MSI MPG 321URX QD-OLED
First published in GRIND IV, pages 234–240.
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I first came into contact with a PC somewhere in the mid-80s, in an office at the Institute of Atomic Physics in Măgurele, where my parents, engineers by trade, thought it wouldn't hurt to put their offspring in touch with the technology of the future. It was my parents again, probably with the grandparents in on it, who decided around '92–'93 that I ought to dig deeper into this technology, and that's how I ended up as one of the two kids attending "computer" classes alongside a bunch of young people past 20, who needed Office, PC operating skills and maybe some basic programming on their CVs.
And one of the things I'll never forget – which has since become synonymous with the introduction to any course of this kind in this country – is the way the computer was introduced to us... this assembly made up of two component parts, namely the physical part (hardware) and the logical part (software). And the hardware part, in turn, was presented as an assembly of electrical and electronic circuits and mechanical parts, including the central unit and the peripherals – that is, the visible part of the computer.
Well, however clunky, outdated or simplistic that definition sounds, it isn't wrong at all, which is why it's still used in many educational institutions. Of course, in the meantime the hardware/software duality has expanded into a third dimension with the arrival of the component known as the internet, but broadly speaking the basic definition still applies today. And those of us who deal with... erm... the visible part of the computer, i.e. hardware, have had the chance to watch each individual component develop at a fair old clip, whether it's mounted inside the central unit or outside it.
And if, in the first part of our activity alongside the computing systems of the last three decades, we were simply enthusiastic users, for almost 17 years now we haven't merely watched the development of this field – we've been actively involved as chroniclers, on LAB501, documenting every processor or graphics card launch, alongside whole generations of memory, motherboards, storage solutions, cases and power supplies.
Thus we've seen together how new technologies are born while others go obsolete, how each part of the PC becomes ever more powerful, more capable, up to things we couldn't even imagine 20–30 years ago. For example, on the computer science course I was taking over 30 years ago, we had monochrome CRT monitors and CGA and EGA graphics cards, while VGA adapters and monitors that could show up to 16 colours at once, out of a total of 64, were a legend – something we'd heard of but never seen in the flesh.
And yet only another 2–3 years were to pass before I came to own my first personal PC, fitted with a VGA graphics card and a monitor to match, and I can still remember the magic words I could use in the compiler to display 256 colours in DOS... ASM... INT13H. Well, the wonder broke down a few years later, and I got my hands on the last CRT I ever used day to day, an SVGA beast that could display 1024 x 768 images at 24-bit colour depth... those were the days!
LCD killed the CRT star Yes, I think it's clear enough from the title that today we're going to talk about monitors, and next-generation monitors at that. And monitors, unlike processors or graphics cards, are among the components we replace least often, because in the end it comes down to habit, necessity and – not least – price. Personally I used two CRT models for daily work, starting in 1996, the first made by Daewoo and the second by AOC (Spectrum 4 Vlr).
Then somewhere around 2008, when a well-meaning colleague (read: Micutzu) complained that I was posting screenshots at watch-face resolution, and graphics cards were starting to turn up in the lab, I moved to a 24" TN made by BENQ (G2400W), which is still going now on the PC up at the mountain place. It served me conscientiously for over 8 years, until I moved to an IPS built for professional use, made by Acer, which I still use on my personal PC.
On the test bench, though, I used the same BENQ monitor for about a year, along with a KVM switch, testing graphics cards at 1920x1200 and 1680x1050, then I moved to one of the most impres- ive IPS monitors of its day, namely the Dell UltraSharp 3008WFP.
The 30" monster (and $2000) served me faithfully for 6 years, with graphics cards tested at 2560x1600 and 1920x1200, until I moved to the Acer XB280HK, which I used to test cards at the three resolutions we still use today, namely 3840x2160, 2560x1440 and 1920x1080.
Well, here we are 9 years later, and the time has come to retire the old Acer and replace it with a next-generation monitor: a beast with a 32" diagonal, 3840x2160 resolution, a 240Hz refresh rate, a 0.03ms response time and, not least, a third-generation QD-OLED panel. I'm referring, of course, to the freshly launched, long-awaited and long-admired MSI MPG 321URX QD-OLED, which I first saw in December at the EHA Tech Tour 2023 in Taiwan, and which was officially launched at CES 2024.
To QD-OLED, or not to QD-
OLED
As I've told you before, LCD displays first appeared in the consumer segment in the 80s, but for a long time they remained the preserve of notebooks, thanks to their poor performance next to a CRT display, and their prohibitive price. In the mid-90s the first commercial variants for desktop-dedicated TFT-LCD monitors began to appear, and 2003 was the first year in which monitors of this kind beat classic CRT monitors on sales.
Well, over the last 20 years we've watched fierce competition between several panel types (TN, IPS or VA), a competition won by IPS and VA technologies. That's if we're talking about desktop monitors... because over time AMOLED technology has established itself beyond appeal in smartphones, and in recent years we've been watching a full-on assault of OLED panels in notebooks and desktop monitors too.
And if, with smartphone displays, the emphasis has been on variable refresh rate, which has a major impact on battery life, thus giving rise to the LTPO AMOLED panels we've been seeing on flagship smartphones for a few years now, with TVs and monitors the emphasis has been on colour reproduction, panel lifespan and refresh rate at high resolutions, with panel manufacturers pouring considerable resources into studying various photosensitive materials and various combinations of technologies in order to reach the highest possible performance.
Thus, in 2002 the first prototype of an OLED television saw the light of day, and 20 years later the first TV using QD-OLED (Quantum dot - Organic light-emitting diode) technology appeared, with this technology reaching desktop monitors the same year. In fact, I also tested the first QD-OLED gaming monitor on the market that same year (2022), namely the Alienware AW3423DW.
Compared with traditional LCD panels, and even with White OLED panels, QD-OLED panels combine several technologies, considerably simplifying the way the image is generated and displayed, and bringing with them a series of important advantages.
Thus in this case we're talking about both absolute contrast, which is specific to OLED panels, and high brightness. Because while a QD-OLED panel can reach an intensity of 250 cd/m2 across the entire screen area, that figure can rise to 500 cd/m2 over a 10% portion of the screen area, and up to 1000 cd/m2 if we're talking about an area smaller than 3%.
QD-OLED panels also have an extremely low response time (0.03ms GTG), lower than any other panel type at the same refresh rate, and thanks to the way the image is displayed, response time doesn't depend on the refresh rate – as is the case with IPS models, for example. Input lag, in turn, is extremely low as well (~0.5ms), and colour reproduction is excellent, with Samsung's third-generation QD-OLED panels boasting over 99% coverage of the DCI-P3 colour space.
Last but not least, QD-OLED panels allow a high refresh rate (240Hz) at high resolutions (4K), which is harder to pull off with traditional panels. There are disadvantages too, though, such as performance degrading over time – specifically the burn-in process that all manufacturers try to avoid through various methods.
MSI QD-OLED
Well, MSI has taken a whole raft of measures to head off the problems inherent to this technology, both at hardware and at firmware level, on top of the fact that we get, right from the start, a ga- three-year warranty against burn-in. So all MSI QD-OLED series monitors now incorporate a graphene film that picks up the heat given off by the panel and passes it to a generously sized heatsink, for the best possible dissipation of the heat the panel emits.
At firmware level we find a series of technologies grouped under the MSI OLED Care 2.0 umbrella. So, in addition to Short Time Protection, Pixel Shift and Screen Saver, already present on the previous generation of monitors, MSI have now also implemented Letter Detection, Pillar Detection, Vertical Split, Taskbar detection, boundary detection and multi-logo detection.
For example, when the monitor detects the presence of the taskbar, a clear boundary between two windows or several logos, these are scanned and the brightness is automatically reduced, to prevent burn-in from setting in.
Alongside the measures taken to protect the panel, we also get a series of advanced features for gamers, grouped under the name Gaming Intelligence. A.I. Vision automatically adjusts brightness in high-contrast scenes, while Smart Crosshair and Optix Scope try to give gamers an edge in FPS titles.
On top of that, MSI QD-OLED range monitors offer several useful features, such as KVM support, easy firmware updates via the USB interface, a USB-C connector that delivers 90W for charging external devices, and compatibility with HDMI CEC (Consumer Electronics Control), which lets console controllers wake the monitor from sleep. The anti-glare coating, DisplayHDR 400 certification and VESA ClearMR certification are also part of the arsenal of features implemented on the new MSI monitors
QD-OLED 2024.
Overview Of all the MSI QD-OLED monitors launched this year, the MSI MPG 321URX QD-OLED caught our eye, for several reasons. First off, the specifications — more precisely 32", 3840x2160, 240Hz, Adaptive-Sync support, DisplayHDR True Black 400 support, 99% coverage of the DCI-P3 colour space and 138% coverage of the sRGB colour space. The connectivity and the design were also solid arguments in this monitor's favour — basically, I prefer flat monitors with as many connections as possible.
Well, it hasn't been long since the monitor was officially launched at CES 2024, and here it is: the MSI MPG 321URX QD-OLED has arrived in the lab, in its brightly coloured packaging. Like any high-end 32" monitor, the MSI MPG 321URX QD-OLED ships in voluminous packaging, inside which we find the monitor, the power cable, an HDMI cable, the user manual and the monitor stand. The stand offers advanced adjustment possibilities: the display can pivot horizontally by up to 30 degrees either way, while vertical pivot can range between -5 and 15 degrees. What's more, we have 110mm of height adjustment to play with, and the monitor can swivel 10 degrees relative to the desk, in both directions.
The connectivity is positioned on the right of the stand's pillar, at the back, and on the left side we find a standard mains power connector (the power supply is built into the monitor). The MSI MPG 321URX QD-OLED is equipped with 2 HDMI 2.1 connectors, 1 DisplayPort 1.4a connector, 1 USB Type-C connector (DP, 90W PD), one USB 2 upstream connector, 2 USB 2 connectors and a Line Out connector for headphones.
OSD
As this is a monitor with a USB connection, the MSI MPG 321URX QD-OLED can be controlled in two ways: via the OSD menu or via the Gaming Intelligence application. The OSD menu is accessed using the joystick-style button positioned on the bottom edge of the monitor, at the back.
Here we find both the classic adjustments (brightness, contrast, colour temperature) and a series of settings specific to the MSI MPG 321URX QD-OLED, such as A.I. Vision, Smart Crosshair, Optix Scope, Picture-in-Picture or Low Blue Light, plus a series of presets (Eco, Movie, Office, sRGB, and so on) and, last but not least, the MSI OLED Care 2.0 functions.
Some of these are disabled by default, so if you want to benefit fully from the protection offered by MSI OLED Care 2.0, I recommend you go into the menu (or install the Gaming Intelligence application) and activate them manually.
Tests As I was telling you with the first QD-OLED monitor we tested, our colorimeter was genuinely frightened by the panel used, so today we're moving to a new testing methodology, based on Calibrite's newest colorimeter, more precisely the Calibrite Display Plus HL. As well as the classic technologies, this one is compatible with the latest generation of OLED and mini LED panels, supports HDR panels and can measure accurately up to 10000 cd/m2.
As we already know, the MSI MPG 321URX QD-OLED uses a DisplayHDR True Black 400-compatible QD-OLED panel, with a 32" diagonal, 3840x2160 resolution, 240Hz refresh rate and a 0.03ms GTG response time. Well, the white level is the one promised by the manufacturer, 255 cd/m2, and it can hit 1000 cd/m2 in restricted areas in Peak 1000 mode. The contrast is, obviously, excellent, since this is an OLED panel, and the colour reproduction is superb. In the first screenshot, the sRGB colour space is marked in green, DCI-P3 in pink, and the colour space supported by our monitor is marked in blue.
So we're looking at 99% coverage of the DCI-P3 colour space, an average Delta E of 0.7, and uniformity is also right up there, both in brightness and in colour temperature. Last but not least, the MSI MPG 321URX QD-OLED offers generous viewing angles (178°) and is compatible with Adaptive-Sync technology, which means we can use it on both Nvidia and AMD graphics cards.
Conclusions The MSI MPG 321URX QD-OLED is a special monitor, one for which I changed my colorimeter and my testing methodology, and also one for which I changed the monitor on the test platform for the 4th time in 17 years. I say that because, between you and me, I can say I wanted this monitor from the very first second I saw it, in Taipei, in December, a month before launch.
Because we're talking about a happy combination of specifications, performance, looks and features. The MSI MPG 321URX QD-OLED delivers fantastic colour reproduction, an extremely low response time, far below anything we see even from the fastest IPS monitors on the market, a high refresh rate at 4K resolution, and a picture that simply leaves you gaping.
Yes, for photo editing at the highest level of precision, IPS displays still hold the advantage. But for photo/video editing at home, for films, and above all for gaming, the MSI MPG 321URX QD-OLED is simply an exceptional monitor. Possibly one of the most impressive monitors I've tested so far.
What's more, MSI have taken burn-in prevention as seriously as anyone could ask, with MSI OLED Care 2.0 bringing together a whole series of advanced functions whose sole purpose is to prevent or delay the onset of the phenomenon. And if that isn't enough, then the 3-year warranty MSI offers on that front should be. One thing's for sure: I'll get to test that live over the coming years, because, well, it's not often I change the monitors on my test platform.
And on top of that, besides an excellent panel and a comprehensive, coherent package of preventative measures, MSI offers rich connectivity, KVM functionality and advanced software features for gamers too, such as A.I. Vision, Smart Crosshair or Optix Scope.
Even the physical buttons can be programmed to perform various functions, if we need that.
Of course, the newest technologies come with a price to match, the MSI MPG 321URX QD-OLED currently selling for 6169 RON in shops here, a fairly steep price for a monitor, even a gaming one. However, if we take a look at monitors that support 4K and 240Hz, things look nothing like that any more, with the MSI MPG 321URX QD-OLED actually offering a very good quality/price ratio right now for what it delivers, given that there are also 4K/240Hz models priced between 7500 and 8900 RON.
Especially since not all of them are equipped with a latest-generation QD-OLED panel...
MONSTRU
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