MSI MPG 321URX Review (4K/240Hz QD-OLED)

1. Introduction2. Design3. On-screen Display (OSD)4. Panel Analysis: SDR5. Panel Analysis: HDR6. Response Times7. Input Latency8. Closing Thoughts9. View All Pages

Today we are checking out the MSI MPG 321URX, our first look at the new generation of QD-OLED gaming displays that offer a 4K resolution and 240Hz refresh rate. Up until now, OLED monitors have been limited to 1440p or ultrawide screen sizes, and it is safe to say there has been a fair bit of hype surrounding these new 32in 4K models. We put the MPG 321URX through its paces and find out just how good this gaming monitor really is.

If you have read any of my previous OLED monitor reviews on KitGuru, you will know I think the technology is incredibly well suited to gaming. Not only do you get an effectively infinite contrast ratio and immersive HDR experience thanks to the per-pixel dimming aspect of OLED, but the response times and motion clarity on offer are absolutely superb.

That means we can have high hopes for the MSI MPG 321URX, utilising a 3rd generation QD-OLED panel from Samsung. Like most 4K screens using this particular panel, it offers a flat 16:9 experience, while MSI claims up to 1000 nits peak brightness in HDR, 99% DCI-P3 coverage and adaptive sync support.

Naturally such a screen doesn't come cheap, as it's up for pre-order at £1299 from OCUK, though US buyers can find it at a more attractive $949 price point.

Specification:

• PANEL SIZE: 31.5″
• ACTIVE DISPLAY AREA (MM): 699.48(H) x 394.73(V)
• CURVATURE: Flat
• PANEL TYPE: QD-OLED
• PANEL RESOLUTION: 3840×2160 (UHD)
• PIXEL PITCH (H X V): 0.1814(H) x 0.1814(V)
• ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
• BRIGHTNESS (NITS): 250 (Typ.)
• CONTRAST RATIO: 1500000:1 (Typ.)
• SIGNAL FREQUENCY: 104.88~565.44 KHz(H) / 48~240.39 Hz(V)
• ACTIVATED RANGE: 48 ~ 240Hz
• REFRESH RATE: 240Hz
• RESPONSE TIME: 0.03ms (GtG)
• DYNAMIC REFRESH RATE TECHNOLOGY: Adaptive-Sync
• HDR SUPPORT: DisplayHDR True Black 400
• VIDEO PORTS:
  • 1 x DisplayPort 1.4a
  • 2 x HDMI™ 2.1 (4K@240Hz)
  • 1 x Type-c (DP alt.) w/PD 90W
• USB PORTS:
  • 1 x Type-c (DP alt.) w/PD 90W
  • 2 x USB 2.0 Type-A
  • 1 x USB 2.0 Type-B
• AUDIO PORTS: 1 x Headphone-out
• VIEWING ANGLE: 178°(H) / 178°(V)
• ADOBE RGB / DCI-P3 / SRGB: 97% / 99% / 138%
• SURFACE TREATMENT: Anti-Reflection
• DISPLAY COLORS: 1.07B ,10 bits
• POWER TYPE: Power Cable
• POWER INPUT: 100~240V, 50/60Hz
• ADJUSTMENT (TILT): -5° ~ 15°
• ADJUSTMENT (SWIVEL): -30° ~ 30°
• ADJUSTMENT (PIVOT): -10° ~ 10°
• ADJUSTMENT (HEIGHT): 0 ~ 110mm
• KENSINGTON LOCK: Yes
• DIMENSION (W X D X H): 718 x 242 x 483 mm
• CARTON DIMENSION (W X D X H): 718 x 69 x 418 mm (without stand)
• FRAMELESS DESIGN: Yes
• VESA MOUNTING: 100 x 100 mm
• WEIGHT (NW / GW): 9.6 Kg/ 12.3 Kg
• NOTE:
  • Display Port: 3840 x 2160 (Up to 240Hz)
  • HDMI™ 2.1: 3840 x 2160 (Up to 240Hz)
  • Type C(DP alt.): 3840 x 2160 (Up to 240Hz) and 90W PD charging
• WARRANTY: 3 years (including panel burn-in)

Firmware tested: FW.009

Starting with the design of the MSI MPG 321URX, if you've seen any of MSI's other monitors released over the last year or two then you'll be familiar with what is on offer here. It's almost an entirely matte-black affair, with a bezel-less design on the front, while the grey chin measures just under 20mm thick.

The rear is home to the MSI dragon logo and a small RGB zone above the stand, though it's very small and obviously not visible from the front. I appreciate that MSI is kept its square-ish stand foot, too, instead of the large v-shaped feet we typically see. That said, the stand and rear of the monitor do feel a little plasticky considering the price point, but once setup on your desk it's not a particular concern.

Back to the stand though, this offers a decent array of ergonomic adjustments, including up to 110mm of height adjust, 30 degrees of swivel both left and right, tilt from -5 to +15 degrees, while there's also 10 degrees of pivot in both directions. VESA 100×100 mounts are also supported for those wishing to use a third-party stand or arm.

As for the port selection on offer, MSI has opted for 1x DisplayPort 1.4a, 2x HDMI 2.1 (which is great to see), while there's a USB-C that also supports DP Alt mode alongside 90W power delivery. A Type-B upstream feeds the two USB Type-A downstream ports, and KVM functionality is also supported.

Positioned centrally on the rear of the screen, we also find a small joystick used to navigate the OSD, flanked by two buttons – one is a simple power button, the other is a customisable option which can be configured using MSI's GamingIntelligence software.

The OSD itself is broken down into nine main tabs, as you can see here:

Using the same OSD system as we have come to expect from MSI, I don't have any major complaints here. It is quick to navigate using the joystick, things are sensibly laid out and it's a very well-featured selection too, with all the gamer-specific options we have come to expect as well as customisable white balance, an sRGB emulation mode and so on.

There's also the option to install MSI's GamingIntelligence app which can be used to control the monitor direct from your Windows desktop. I do find it slightly annoying that the window size cannot be adjusted, but it has all the same options as the OSD for adjusting things, while it can also be used to update the monitor's firmware.

Our main test involves using an X-Rite i1 Display Pro Plus colorimeter and utilising Portrait Display's Calman Ultimate software. The device sits on top of the screen while the software generates colour tones and patterns, which it compares against predetermined values to work out how accurate the screen is.

The results show:

• A monitor’s maximum brightness in candelas or cd/m² at various levels set in the OSD.
• A monitor’s contrast ratio at various brightness levels in the OSD.
• Gamut coverage, primarily focusing on sRGB and DCI-P3 colour spaces.
• Greyscale accuracy, measured across 20 shades, with an average colour balance reported.
• The exact gamma levels, with a comparison against preset settings in the OSD.
• The colour accuracy, expressed as a Delta E ratio, with a result under 3 being fine for normal use, and under 2 being great for colour-accurate design work.

We first run these tests with the display in its out-of-the-box state, with all settings on default. If there is an sRGB emulation option or other useful mode then we may test that too. We then calibrate the screen using the Calman Ultimate software and run the tests again.

You can read more about our test methodology HERE.

Default settings

Brightness and Contrast (Full Screen)

OSD Brightness	White Luminance (cd/m2)	Black Luminance (cd/m2)	Contrast Ratio
0%	30.4	0.00	~Infinite
25%	93.1	0.00	~Infinite
50%	156.6	0.00	~Infinite
75%	213.4	0.00	~Infinite
100%	243.3	0.00	~Infinite

Starting our testing with brightness and contrast, it is worth noting that we did select the User mode for this test – out of the box, the MPG 321URX defaults to the Eco mode which caps brightness slightly lower than what can be achieved with the User mode. Still, a minimum brightness of 30 nits is a good result, and a full-screen peak of 243 nits is about expected for a QD-OLED monitor. Being OLED, we of course get perfect black levels, resulting in effectively infinite contrast.

It's also good to see that luminance is very steady regardless of the window size (APL). Some OLED monitors will show a noticeable drop off in brightness as the window size gets bigger, but that is not the case for the 321URX – it's a very uniform experience in this regard.

Gamut (CIE 1976)

Colour space	Coverage
sRGB	100%
DCI-P3	98.9%
Adobe RGB	96.5%
Rec.2020	77.9%

Being a QD-OLED monitor we see a very wide gamut from the 321URX, well exceeding the sRGB space and delivering 98.9% coverage of DCI-P3, alongside 96.5% reporting of the AdobeRGB colour space. Rec.2020 coverage is also decent, hitting 77.9%.

Greyscale

Moving onto greyscale testing, out of the box the 321URX delivers decent results, with an average dE 2000 of 2.75. My sample does have a slightly warm average Correlated Colour Temperature (CCT) of 6064K, due to the red channel being slightly raised while the blue channel is slightly low. Gamma tracking is generally fine too, averaging almost 2.2, though it is slightly too low in the brighter shades.

Thankfully there is user-adjustable white balance available on the 321URX, and I got significantly improved results simply by lowering the red balance from 100 down to 98. That resulted in an average dE 2000 of just 1.29 which is fantastic, with a improved average CCT of 6605K, too.

Saturation

In terms of saturation, given just how wide the monitor's gamut is, we see quite a bit of over-saturation relative to the sRGB space.

Things do look better relative to the DCI-P3 colour space however, with an average dE 2000 of 2.11.

Colour Accuracy

As expected, high levels of over-saturation means that colour accuracy relative to sRGB is pretty poor, with an average dE 2000 of 4.82.

Again, once we compare to the DCI-P3 space instead, the result do improve, with a new dE 2000 of 2.55.

sRGB Emulation Mode

The MPG 321URX also features an sRGB emulation mode, which does a good job at clamping the gamut as we can see above.

This mode didn't correct the slightly warm colour balance we saw in the out of the box settings, but it has improved gamma tracking slightly, aside from that one dip near the right-hand side of the curve.

Saturation accuracy is much improved too, with an average dE 2000 of 1.58, compared to 3.98 using the monitor's default mode.

Colour accuracy is now impressively good using the sRGB mode, with an average dE of just 1.45, so we can happily recommend using this mode – it's very accurate.

Calibrated results

We also put the 321URX though a full calibration using Calman Ultimate. This delivered almost flawless greyscale and gamma tracking, while average dE for our saturation sweeps dropped to just 0.33. Lastly, colour accuracy also improved with an average dE of 0.47, so it's worth doing if you have the tools and need as accurate an image as possible.

HDR Testing

Following on from the SDR results on the previous page, here we re-test the relevant areas of the display with HDR enabled.

Brightness

By default, the 321URX defaults to the True Black 400 mode when HDR is enabled. This limits brightness in HDR mode to about 460 nits, which is sustained up to a 10% APL, after which brightness slowly declines until it hits a full screen figure of 263 nits.

There is, however, a Peak 1000 Nits mode too, which does what it says on the tin – delivering a peak of 1000 nits for 1% and 2% APLs, before dropping off as the window size increases.

Greyscale

The difference between the two modes other than brightness is quite hard to spot. RGB balance is very similar, as is greyscale dE. There is just a tiny difference in the EOTF tracking, with the HDR Peak 1000 mode rolling off slightly early compared to the True Black 400 mode, but both are generally accurate and don't pose any headaches for use with HDR content.

Colour Accuracy

Likewise, colour accuracy with HDR enabled is very similar between the two modes, each deliver average dEs of around 2.2-2.4. The biggest offenders are the 100% cyan and 100% green channels, which the monitor can't display accurately due to its sub-100% coverage of the Rec.2020 colour space.

Monitor response time testing is a new addition to our reviews, where we use the Open Source Response Time Tool (OSRTT), developed by TechTeamGB. This measures grey-to-grey response times and presents the results in a series of heatmaps, the style of which you may be familiar with from other reviews.

Initial Response Time is the time taken for the panel to transition from one colour to another, where lower values are better. We present the initial response time, so overshoot is not taken into account and is measured separately. We use a fixed RGB 5 tolerance for each transition.

Overshoot is the term given for when a monitor's transition exceeds or goes beyond its target value. So if a monitor was meant to transition from RGB 0 to RGB 55, but it hits RGB 60 before settling back down at RGB 55, that is overshoot. This is presented as RGB values in the heatmaps – i.e. how many RGB values past the intended target were measured.

Visual Response Rating is a metric designed to ‘score' a panel's visual performance, incorporating both response times and overdrive. Fast response times with little to no overshoot will score well, while slow response times or those with significant overshoot will score poorly.

We test the MPG 321URX at 240Hz, 120Hz and 60Hz.

We won't spend too much time on the response time testing as it's exactly as we'd expect – we see very fast response times across the board, regardless of the refresh rate used, and this is typical of an OLED monitor.

Of course, that doesn't mean motion clarity is the same at difference refresh rates, and this is due to the sample-and-hold nature of OLED screens. The higher the refresh rate, the less time each frame is displayed, the clearer the image looks. 240Hz looks fantastic for instance and is a noticeable step-up from even a 120Hz OLED.

Overall then, the best response time chart shows the 321URX right up there with the other OLEDs we have tested, with response times around the 1ms mark.

We again use the Open Source Response Time Tool (OSRTT), developed by TechTeamGB, to report monitor input latency.

Input latency is a new area of our testing, using the OSRTT Pro tool. Average On Display lag is reported at 1.81ms which is less than a half of a single frame at 240Hz (4.16ms), a more than adequate result.

After putting the MSI MPG 321URX through its paces over the last couple of weeks, it is hard to be anything but mighty impressed with what this gaming monitor is able to achieve.

Utilising Samsung's 3rd Gen QD-OLED panel, the combination of the 4K resolution, 240Hz refresh and other benefits of OLED technology is as good as I hoped – it delivers a gaming experience which is, in my opinion, unlike anything else on the market right now.

It's also pleasing that MSI has done such a good job with the panel implementation too – as we know from past experience, things can easily go wrong with even the best panel in the world! But the factory calibration is decent, particularly the sRGB mode which is the most accurate I have tested to-date, MSI offers a wealth of anti burn-in features alongside a three-year warranty which includes burn-in protection, while the OSD and GamingIntelligence app both offer a host of customisable features.

If I had to pick something to improve on, I do feel a metal stand wouldn't go amiss at this price point, it would certainly help add a more premium feel to the 321URX. But as mentioned earlier in the review, once the screen is setup on your desk, it isn't going anywhere so we can't complain too much.

It is also fair to say that UK buyers are getting the short end of the stick compared to our US counterparts – on these shores the 321URX is up for pre-order at £1299, whereas in the States it is only $949. Still, we knew these monitors would never be cheap – as it's always been in the PC industry, if you want the best of the best, you have to pay for it, and the MSI MPG 321URX certainly is that.

The 321URX is up for pre-order from Overclockers UK HERE.

Discuss on our Facebook page HERE.

Pros

• Very wide gamut.
• Effectively infinite contrast ratio.
• Very fast response times.
• 4K resolution coupled with 240Hz OLED makes for a very sharp experience.
• Games just look so good.
• HDR hits 1000 nits and is accurate.
• Great sRGB emulation mode.
• 2x HDMI 2.1.
• USB-C and KVM support.
• User-upgradable firmware.

Cons

• Metal stand would have been nice.
• UK buyers are paying a fair bit more than those in the US.

KitGuru says: The monitor market just took another big step forward.

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