Review: The LG 27GX790A-B might be a mouthful but it's worth the tongue twisting

Gaming monitors have always pushed the envelope for what is possible with display tech. Whether that’s high refresh rates for motion clarity, coupled with variable refresh rates tech, or color-accurate panels that rival those used for editing. Nowadays, the best gaming monitors can do both, but expect to pay for the combination because the best of anything is always expensive.

LG has paired the highest refresh rate available on an OLED panel with its intimate knowledge of W-OLED on the LG 27GX790A-B, a 27-inch gaming monitor with 1440p resolution and a huge 480Hz refresh rate. It bucks the trend of curved monitors, sticking to a flat panel, supports HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 2.1, and has a 0.03ms response time that only OLED can provide. Esports enthusiasts can stop reading here and go smash the order button, because it truly excels at fast-paced games when you can pump enough frames into it, but it’s not a perfect fit for every other user.

About this review: LG loaned us the 27GX790A-B for the purposes of this review. The company had no input in its content.

Gorgeous for gaming

LG UltraGear 27GX790A-B

An expensive monitor for esports enthusiasts

$902 $1000 Save
$98

This 27-inch W-OLED gaming monitor is super-slim, and super-speedy with a 480Hz refresh rate for incredible motion clarity in the fastest games. You’ll need some pretty hefty computer specs to drive it at its maximum, including a GPU compatible with DisplayPort 2.1 or HDMI 2.1, and it’s better as a secondary monitor for gaming use rather than your primary productivity panel.

Pros & Cons

• 480Hz refresh rate for incredible motion clarity
• WOLED for gorgeous color representation
• Great design and ergonomics

• “Dirty screen effect” caused by inconsistent panel brightness
• Text clarity isn’t great on desktop
• Noticable VRR flicker

Price, specs & availability

The LG UltraGear 27GX790A-B was announced in November 2024, with an MSRP of $1,000. It was available in stores like Amazon, Best Buy, Newegg, and LG’s own website with availability starting on December 30th. This is a premium gaming monitor with a premium price to match, with DisplayPort 2.1 and HDMI 2.1 support, FreeSync Premium Pro and G-Sync compatibility, and a super-fast 480Hz refresh rate.

What I liked

Its motion clarity is unmatched

Right from the moment I trimmed through the tape and unboxed the LG 27GX790A-B, it took my breath away. That’s because the monitor is super-thin for the most part, like LG’s OLED TV range, with a thin surround on the panel and a smaller but thicker section in the middle holding the input ports and internal electronics. This monitor is every bit as premium as the price, and that feeling persisted through loading up my favorite fast-paced games.

The monitor stand is also impressive, but for other reasons, as it doesn’t use the usual V-shaped base that every other gaming monitor seems to favor. Instead, it’s a flat, heavy metal plate that keeps the monitor securely grounded on your desk. This is awesome because it takes up less desk area, but it also gives you a flat surface where you can put your gaming controller, or phone charger, or anything else that might normally live above your keyboard and mouse.

Now, the main selling point here isn’t the OLED panel, although that helps. It’s the 480Hz refresh rate, which makes for impressive motion clarity in any game. It’s particularly impressive in any title that you can get a native FPS close to the refresh rate, like Rocket League, DOTA 2, or other esports titles, where any individual frame looks like a static picture, with legible text and no blurring.

But it’s also pretty impressive for color coverage, as with any OLED. It covers 100% of the sRGB gamut, 95% of DCI-P3, and a slightly lower 89% of the AdobeRGB gamut, where reds are a little oversaturated and greens aren’t quite deep enough. That’s perhaps okay, as this isn’t a professional monitor for color-accurate tasks like video grading, it’s a foot-to-the-floor gaming monitor and some tradeoffs have to be made. It does hit the 275 nits of peak SDR brightness in our testing, but only when the monitor is set to 100 brightness.

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What I didn’t like

Variable refresh rate woes and some issues integral to any W-OLED panel

If you’re only using this monitor for fast-paced gaming, you’ll be happy with it. The matte coating on the panel diffuses glare nicely without making too much of an impact on the color you perceive. However, before calibrating with a Datacolor SpyderPro, the color accuracy was further than I’d like to see from any OLED panel, at dE 2.93 on average. That’s still within the dE of 3 that we like to see, but only just. Calibration did reduce this by half, so the panel is still good, but a better calibration from the factory would be welcomed.

White point uniformity was also lacking, with the top third of the panel up to 2.9 dE away from the target, the middle third 0.9 dE, and the lower third almost fully accurate. The variation in pixel brightness across the panel leads to a distracting dirty screen effect, but is something all OLED screens are affected by to some degree. Again, it’s not something you’d notice much while using the monitor for its intended gaming use, but could be distracting when editing documents or spreadsheets.

The only other issue was visible VRR flicker when changing frame rates. This was mostly noticeable in dark scenes, but was also noticeable on bright points of the desktop wallpaper when there were points approaching white on a colored background. Changing the desktop background fixed this, so it could just have been some odd interaction with a specific image.

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Should you buy the LG 27GX790A-B?

You should buy the LG 27GX790A-B if:

• You want the highest refresh rate in an OLED panel
• You want good color accuracy without oversaturation
• You care about motion clarity when gaming

You should NOT buy the LG 27GX790A-B if:

• You want a 4K gaming monitor
• You want a monitor for productivity and gaming use
• You want better value for money in your monitor

I must admit, I have mixed feelings about this LG UltraGear 27GX790A-B W-OLED gaming monitor. I absolutely love the 480Hz refresh rate’s motion clarity, coupled with the panel’s near-instant response rate. It’s something that absolutely has to be seen to be believed, with every frame looking like a still image instead of the often blurred outlines from lesser panels. It’s also pretty color accurate even out of the box, although it doesn’t quite have the wide gamut of QD-OLED which is my preferred OLED variety for gaming on.

It’s also got one of the better physical designs of any monitor I’ve used, with a heavy, but compact stand that has all the adjustability you’d want, or the option to use VESA mounting on an arm, and a super-slim panel thanks to LG’s knowledge of OLED. But it is let down by text fringing and clarity issues when used for non-gaming tasks, as the RWBG subpixel layout isn’t as crisp as RGB layouts like on VA or IPS panels.

Unfortunately, LG is only using UHBR13.5 for the DisplayPort 2.1 connection, which means it doesn’t have enough bandwidth to run natively at 480Hz and 1440p and must rely on DSC (Display Stream Compression). It’s not a huge concern, but it is worth mentioning. Overall, it’s a fantastic monitor for gaming use, even if you might not want to use it for spreadsheets or other productivity tasks.

LG UltraGear 27GX790A-B

$902 $1000 Save
$98

This 27-inch W-OLED gaming monitor is super-slim, and super-speedy with a 480Hz refresh rate for incredible motion clarity in the fastest games. You’ll need some pretty hefty computer specs to drive it at its maximum, including a GPU compatible with DisplayPort 2.1 or HDMI 2.1, and it’s better as a secondary monitor for gaming use rather than your primary productivity panel.