The Gigabyte G27Q is a modest presence on paper. It is a flat 27-inch display with a relatively mediocre 144 Hz refresh rate and a design that would not stand out in an office environment. However, it is actually one of the best gaming monitors I've used this year. Not only does it have a gorgeous, vibrant panel, but it also supports HDR and has many useful features designed to enhance your gaming enjoyment.

The Gigabyte G27Q has a native resolution of 2560x1440 in a standard 16:9 aspect ratio. The small bezel allows the panel to shine and is large enough for multitasking without overpowering the desk. The stand is simple, with cable management slots, height and tilt adjustments, but no swivel; a VESA mount is available if you want to mount the G27Q on a wall or custom arm. The back is plain except for the OSD joystick and various I/O ports.

The G27Q has an IPS panel with 144 Hz refresh and 1 ms response time. As a lover of visual fidelity, I appreciate this resolution for clarity and performance. Even the modest GTX 1660 Super on my desktop can comfortably play games at 60FPS on high settings; if you play CS:GO or Valorant all the time, the 144Hz refresh may be a bit of a drag, but for the rest of us average folks, it's It's great.

In any case, the G27Q handles games admirably thanks to adaptive sync with AMD FreeSync Premium; the G27Q also supports G-SYNC, so whether you're on the green team or the red team, the G27Q is comfortable playing. We did not have an AMD GPU for testing, but we used a desktop and a laptop with NVIDIA. Both had no problems running games with G-SYNC enabled.

Also, whatever game you are playing, the G27Q looks phenomenal; the IPS panel is 8-bit color with 92% DCI-P3 coverage. Having seen many monitors recently, I was immediately struck by the G27Q's rich colors and contrast; the G27Q has a dynamic contrast ratio of 12M : 1, and it shows. Colors are punchy and vivid, and the G27Q reproduces dark and bright areas with great clarity. There are also plenty of controls to calibrate the monitor to your liking. [This is a feat required for VESA Display HDR 400 certification. And while HDR gaming on Windows is still pretty sluggish, when HDR gaming works, it's gorgeous. From "The Division 2" to "The Avengers," colors play with intuitive impact, and dark and light areas are well separated. However, sunny skies and other bright areas tend to show white-outs and loss of definition when brightness is maximized. Also, dark areas may be crushed.

However, Netflix and YouTube movies and videos are quite good. Sadly, my Xbox One X did not recognize the G27Q as HDR capable. But even the G27Q's SDR mode is excellent, so I didn't miss much. However, the Xbox can play games at 1080p/120Hz or 1440p/60Hz; the G27Q has two HDMI 2.0 ports and one DisplayPort 1.2 port for connecting two game consoles and one PC.

The G27Q also has a USB 3.0 Type-A downstream port and a USB 3.0 Type-B upstream port for easy connection of peripherals. The monitor also has built-in 2W speakers, but the sound is not great. It is nice to have a headphone jack.

The G27Q's OSD can open a large number of profiles and monitor settings. It is navigated with a small joystick on the back, but we like that menu options can be activated without pressing the joystick. Flicking the joystick over the menu activates it immediately after a second. It's a small thing, but saves a lot of time overall. There is also a handy Windows app called OSD Sidekick that allows the same access to menus, but with a mouse instead of a joystick.

Once in the menu, there are Picture Profiles, Black Equalization, Aim Assist, Blue Light Filter, and more. The dashboard feature is one of my favorites. It is a built-in hardware monitor that displays frame rate, temperature, voltage, etc. Great for overclockers. I also like the reader mode, which enables low blue light and flicker-free technology to help my old eyes tolerate long periods of reading and writing.

The G27Q is not perfect, but it doesn't have many flaws beyond its boring looks. For work and play, the G27Q excels with sharp, vibrant, smooth images. The additional features are really useful, and for $330 you get a lot for your money; the G27Q is definitely one of the best 27-inch gaming monitors available today.