A bright OLED for any room

After passing over the first half of 2024, OLED panels now appear to be taking over the high-end gaming monitor market. Not too long ago, a choice had to be made between striking visuals or motion clarity. But with these newer OLED monitors, you get the best of both worlds: incredibly deep contrast, surreal color depth, and virtually instant response times.

At the time of writing, ASUS continues to offer the greatest selection of OLED monitors, spanning multiple screen configurations and OLED variances. Its two flagships include the PG32UCDM, a 32-inch 4K 240 Hz QD-OLED panel, and the newly launched PG32UCDP, a 32-inch 4K 240 Hz W-OLED panel being subject to this review. Despite their broad specs appearing similar, there are some key distinctions in panel technology and performance that give this new OLED an edge over the others.

About this review: The monitor tested in this review was loaned to us by ASUS. The company had no involvement in the contents of this review. Testing was conducted on firmware version MCM103.

Price, availability, and specs

The ASUS ROG PG32UCDP is officially priced at $1300, which is the same price as its QD-OLED cousin, the PG32UCDM. This price point is quite a premium when compared to other existing OLEDs on the market, which are often $200 cheaper or more. However, the only other competing W-OLED is the LG UltraGear 32GS95UE, which is priced even higher at $1400. The ASUS ROG PG32UCDP can be readily ordered from most electronic vendors. Purchasing the monitor also includes a three-year warranty from ASUS which covers replacements in the case of permanent image burn-in.

Design and tech

As expected from a ROG-branded piece of hardware, the exterior of the PG32UCDP fully embraces the gamer aesthetic. In what ASUS describes as “futuristic” and “cyberpunk-inspired”, the feet and rear housing details an asymmetric, beveled design — with imperative touches of RGB. Unlike many other monitors, the bottom bezel (or “chin”) is thin and nearly symmetrical with all the other sides, lending to a cleaner look. A tab at the bottom flaunts a light-up ASUS logo, which can be easily ignored after turning it off in the monitor settings. Below the panel, another light source projects the ASUS logo onto the desk below, which you can swap out for another design included in the box. And on the rear casing, there is yet again a third emblem that lights up, adding a subtle touch of ambiance to a nearby wall. These can all be adjusted or completely turned off in the settings.

The included stand uses a tripod design with two lateral plastic prongs that span nearly the length of the screen. It takes up more desk estate than I’d like, and for my taste, it looks rather unflattering. On the top of the rear ensemble, there’s a ¼” threading to attach something like a camera mount adapter or ring light if you’re into that sort of thing.

Like most other computer monitors, an anti-glare coating is applied to the glass of the ASUS PG32UCDP. This coating does a fantastic job of diffusing reflections in a well-lit room, but it can add a slight texture to the screen which can mostly be noticed on top of light, solid colors. Thankfully, the matte coating on PG32UCDP is one of the better ones I’ve seen, and in many cases, the texture isn’t visible at all. Nevertheless, I would have still liked to see a glossy option for a W-OLED of this caliber.

As previously mentioned, the ASUS PG32UCDP makes use of a W-OLED panel, rather than QD-OLED which currently makes up most competing monitors with similar specs. The only other 32-inch 4K monitor currently using W-OLED is the LG UltraGear 32GS9UE, which uses the same underlying panel. Both OLED technologies have their advantages and caveats, so it’s important to be aware of them before deciding on one or the other.

W-OLED vs QD-OLED

W-OLED’s primary advantage is its greater typical image contrast, with brighter peak whites and black levels that are less elevated by in-room lighting. On the other hand, QD-OLED provides a wider color gamut, greater peak color brightness, and availability in a glossy coating. In short, W-OLED may be better suited if any significant amount of its time will be used during the day or with the lights on. Otherwise, QD-OLED can offer superior visuals when viewed in a dim environment.

In terms of sharpness and text clarity, current OLEDs exhibit a higher degree of color fringing compared to typical LCDs because of their unconventional subpixel layout. But at 4K resolution, the difference is mostly mitigated, though not completely. Between W-OLED and QD-OLED, the former tends to have softer-looking text along the horizontal axis, while QD-OLED shows stronger fringing on the vertical axis. Whichever looks more pleasing will depend on the viewer’s sensitivity to the fringing characteristic; for my vision, W-OLED’s rendering is less problematic and easier on the eyes. It’s also possible that the matte screen coating does a better job of diffusing color fringe, though a comparable glossy W-OLED doesn’t exist to verify.

Another category W-OLED typically falls behind is panel uniformity. W-OLED will often have a hatched appearance on dark-gray surfaces, or one side of the screen may appear warmer/colder than the other. Fortunately, the unit we received from ASUS looked almost completely uniform, and blemishes could only be seen by a camera when taking a photo of the screen at 0.01 nits and jacking up the exposure. Like other W-OLEDs, the uniformity will probably look its worst straight out of the box, and it should smoothen up after a few days of automatic pixel cleaning.

Ports and connectivity

Whether you’re connecting the monitor to a PC, laptop, or a console, the ASUS PG32UCDP provides ubiquitous connectivity. At the rear, there are two ports for HDMI 2.1 and one for DisplayPort 1.4. For laptops and tablets, there is also one USB Type-C port compatible with DP Alt Mode, allowing for display output while delivering up to 90 watts to keep the device powered.

If you’d like to use the monitor with multiple machines, the ASUS PG32UCDP is one of the few monitors in its category to support a physical KVM switch. This functionality enables a single mouse and keyboard to be used with two separate machines connected to the monitor, such as your PC and a work laptop.

You can have up to three USB 3.2 Type-A peripherals connected to the monitor, which can be forwarded to devices using the Type-B or Type-C ports. The Type-B port is also used for updating the monitor firmware, and for controlling menu settings via ASUS’s DisplayWidget Center software.

I would have liked to see ASUS include support for DisplayPort 2.1, which would sidestep the need to use Display Stream Compression (DSC) for the full display signal. Certain performance optimizations and GPU features are not compatible with a compressed signal, and sometimes some jankiness occurs as a result. Thankfully, DSC can be disabled through the monitor menu at the expense of limiting the refresh rate to 120 Hz. If doing so, using HDMI 2.1 is recommended to support the full RGB 10-bit signal.

Menu and features

ASUS monitors come jam-packed with gaming features. Some of them may never see practical use, but having more options is usually better than fewer — as long as the settings remain navigable. I’m not going to cover all of them here, but rather just the ones I think are worth mentioning.

On the ASUS PG32UCDP, the menu is simple and straight-forward, but I’d like to see them update the design to something that doesn’t look almost twenty years dated, especially for one of the most premium monitors on the market. The menu text is also tiny and jagged, which can make it difficult to read for those hard of sight.

To navigate the on-screen monitor menu, ASUS uses the same four-way navi-key that’s used on most other gaming monitors. Each direction can be mapped to a shortcut in the menu, with one additional shortcut button to the side of the joystick.

Picture tuning

When it comes to color adjustments, the menu allows excellent control over the essentials. The monitor lets you change the brightness, saturation, color space, gamma, as well as color temperature. For extra granularity, the individual R/G/B channels can be tuned to calibrate the white point, and a six-axis saturation adjustment can be used to fiddle with the color primaries. When HDR is enabled, the menu continues to allow control over peak brightness, color temperature, and six-axis saturation; most other gaming monitors disable tuning controls in HDR, so it’s great to see ASUS extending flexibility.

AI Assistant

Taking advantage of the buzzword of the decade, it’s no surprise ASUS had to include some “AI” goodies in its feature set. These are AI Crosshair, AI Shadow Boost, AI Sniper, and MOBA Map Helper. The features are self-explanatory, and one could argue that they don’t really need “AI” to begin with — at least in the contemporary sense.

• AI Crosshair applies a centered receptacle in a color that contrasts with its background.
• AI Shadow Boost selectively increases the brightness of dark areas to make enemies easier to spot. Does not work in HDR.
• AI Sniper magnifies the center of the screen to improve your precision while tracking enemies.
• MOBA Map Helper alerts you when a team fight is active on your minimap.

ASUS mentions that AI Sniper and MOBA Map Helper are only meant to be used during practice sessions. The presumption is that these features may give its players an unfair advantage, which ASUS wouldn’t want to be held liable for. Use these features at your discretion.

OLED Care

One of the biggest drawbacks of OLED technology is that it eventually succumbs to permanent burn-in. For most users, this should take years. But for some unlucky individuals, a few negligent spurts of high-brightness AFKs might be enough to accelerate it to just a few months. OLED manufacturers employ various tactics to try to keep these panels uniform for as long as possible.

By default, the ASUS PG32UCDP makes use of Screen Saver, Auto Logo Brightness, and Screen Move. Screen Saver possesses two functionalities: the first one gradually dims the screen if it remains static; the other dims the pixels toward the edges of the screen, sometimes called Convex Power Control (CPC) on other panels. Auto Logo Brightness detects static elements and reduces their luminance. Screen Move occasionally shifts the entire screen one pixel at a time to diffuse the effects of pixel burn-in. For Screen Move, there are also additional pixels on each side to make sure that no pixels are being clipped. This may result in uneven screen bezels, which has been a point of concern for some users — no, your screen is (probably) not defective.

By far the most important OLED maintenance feature is some form of pixel cleaning. This corrects the panel for short-term differences in pixel wear. On the PG32UCDP, the cleaning occurs automatically when the monitor is put into standby mode after every few cumulative hours of use, taking about 6 minutes to complete. If the monitor is turned on before it can complete the cleaning, it will delay it to the next standby. It’s non-intrusive by default, and it’s something you can just completely forget about — which is a good thing! If the chin logo LED is enabled, its color will flash amber when the cleaning begins, and flash again once it’s complete.

There’s also a proximity sensor on the panel chin which can detect your presence. If it senses that you’ve got up and left, it can preemptively put the monitor into standby. If you come back within a short window of time, it may also turn the screen back on. This feature is disabled by default, but I’ve enabled it and have had no issues with it so far. There are times when an application in the background prevents Windows from automatically turning the screen off, so I appreciate this feature. The feature has three sensitivity settings, ranging the object detection from 50 cm (low) to 110 cm (high). If using this feature, just be careful not to place anything between you and the sensor.

Frame Rate Boost / 480 Hz

For competitive gamers, this monitor also doubles up as one of the smoothest monitors on the market. Paired with OLED’s virtually instantaneous response times, the motion clarity coming from this mode is one of the most lifelike you can experience on a monitor today. However, to reach this refresh rate, the monitor resolution is limited to just 1080p, which looks rather terrible on a 32-inch screen. But if you’re playing competitively with this monitor, you’re likely to have it pushed further back anyway, which helps alleviate the lower resolution. Games that can push 480 FPS are also likely not graphically focused, so in practical use, you’re not missing much.

If you can’t or don’t want to push the monitor back, the PG32UCDP can emulate a smaller 27” or 24” screen size with black orders. However, this will result in even lower image quality since the 1080p resolution does not divide cleanly into the resolution needed to make up the smaller screen sizes.

Variable refresh rate

For the smoothest low-latency gaming experience, both V-Sync and some form of adaptive monitor refresh rate are needed to prevent screen tearing completely. The ASUS PG32UCDP features compliance with AMD FreeSync Premium Pro, NVIDIA G-Sync Compatible, and VESA AdaptiveSync technologies.

One major issue with VRR and OLED is that the luminance of each pixel can be affected by the refresh rate. When the refresh rate fluctuates, an abrupt difference in luminance may appear as flickering. The ASUS PG32UCDP is no exception, but it does offer a feature that helps mitigate the effect. The monitor has a setting called “OLED Anti-Flicker” which reduces the range of VRR so that the maximum difference in luminance is less noticeable. From my testing, it does appear to reduce flickering, but it can also reintroduce tearing if you maintain a certain frame rate under the lower VRR bound. The feature also only works currently with DisplayPort and not with HDMI.

Display brightness

Although OLEDs excel at delivering super-deep contrast, it doesn’t punch as heavily when it comes to face-searing brightness. Since each pixel is self-emissive, it becomes increasingly expensive to light up the entire panel. An LCD panel, in contrast, only needs to ramp up its singular backlight. Instead, most of the brightness on an OLED is concentrated into smaller highlight regions, which makes it well-suited for HDR content.

For a full screen of white, the ASUS PG32UCDP OLED is specced for 275 nits at its brightest setting. In SDR, that number might seem a little disappointing since IPS panels were able to surpass that figure about a decade ago. But if the monitor is in a room where direct sunlight doesn’t hit the screen, then 275 nits should be plenty. For smaller windows, the panel can reach up to 450 nits in SDR when “Uniform Brightness” is disabled, which it is by default. If you don’t need the extra brightness, I highly recommend turning it off to prevent the monitor brightness from fluctuating when adjusting the size of applications.

In HDR, the PG32UCDP is rated up to 1300 nits, but not by default, and only for very dark scenes and tiny highlights. The out-of-the-box color profile on the PG32UCDP limits peak brightness to about 450 nits. For higher peak brightness, the HDR Setting in the menu can be switched to Console HDR or Gaming HDR, both of which reach up to about 760 nits. To unlock the full 1300 nits, the Adjustable HDR setting must enabled and the Brightness level raised to 100. Be warned that brightness values over 80 only affect the white subpixel and throw off the HDR10 EOTF accuracy, over-brightening lighter colors; high-saturation colors can’t be boosted any further than Brightness 80, so colors can look dim and desaturated (only in comparison) relative to the boosted whites when changing this setting.

As brighter pixels fill up the screen, the automatic brightness limiter (ABL) will kick in and reduce the global brightness of the display. The strength of the ABL increases with the average pixel luminance across the entire panel. To reach the full 1300 nits, the average display luminance (ADL) must be below about 5 nits, which means only the darkest scenes will benefit from the highest brightness setting. And from our measurements, our unit was only able to hit up to about 1180 nits, 10% shy of the rated peak. Above 50 nits ADL, the panel will start to globally dim at a steady slope, which is a decent threshold and should remain bright over a large range of content.

Color performance

For color, we measured the ASUS PG32UCDP to cover about 97% of the DCI-P3 gamut, which is the current boundary that most HDR content is graded within. Unlike QD-OLED, W-OLED doesn’t really extend much into BT.2020 territory, though there still isn’t much content that makes use of deep BT.2020 color. In many practical cases, the difference in gamut between the two OLED technologies isn’t very significant, and W-OLED’s gamut is plenty saturated.

Out of the box in SDR, the default Racing color profile uses the OLED’s native maximum gamut. This color setting is vibrant but does not accurately represent content as it was intended. The default brightness is set at a white level of about 180 nits, and the image contrast follows a standard display gamma of 2.2 power. For a more faithful SDR color rendition, you can switch over to the “sRGB Cal” GameVisual preset. The “sRGB Cal” profile will automatically set the display white level to about 130 nits, and it will change the display gamma to follow the sRGB IEC piecewise tone curve, which looks similar to gamma 2.2 but with flatter shadows. If you want accurate colors but prefer the contrast of gamma 2.2, you can use any other color preset and switch the display color space over to sRGB.

In terms of color accuracy, ASUS claims an average DeltaE below 2.0 and even provides a factory calibration sheet in the box. It’s unclear which DeltaE metric ASUS is using, but in this review, we’ll be using DeltaE ITP, which is a relatively newer metric whose comparable values are roughly three times greater than that of the prior DeltaE standards (CIE2000 or CIE1976). As usual, our measuring instruments include the i1Display Pro colorimeter metered by the i1Pro2 spectrophotometer.

In our testbench, the “sRGB Cal” preset measures an average DeltaE ITP of 4.6, which is respectably accurate. This value would roughly translate to an older DeltaE metric of 1.5, which complies with ASUS’s claim of DeltaE maximum color error measured reaches a DeltaE of 14.0 for high-saturation purples and pinks, which would be considered problematic in a professional color-critical environment. But for amateur work, this overall degree of accuracy is adequate.

On the other hand, picture contrast shows some deficiencies, especially toward the lower end. The native gamma on our unit measures closer to 2.3 rather than the ideal target of 2.2, producing greater contrast than intended. More importantly, a slight kink can be seen near black which results in some black clipping, destroying shadow detail.

HDR10 color

In HDR10, the ASUS PG32UCDP defaults to the TrueBlack 400 color preset, which limits peak brightness to about 450 nits but provides the most consistent and accurate picture. It does a good job at reproducing the standard HDR PQ EOTF, which is needed for accurate colors and contrast. However, the same kink in the shadows we saw in SDR can be seen here as well, which hinders an otherwise excellent tonal rendition. We saw this same behavior on the LG 32GS95UE as well (another monitor using the same W-OLED panel), and they keenly addressed the issue with a firmware update — we hope to see ASUS swiftly respond in kind.

Color accuracy for P3 is also very good in the TrueBlack preset. The base calibration on the PG32UCDP averages a DeltaE ITP of 3.9, with a maximum error of 13. Color luminance is typically W-OLED’s weakness in HDR, but in TrueBlack, the PG32UCDP maintains full-color brightness.

If you switch over to Console HDR or Gaming HDR for higher brightness, color accuracy, and tone take consequence. To achieve a higher peak brightness, the W-OLED leverages the dedicated white subpixel to do most of the heavy lifting. The main issue is that white-ish colors are driven substantially brighter than others, with no easy way to correct it without post-processing. ASUS decided to just leave it as-is and let white-ish colors just be brighter. This results in a PQ EOTF that is brighter than standard, but the effect looks alright in actual content since most highlights are near-white to begin with. Mid-tones and more saturated colors remain accurate and follow their intended PQ luminance, but colors may look dimmer and desaturated in instances where they’re within the vicinity of white-ish colors.

The alternative route, which LG has taken with their W-OLED TVs and monitors, is to compensate for this overbrightening by straightening the EOTF. However, by reducing the brightness of white-ish colors, it also reduces the luminance of more saturated colors below their intended brightness. On LG TVs, this effect is corrected by applying an algorithm that boosts colors back to their intended brightness. But in Game Mode, this post-processing is disabled, and the TV will instead slightly boost saturation to somewhat compensate for the lack of vibrancy. I recommend doing the same on the PG32UCDP when using the brighter HDR settings by increasing the Saturation setting between 55–60.

Between Console HDR and Gaming HDR, the main difference is the clipping point and tone mapping they use. Console HDR is set to clip at 450-nit source signal, while Gaming HDR places the clipping point all the way at 1300 nits. The tone mapping in Gaming HDR slightly shoulders the over brightened EOTF for white-ish colors, and it also has less severe black crush than on Console HDR, making Gaming HDR the overall better preset to use for Brightness 90 or 100.

Due to how the W-OLED handles the higher peak brightness, it’s better to think of the overbrightened EOTF in these modes as an HDR upscaling of sorts, rather than extra range for the monitor to make proper use of. Although the overbrightened bits in Brightness 100 look more severe in the EOTF, this only affects highlights in very dark scenes, so you can think of it as a way to irk out some extra intensity from existing highlights. It’s not the most ideal solution, but in most cases, it does the job of producing a punchy HDR representation that isn’t wildly off base.

Should you buy the ASUS ROG PG32UCDP?

Even though OLED monitors are now more common on the market, each of them possess foibles that require jumping around in the settings to get them looking their best on a case-by-case basis. In the meantime, compromise is the name of the game for OLED, and the ASUS PG32UCDP is absolutely no exception — but in my usage, this monitor makes the best of current limitations.

In my time reviewing the competing QD-OLED monitors, I’ve needed to wait until nighttime with the lights low to perceive the deepest black levels I expect from an OLED. But with the ASUS PG32UCDP, the black levels appear truly black no matter the environment. On the opposite side of the brightness spectrum, the PG32UCDP can also maintain high brightness even when displaying outdoor scenes, which current QD-OLED monitors struggle with in their brightest modes. The LG UltraGear 32GS95UE, which is currently the only other competing W-OLED, gave me a similar sentiment as the ASUS, but its inability to permanently disable the vignetting and logo dimming took away much of its potential vibrancy. Despite its flaws, the ASUS ROG PG32UCDP is the OLED monitor I’d pick today for its versatility and overall consistent visual impact.

Buy the ASUS ROG PG32UCDP if

• You want a big, sharp OLED with the most consistently striking visuals
• You’re a competitive gamer who can make use of the 480 Hz dual mode
• You want one of the brightest HDR representations available on an OLED monitor

Look at competing monitors if

• You mostly use your monitor in a very dim room
• You want the greater depth of a glossy screen coating