS4 compatibility is… odd

Of course you probably bought this for PC, but as a gaming monitor, you’d expect it to work with consoles, right? So why have two HDMI ports if they don’t work with PS4? This monitor released in August 2020, and the PS5 came out AFTER, in November 2020. So no support for the PS4 which came out end of 2013? This is just stupid. Even when we bring this to Gigabyte’s attention, there’s no way to update firmware to maybe fix this, because there’s no USB port on this $400 monitor.

So for PC, the Gigabyte G34WQC-A is an excellent gaming monitor, and watching media is interesting, though the included 2 watt speakers are too quiet and not as loud as other 2 watt monitor speakers we have in the studio, with the Windows 11 volume ding barely audible. At a 400 dollar price point, if you include speakers, can’t we get like 5 watt speakers that can actually be heard? But most gamers will have something setup already, so this may be a moot point.

And this accepts 4K at 24 frames from a Lumix G9, coming through at 1080p, useful to review camera footage if it’s the only monitor around. The picture was stretched at first, but setting the Menu in Gaming/Display Mode to Aspect made it 16:9, and it saves the settings per port. Changing this on DisplayPort for the stretched BIOS screen had no effect though. Finally, the simple and quick splash screen on first start isn’t annoying.

Overall the Gigabyte G34WQC-A ultrawide is very impressive, offering great real estate, cool movie experiences and full field of vision gaming, though you’ll need a very powerful GPU to match and still likely tweak down quality to hit a stable 144 fps. We’ll throw the link here for our monitor reviews, if you’re looking for a 4K screen for media creation the Acer is currently still our top pick, the Samsung is good too but with some drawbacks. If you do decide to pick one of these up, shopping through our affiliate links will help us here with no extra cost to you. And follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook at techspinreview.

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