Get into 4K gaming with this 27-inch IPS monitor, now $330 or 0.004 cents per pixel if you prefer

An image of a Gigabyte GS27U gaming monitor against a teal background with a white border
(Image credit: Gigabyte)
Gigabyte GS27U | 27-inch | 4K | 16:9 | 160 Hz | IPS | $349.99 $329.99 at Amazon (save $20)Price check:

Gigabyte GS27U | 27-inch | 4K | 16:9 | 160 Hz | IPS | $349.99 $329.99 at Amazon (save $20)
It's not a huge saving, but who cares when you're getting a big 4K monitor, with a fast IPS panel, for a cent shy of $330. If you're looking to expand your screen real estate with a second monitor or want to make the jump to 4K without spending a lot of money, then this is the perfect choice for you.

Price check: Newegg $329.99

I got my first 4K monitor around 10 years ago, and it cost me a small fortune, just as every PC monitor with more than eight million pixels did back then. It finally died an electronic death earlier this year, with the backlights and other circuitry croaking under the constant abuse of a decade's worth of gaming and content creation.

Graphics cards in 2015 weren't really geared up for 4K gaming, but these days, you can do with some mid-range GPUs, albeit with the caveat of upscaling being a necessity. However, with the switch to 4K, I knew that I could never go back to 1440p or lower, as that ultra-high resolution made everything pin-sharp.

What you have here is Gigabyte's almost-entry-level 4K gaming monitor, the GS27U, for the very decent price of $330 at Amazon—a display that our chums at Tom's Hardware highly rate. How I wish monitor deals like this existed a decade ago!

So what are you getting for your money? Well, it's a 27-inch IPS panel with a resolution of 3840 x 2160. It has pretty decent color reproduction out of the box, and if you have the necessary equipment, you can easily have it all set up for professional content creation, with a spot of calibration.

As with all IPS screens, you do get some backlight bleed around the edges, and the contrast ratio isn't as good as a decent VA panel, and it's obviously not a patch on OLED ones. But this one is fast, with a maximum refresh rate of 160 Hz, variable refresh rate support in the form of FreeSync and G-Sync compatibility, and an average grey-to-grey response time of 1 millisecond.

What Gigabyte has dropped to keep the price low are USB ports and speakers, which is the right thing to do—much better to not offer something that only certain people will use and keep the screen all tip-top, which everyone will want.

The GS27U has been cheaper in the past, reaching $300 at one point, but the tech market is all over the place at the moment. If you're worried that prices will suddenly jump up due to import tariffs, now's the perfect time to make the switch to 4K.


Nick Evanson
Hardware Writer

Nick, gaming, and computers all first met in 1981, with the love affair starting on a Sinclair ZX81 in kit form and a book on ZX Basic. He ended up becoming a physics and IT teacher, but by the late 1990s decided it was time to cut his teeth writing for a long defunct UK tech site. He went on to do the same at Madonion, helping to write the help files for 3DMark and PCMark. After a short stint working at Beyond3D.com, Nick joined Futuremark (MadOnion rebranded) full-time, as editor-in-chief for its gaming and hardware section, YouGamers. After the site shutdown, he became an engineering and computing lecturer for many years, but missed the writing bug. Cue four years at TechSpot.com and over 100 long articles on anything and everything. He freely admits to being far too obsessed with GPUs and open world grindy RPGs, but who isn't these days? 

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