LG is known for their displays in the living room, but they also produce some fantastic gaming and business monitors. With industry leading specs, and some stylish design elements, it was high time CGMagazine gave one of their gaming monitors a look. To this end, we brought in the latest LG 27GP950, put it through its paces and got a taste of how it stacks up to some of the best gaming displays currently available.
Unboxing the LG 27GP950, and you will find a very modern looking monitor that features a sharp black and red design. The LG logo on the back of the display is the right level of “gamer” to fit the market, and the stand has an impressive feel, even if it does take a fair amount of desk real estate.
The display itself features a 4-side borderless design that ensures you have ultra-thin bezels on all sides of the screen. It features a semi-gloss screen finish that delivers crystal clear images and colour, but you will also get some noticeable glare when using the monitor, especially in a brightly lit room.
As with most modern monitors, the LG 27GP950 features a range of ports, including a DisplayPort 1.4 with DSC, two HDMI 2.1 ports (full 48 Gbps bandwidth), a headphone jack and a dual-USB 3.0 hub.
The stand that comes with the LG 27GP950 offers a range of motion, allowing for the hight to be adjusted up to 110 mm, with tilt by -5°/15°, 90° pivot or VESA mount via the 100×100 mm pattern. While all this is great and gives most of the motion needed on a modern monitor, the lack of swivel to the right or left made it a bit frustrating to set up. Especially considering the wide range of motion available on the ViewSonic or Acer Predator gaming monitors, this feels like a noticeable exclusion on an otherwise well-designed stand.
“Unboxing the LG 27GP950, and you will find a very modern looking monitor that features a sharp black and red design.”
With the monitor all setup, and the cables plugged into our Intel 12th Gen testing rig, with our Nvidia RTX 3070, we were finally able to put it through its paces. The first thing we noticed was how clear and vibrant the picture was. Its Nano IPS panel offers great colours and delivers 98% of the DCI-P3 colour space (equivalent to ~135% sRGB). It also allows you to use it in sRGB emulation mode, where you can experience 100% sRGB gamut should your workflow require that.
The panel also had very impressive 178° viewing angles, offering great clarity anywhere in that range. We noticed no real issues even when looking at the monitor offset, and it worked well even when multiple people were all enjoying content on the single screen. While this is great for gaming, it is also fantastic for anyone doing colour work, or working in a professional environment.
The 4K resolution was great for gaming and boasted a pixel density of 163 PPI (pixels per inch). Although if you are planning to use this as a desktop, you will need to scale the desktop, since while the resolution looks great in the latest AAA games, it is not enjoyable trying to decipher a webpage while trying to read microscopic text.
“The 4K resolution was great for gaming and boasted a pixel density of 163 PPI (pixels per inch).”
The resolution will also need to employ a very powerful video card, especially if you want to play today’s latest releases. While Fortnite should run with a mid-range card, if you want to play anything more modern, your 1050 just won’t cut it anymore.
The LG 27GP950 also supports HDR (High Dynamic Range), ensuring the latest games will look vibrant and as the developers intended. The HDR boosts the brightness, from the standard 400-nits, all the way up to 600-nits. There are also 16 dimming zones to allow for more rich blacks, while giving the brightness to the colours that matter most.
For a display at this price range, I would have loved to see more dimming zones. While 16 is better than many lower end displays, when you have 8 million pixels on the screen, it just doesn’t cut it, and can take away from the vibrancy the screen delivers. While it works when you have scenes that have clearly separate areas of light and dark, in today’s modern games, that is just not the case most of the time.
“The LG 27GP950 also supports HDR (High Dynamic Range), ensuring the latest games will look vibrant and as the developers intended.”
Thankfully, the LG 27GP950 performs very well in all our gaming tests, delivering a very fast display built for gaming and media. Delivering an impressive response time of 1ms GtG (grey to grey) pixel transition time, along with an input lag of around 4ms, this is a monitor that delivers great visuals while not reducing your ability to play the latest and greatest games.
Did we mention the LG 27GP950 also boasts an impressive 160Hz over DisplayPort, and 120Hz while on HDMI 2.1? Making it feel buttery smooth in shooters and eSports titles, with no noticeable stuttering even when pushing high FPS titles. Combine that with support for both AMD FreeSync Premium Pro and NVIDIA G-SYNC and you should have no issues with screen tearing or any issues that could take away from your gaming experience.
There is a lot to love with the LG 27GP950, and it feels built with the gamer market in mind. Sadly, there were a few gripes that kept it from being a total success, and the lack of dimming zones on a monitor built for media feels like a frustrating issue. But that brings us to the biggest issue with the monitor, and that is the price, this is one of the more expensive 27-inch monitors you can buy at $900 USD.
Even having said that, the LG 27GP950 is a great gaming monitor that delivers fantastic performance both for gaming and content creation. The screen is bright and clear, and the HDR is a good step in the right direction. If you are looking for a new monitor that has a gamer look but still delivers professional results, look no further than the LG 27GP950.
