2024 is shaping up to be the year of OLED gaming monitors with a slew of options from all the big players in all the sizes and aspects. MSI joins the fray with two new OLED’s, the eSports focused 27-inch, 360Hz MPG 271QRX and the 32-inch, 4K, 240Hz MPG 321URX which is what we are reviewing today. The new monitors are using 3rd-gen QD-OLED panels that support much greater refresh rates and brightness than we’ve seen on OLED’s before.
Price for the MPG 321URX is $2,199 putting it in between Alienware’s $1,900 curved AW3225QF and Asus ROG Swift PG32UCDM at $2,750. Obviously, this is a lot of money, but you do actually get a lot for your money. The MPG 321URX has a gorgeous semi-glossy, 32-inch flat panel in a 16:9 aspect, a KVM switch, USB Type-C with 90W power delivery, DisplayHDR 400 TrueBlack and 3 years of warranty including burn-in protection.
It’s an all-in-one monitor for pro work and AAA gaming across PC and consoles. While I have yet to test the offerings from Alienware and Asus(stay tuned for those), I can’t imagine that it gets any better than the MPG 321URX when it comes to 32-inch 4K OLED’s.
MSI MPG 321URX QD-OLED Review
There’s nothing particularly unique about the MPG 321URX when it comes to its aesthetic design. It looks similar to the Optix MPG321UR-QD monitor, which I reviewed and loved a couple of years ago. The MPG 321URX doesn’t have any fancy design features such as a two-tone or curved design; it sticks to the tried and tested MSI look. The main difference is that the OLED panel itself is extremely slim, with almost no visible bezels since it doesn’t require a backlight.
There’s a thick passive heatsink on the back, which, along with a Graphene film, helps keep the panel cool. I like this passive design because there’s no fan noise to worry about. There’s also a thin strip of MSI Mystic Light RGB, which looks cool but isn’t bright enough to be visible when placed against a wall. The stand is also simple and clean, taking up very little space on the desk while keeping the monitor in place. It offers height adjustment, swivel, tilt, and a little bit of rotation. Of course, you can also mount the monitor on any VESA 100 compatible arm.
On the back, you’ll find the most ports you’ll get on a 32-inch gaming monitor. There are two HDMI 2.1 ports with VRR support for consoles, a DisplayPort 1.4, USB Type-C with 90w of power delivery, which is great for laptops. Then there’s a 3.5mm audio port and a full USB hub with a KVM switch, allowing you to share peripherals between two devices.
This is one of my favourite features as I use a MacBook Pro for work and my gaming rig for everything else. The MPG 321URX keeps my MacBook fully charged, and I can use my keyboard and mouse for both the laptop and my gaming rig with ease. The KVM also has a solid auto-detection mode that will switch to the correct input when the display input changes.
MSI wisely put the OSD controls at the bottom of the back panel but in the middle, making it easy to access. I do wish these buttons had been placed on the bottom bezel and not the back panel, as there is still a slight awkwardness to reaching them. Regardless, the buttons are large and tactile, while the joystick makes navigation easy. However, you don’t have to use this as MSI’s Gaming Intelligence app for Windows can do everything you need, but with the convenience of using your mouse.
The OSD is pretty simple to understand and provides you with all the usual Game Assistance features, such as smart crosshairs, and, of course, AI Vision, which can boost darks and saturation on the fly in games to make things easier to see. There are also several picture presets that include sRGB and DCI-P3 modes for content creation work.
3rd generation QD-OLED
As previously mentioned, the MPG 321URX uses a 3rd-gen QD-OLED panel, which offers higher brightness, faster refresh rates and an improved sub-pixel layout that eliminates text colour fringing often associated with OLED displays. During my two weeks of using the MPG 321URX for detailed design work, writing, and reading, I did not notice any issues with text rendering, as everything looked sharp.
The 4K resolution on the 32-inch screen makes the pixel density much higher than something like the a 42-inch 4K monitor, which usually suffers from text fringing. Everything on the MPG 321URX is pixel perfect, and the colour quality and accuracy are of gold standard. The MPG 321URX has a 10-bit colour panel, covering 99% of the DCI-P3 colour space with a Delta E<2, making it perfect for colour-accurate work.
As an OLED panel, the MPG 321URX is VESA DisplayHDR 400 TrueBlack certified and supports HDR1000 in a 3% window. Its per-pixel dimming control achieves perfect contrast for true blacks, while the Quantum Dot layer makes colours burst off the screen. It is an absolute delight to watch HDR content or play HDR games on this panel. Diablo IV looks suitably dark, moody, and foreboding while still exploding with colour and flash as you slay hells minions.
However, gaming on a 4K panel at 240Hz is challenging for anything but the highest tier rigs. Nevertheless, the panel supports Adaptive Sync. Even when your rig can’t spit out frames fast enough, the monitor smooths things out, and it feels fast and responsive regardless. With a 0.03ms response time, you have nothing to complain about latency if you’re a twitch shooter lover.
The overall brightness of the monitor is decent, and unlike older OLED displays, I did not experience the annoying dimming effect that happens when you switch or expand a white window. The screen remained uniformly bright throughout my use, with the occasional slight dimming of brightness. We’ve all heard of the dreaded burn-in that happens when OLED displays show a bright image for too long, and it gets “burnt into” the panel. Considering that the MPG 321URX is designed for gaming, which has bright UI elements that stay on screen for hours, burn-in is a legitimate concern.
MSI and all the major players are aware of this, which is why almost every OLED monitor in 2024 comes with a host of burn-in protection features, as well as a three-year manufacturer’s warranty. The MPG 321URX comes with OLED Care 2.0, a trio of features that includes Pixel Shift, Panel Protect, and Static Screen Detection.
Pixel Shift periodically moves the entire screen image by a few pixels to keep things fresh, while Panel Protect runs a more thorough version of Pixel Shift, but the monitor is unusable during the process. Panel Protection runs automatically every 16 hours of use and can’t be stopped. It can be annoying when it runs in the middle of a gaming session or work call. Static Screen Detection kicks in whenever there is a static image like a taskbar or logo on the screen and automatically adjusts the brightness.
All these features ensure that your panel goes the distance, and if you use it like a sane person, there’s no reason to expect burn-in to occur. While some YouTubers may try to convince you otherwise by doing some extreme 1000 hour test, such scenarios are unlikely to happen to normal people.
Verdict
The MPG 321URX by MSI is undoubtedly one of the top 3 contenders for the best gaming monitor available in the market. Personally, I could not find any fault in this monitor in terms of performance, connectivity, and gaming experience. I have thoroughly enjoyed using it for both work and gaming purposes. This monitor is perfect for anyone who wants an all-in-one desk setup that includes a laptop, desktop, and gaming consoles. The MPG 321URX is so versatile that it excels in productivity, gaming, and media consumption, making its $2,100 price tag almost justifiable.
However, let’s be real, for most of us, that’s a lot of money, in fact, it’s about as much as my RTX 4070 powered gaming rig alone. There is no doubt that these new 32-inch 4K QD-OLED monitors are a serious investment but for the money, you could buy a 42 OLED TV. As they become more common, we can expect the prices to drop so hopefully, by the end of this year, we will see prices closer to the $1000-1300 mark. Until then, the MSI MPG 321URX I’m confident in saying that the MSI MPG 321URX is the best bang for buck 4K gaming OLED monitor available. But there are so many others yet to come.
MSI Australia kindly loaned the MPG 321URX to PowerUp for the purpose of writing this review.
