The LG UltraGear evo GX9 ($1,799.99) is a 39-inch ultrawide curved gaming monitor with a lot going for it. It’s the world’s first so-called “5K2K” (5,120-by-2,160-pixel) OLED gaming monitor of its screen size, and it’s based on LG’s fourth-gen Primary RGB Tandem QD-OLED panel. It’s an impressive screen, with a wide enough wingspan to support multiple windows and various productivity workflows, as well as some high-end gaming, of course. Its AI features likely drive up the price and made a few missteps, though. The slightly bigger but AI-free LG 45 Ultragear OLED (45GX950A-B) and the 39-inch Alienware 39 5K OLED Gaming Monitor (AW3926QW) are better choices and remain our Editors’ Choice picks in this category.
The UltraGear evo GX9 uses LG’s latest generation of its Primary RGB Penta Tandem OLED technology, referred to as a “Primary RGB Tandem”. This new panel technology addresses common pain points that affected previous QD-OLED panels, such as low brightness, blurry text, and lackluster black-level performance under high ambient light.
We’ve seen similar technologies appear in some of this year’s OLED monitor releases. The Alienware 34 280Hz QD-OLED (AW3426DW) offers a similar upgrade, courtesy of Samsung, albeit under a different name: QD-OLED Penta Tandem.
A close look reveals its makeup is similar to that of LG’s Tandem RGB QD-OLED. Both include DisplayHDR TrueBlack 500 certification and a rated peak HDR brightness of 1,300 nits. (And by the way, in case it’s not clear from the above discussion, Samsung and LG make the panels that go into most gaming monitors, from Alienware to Zowie.)
The UltraGear evo GX9 has a 21:9 aspect ratio and a 1500R curve, which stands for 1,500mm—the radius of a circle formed by a hypothetical ring of these monitors placed edge to edge. Bigger screens tend to have tighter curves.
Probably the most interesting thing about the monitor to me, aside from its new panel tech, is its built-in processor. While LG doesn’t disclose the specific model name, core architecture, or processor brand, the company claims it uses AI upscaling to enhance lower-resolution content to fit the display’s 5K2K resolution. To be clear, the monitor’s native resolution is still 5K2K, but this optional feature is supposed to help consoles and low-end computers, which output at lower peak resolutions, experience the full effect of the screen.
On paper, this AI upscaling seems similar to upscaling technologies such as AMD FSR and Nvidia DLSS, but it’s handled by the monitor’s processor and not your computer’s GPU. We’ll see how that plays out in the game performance section below, but first, let’s take a look at the rest of what the monitor has to offer.
The back of the cabinet has a simple, matte-black finish without any loud logos. The only indication that it’s a gaming monitor is the UltraGear branding along the stand. The hexagon shape on the back houses the monitor’s RGB lighting, which can be controlled from the on-screen display (OSD). Also on the back, you’ll find a row of ports: two HDMI 2.1 connectors, a DisplayPort 2.1 jack, two USB Type-A ports (version 3.2 Gen 2), a USB Type-C jack with 90 watts of power delivery, and a headphone jack.
Overall, it’s a brutalist-look design, with a thick base, stand, and chassis. It measures 23.8 by 36.3 by 12.7 inches with the stand fully extended, and it weighs 23.6 pounds.
Other features include two built-in 7-watt stereo speakers, into which LG also worked an AI-powered feature. Called AI Sound, it separates individual audio elements to create a more controlled and more immersive sound profile, LG claims. I put this to the test with King Krule’s “Pink Shell,” a bass-heavy song that I like to use to test speakers on monitors and laptops. The built-in speakers do sound loud, though they lack the hard-hitting bass you’d get from external computer speakers. Even with the bass boost enabled, the song’s heavy bass notes didn’t feel any richer. To my ear, AI Sound noticeably cleans up the sound and makes it easier to identify different parts of the track, but doesn’t really improve the overall listening experience. It also seems to add reverb that isn’t in the original song.
For gamers not interested in AI-powered audio, the UltraGear has plenty of other features to recommend it. The most useful is certainly the dual-mode capability, which supports different peak refresh rates at two resolutions: 165Hz at the native 5,120-by-2,160 resolution, and 330Hz at a lower 2,560-by-1,080 resolution. You can also shrink the effective display area to 34, 27, or 24.5 inches, masking out part of the screen around the image. This might better cater to your needs if you’re a hard-core gamer who prefers smaller screen areas for competitive play but still enjoys the expansive experience of an ultrawide on more immersive titles or when not gaming.
The next step in our evaluation: putting the monitor through our standard benchmark tests using Portrait Displays’ Calman calibration software and a Klein K-10A colorimeter. I also ran it through a gauntlet of games to measure input lag and judge its real-world performance. (I took these readings with out-of-the-box settings, unless otherwise noted.)
In the first test, I benchmarked the display brightness using the out-of-the-box SDR profile. Under these conditions, I measured 322 nits at a 10% window size, right between LG’s listed typical brightness of 330 nits and its minimum of 300 nits.
Moving on to HDR, the monitor promises a peak HDR brightness of 1,500 nits at 1.5% average picture level (APL). APL is defined by how much of the image you’re displaying is bright and how much of it is dark, so by changing the window-size presets in Calman, we can alter the APL of the image being measured. Typically, this is represented by differently sized white windows as measured against a black background. For example, at a 25% window size, the white box occupies a quarter of the black background, thus simulating 25% APL. Reducing the window size to 2% (there is no 1.5% preset), I measured 1,235 nits of brightness. LG also suggests that typical HDR brightness should hit 600 nits at a 10% APL, and I recorded 541 nits at a 10% window size. That’s under 600 nits, but more in line with its VESA DisplayHDR True Black 500 rating. Either way, although the test results did not quite nail LG’s HDR targets, I thought the HDR application looked good.
The LG UltraGear evo GX9 is rated for a dynamic contrast ratio of 1,850,000:1, slightly higher than recent OLED monitors, including the Alienware AW3926QW,Alienware 34 280Hz QD-OLED (AW3426DW), and the Asus ROG PG34WCDN. That sky-high figure indicates the display’s ability to produce deep blacks alongside bright whites, resulting in stellar quality in both light and dark scenes. Most non-OLED monitors have rated contrast ratios of 2,000:1 or less. Compared with them, OLEDs offer essentially infinite contrast ratios, making the eight-digit ratios really just number soup. This is true of both premium and entry-level OLED gaming monitors.
(Credit: Portrait Displays/PCMag)
Also in Calman, I tested the color gamut. My metering indicates that the LG UltraGear evo GX9 covers 98.3% of the Adobe RGB color space, 151% of the sRGB color space, and 99.5% of the DCI-P3 color space. The charts above and below show the Adobe RGB and DCI-P3 results, respectively. The squares represent target color reference points, and the circles represent the actual measured color. The panel exceeds 100% sRGB, as many OLED monitors do, which can occasionally result in an overblown image. Still, the wider gamut can result in richer colors, especially when viewing HDR content.
(Credit: Portrait Displays/PCMag)
Moving on to input lag testing, I used the Leo Bodnar 4K Input Lag Tester to measure the UltraGear evo GX9’s input lag times across various combinations of refresh rates and resolutions. Low input lag is critical for hard-core gaming and esports, but you can benefit from it even if you’re a casual gamer.
I started my input-lag tests at full HD (1080p). At 1080p/60Hz, I recorded 9.5ms of input lag, and at 1080p/120Hz, 4.8ms. At 1080p/240Hz, the measurement was a stellar 3.1ms. At QHD (1440p) resolution, the monitor recorded 6.6ms of input lag at 60Hz and 9.3ms at 120Hz. Finally, at 4K/60Hz, I recorded 9.2 ms of input lag. (The Bodnar device can’t measure above 120Hz at 1440p, or above 240Hz at 1080p.)
Ultrawide gaming is no longer a niche, as many games now support wider aspect ratios. In my testing, I tried Cyberpunk 2077, Doom: The Dark Ages, and Pragmata on this panel, all of which support ultrawide aspect ratios, high frame rates, and HDR. And they all looked good, too. The monitor supports AMD FreeSync Premium Pro and is Nvidia G-Sync Compatible, which should eliminate screen tearing, blur, and ghosting.
I also tested the AI upscaling feature and found a lot of variables to consider. On the monitor’s product page, LG notes that the inputr resolutions are not supported), though LG suggested to me that 1,920 by 1,080p at 60Hz is where you want to be. The monitor’s settings offer two upscaling options: High and Low
For PC users, the tricky part, surprisingly, is setting your computer’s active signal to 1,920 by 1,080 pixels. To do this, you must navigate to the Adaptive Properties setting in Windows (System > Display > Advanced Display > Adaptive Properties) and set the screen’s resolution to 1,920 by 1,080 pixels at 60Hz. Ensure that the display is the only display detected, then double-check the active signal resolution in the monitor’s OSD by navigating to General > Information.
With computer settings verified, I loaded up Cyberpunk 2077, expecting to see a huge jump in screen resolution and…I didn’t. I toggled the monitor’s AI upscaling on and off in different locations to see if a difference emerged, but I saw none. As it turns out, it was a simple fix: You need to be on the 5K2K/165Hz mode, too.
With that sorted, I finally saw the upscaling in action. On Pragmata’s title screen, for example, the difference in the face of the main character, Diana, was obvious. The sharpening was evident, but on the High setting, the characters looked a little, well, “deep-fried.”
In action scenes, the high contrast did clean up distant objects, but the effect wasn’t overly noticeable in the foreground. While the High setting showed the more obvious change, the Low setting produced a more pleasing image to my eyes. Ultimately, though, neither looked particularly good; I preferred the softness of the native image.
I jumped among Cyberpunk 2077, Doom: The Dark Ages, and Marvel Rivals, and the results were similar. At best, the image looked over-sharpened. At worst, I saw little change at all. To me, the trouble isn’t really worth the reward, and if you’re shelling out money for a 5K2K monitor, chances are your GPU is better at upscaling, anyway.
You’ll jump through fewer hoops upscaling from a console. In fact, LG showcases the technology by upscaling The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on the Nintendo Switch (which has a max resolution of 1080p). Whether you’re playing on a current console or a last-gen one, you can manually adjust your console’s output resolution in its system settings. Set the console’s resolution to 1080p/60Hz and rely on the monitor’s upscaling, and you’ll find it noticeably sharpens and upscales a 1080p image to 4K. I confirmed this with the Xbox One using Fortnite. But like on the PC, this crunchier image isn’t really worth the trouble.
The AI upscaling feature actually does work, but it’s hard to recommend playing consoles on an ultrawide monitor anyway, as they don’t natively support 21:9 aspect ratios and certainly don’t support the UltraGear evo GX9’s 5K native resolution. There’s also no practical reason to lower the resolution of a 4K source to 1080p, only to upscale it to 4K again, when you could just set your console to 4K in the first place. It may prove more useful for older consoles that output at 1080p/60Hz, like the original Nintendo Switch or even something older like a PlayStation 3, but that’s an edge case—no one should be buying this monitor to use primarily with a vintage console.
LG advertises upscaling as a selling point, but the fact that it only works under very specific circumstances (and when it does, it’s not game-changing) makes me wonder why the feature is here at all. You can just ignore it, but I would prefer it to be omitted entirely if that meant a lower price for this otherwise excellent monitor.
Final Thoughts
LG UltraGear evo GX9
4.0
Excellent
What Our Ratings Mean
- 5.0 – Exemplary: Near perfection, ground-breaking
- 4.5 – Outstanding: Best in class, acts as a benchmark for measuring competitors
- 4.0 – Excellent: A performance, feature, or value leader in its class, with few shortfalls
- 3.5 – Good: Does what the product should do, and does so better than many competitors
- 3.0 – Average: Does what the product should do, and sits in the middle of the pack
- 2.5 – Fair: We have some reservations, buy with caution
- 2.0 – Subpar: We do not recommend, buy with extreme caution
- 1.5 – Poor: Do not buy this product
- 1.0 – Dismal: Don’t even think about buying this product
Read Our
Editorial Mission Statement
and
Testing Methodologies.
The LG UltraGear evo GX9 is an obliging ultrawide gaming monitor for serious work and immersive play. It’s expertly crafted, almost like a brutalist statement piece in your office. The main downside is that, while the AI features are promising, they are not worth paying extra for in their current state. To mutilate Peter Clemenza’s words from The Godfather: “Take the Tandem RGB QD-OLED panel, leave the AI upscaling.” Besides, if you’re interested in buying this monitor, you probably have a GPU that’s a more capable upscaler.
Ultimately, the UltraGear evo GX9 is worth a look if cost is no object, but you should consider an alternative that ditches the AI features if money matters. If 39 inches is your size, the Alienware 39 5K OLED Gaming Monitor (AW3926QW) is far cheaper ($1,099 list price) and matches the UltraGear evo GX9’s feature set nearly every step of the way.
About Our Expert
Zackery Cuevas
Writer, Hardware
Experience
I’m a PCMag reviewer and ISF-certified TV calibrator focused on computer accessories, laptops, gaming monitors, and video games. I’ve been writing, playing, and complaining about games for as long as I remember, but it wasn’t until recently that I’ve been able to shout my opinions directly at a larger audience. My work has appeared on iMore, Windows Central, Android Central, and TWICE, and I have a diverse portfolio of editing work under my belt from my time spent at Scholastic and Oxford University Press. I also have a few book-author credits under my belt—I’ve contributed to the sci-fi anthology Under New Suns, and I’ve even written a Peppa Pig book.
Areas of Expertise
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