Today, we're looking at the successor to one of the most popular bang-for-buck 32-inch 4K gaming monitors, the Gigabyte M32UP. Many of you purchased the Gigabyte M32U for around $500 as a solid 4K 144Hz LCD, and now Gigabyte has a new version slowly rolling out, called the M32UP. It's not a radical change; in fact, it's very similar in terms of specifications. However, it's worth assessing to see how the 32-inch LCD market is evolving.

The M32UP is a 32-inch, 3840 x 2160 IPS LCD with a maximum refresh rate of 160Hz, a slight increase from the M32U, which topped out at 144Hz.

Like its predecessor, this is an SDR monitor with no real HDR capabilities. It is advertised as DisplayHDR 400, but without edge-lit local dimming, the HDR experience is poor. That's not necessarily a dealbreaker at this price yet, as 32-inch HDR LCDs remain expensive. However, demand for true HDR products at this price point and below is increasing.

In terms of design, the M32UP is essentially a refresh of the M32U. It follows the same Gigabyte M-series design seen in recent models, featuring a simple black plastic construction and a wide, flat V-shaped stand. There's nothing fancy – no RGB LED lighting on the back – but from the front, it looks sleek with slim bezels on three sides.

The rear design is also appealing. While it doesn't include premium materials like a metal stand, the plastic build doesn't look particularly cheap either. It's a solid choice for this class of display.

The stand is functional, offering height, tilt, and swivel adjustment, with a good maximum height. It has moderate stability. The screen coating is a standard matte LCD finish, similar to other LCDs – effective at reducing mirror reflections but with slight graininess.

Port selection is decent, featuring two HDMI 2.1 (48 Gbps) ports, one DisplayPort 1.4 with DSC, and a USB-C port supporting DP-Alt mode. Additionally, there's a three-port USB 3.2 hub, and the USB-C port can function as an upstream port, enabling KVM switch functionality. However, USB-C power delivery is limited to 18W, which won't be sufficient for charging most laptops. It's good to see the HDMI ports upgraded from 24 Gbps on the M32U to full 48 Gbps ports.

The on-screen display (OSD) is controlled by a directional toggle on the rear and features Gigabyte's standard interface. There's a solid set of gaming features, including crosshairs, a refresh rate counter, shadow boosting, sniper mode, and a dashboard that integrates with Gigabyte's software for system stats.

The color control options are also decent, but keep in mind that they are essentially the same as other Gigabyte monitors, so if you're comparing models, this won't be a differentiating factor.

Response Time Performance

For response time performance, Gigabyte offers five different overdrive settings, and we'll start with Off, which shows native panel performance with overdrive disabled. This is probably not how you'll want to run the monitor. The Picture Quality mode is a small improvement to 8.5ms, but still not fast enough to fully support a 160Hz refresh rate.

Gigabyte M32UP - 160Hz - Off, Picture Quality, Balance, Speed

The Balance mode is where the M32UP starts to perform at a reasonable standard, offering a 4.8ms response time average and reasonable overshoot results, leading to cumulative deviation around 400. That's decent for this type of LCD. Don't bother using the Speed mode – it has noticeable overshoot artifacts and is pushed too far. There's also the Smart OD mode, which at 160Hz uses a similar overdrive configuration to Balance, making it a good choice.

Gigabyte M32UP - Smart OD - 160Hz, 144Hz, 120Hz, 100Hz, 85Hz, 60Hz

What surprised us about the M32UP is that this is the first Gigabyte monitor we've reviewed where the Smart OD setting is actually optimized properly for variable overdrive. Previously, the Smart OD setting on other Gigabyte monitors made bizarre choices about which overdrive mode to use at different refresh rates.

On the M32UP, it's much more sensible: at 144Hz and above, you get Balance-level overdrive, then at mid-refresh rates, it drops to Picture Quality overdrive, and at 60Hz, it seems to turn overdrive off completely.

Now, this variable overdrive setup isn't quite as aggressive as we would have liked. For example, performance at 60Hz could be improved by using Picture Quality-like settings instead. But overall, this mode is very usable and allows for a single overdrive mode experience. There's great performance at high refresh rates, a solid experience in the middle where overshoot doesn't go crazy, and acceptable management at 60Hz.

If you use the fixed overdrive configurations like Balance or Picture Quality modes instead, you'll either have to deal with overshoot at lower refresh rates, or lackluster performance at higher refresh rates, so I'd recommend Smart OD.

Response Time Comparisons

Compared to other monitors at their maximum refresh rates, the Gigabyte M32UP is well optimized, offering better performance than the LG 32GR93U that we've recommended previously and lower overshoot than the Gigabyte FI32U. This is a good result in line with better LCDs of today.

For average performance, like we said, the Smart OD setting could be more aggressive with its tuning, hence why it doesn't deliver as strong of a result as the LG 32GR93U, for example. The 32GR93U also delivers a single overdrive mode experience and is better tuned in the middle of the refresh rate range, though this Gigabyte monitor is still very usable with low overshoot results.

Also, as we look at cumulative deviation, the M32UP is very much in the usual range we see from today's LCD gaming monitors, with a result of 546. This is very similar tuning to the M27U and better than some of the older 32-inch 4K monitors like the Gigabyte FI32U and MSI MPG321UR-QD. However, the 32GR93U is a chart leader here among LCDs, offering 14% better average cumulative deviation, which is better, though not to a level that will be hugely noticeable while gaming.

The M32UP is a good monitor for fixed refresh rate 120Hz gaming, with the Balance mode providing the best experience here. At 60Hz, the results are reasonable, though there are better monitors for lower refresh rate gaming.

Input lag is a non-issue on the M32UP, producing under 1ms of processing delay and similar overall results to other 4K gaming LCDs on the market today. The only way to get a significantly more responsive monitor in this class is to get something 240Hz, which is very rare in the LCD space, or move to an OLED, which is much more expensive.

Power consumption is typical and in line with today's best 32-inch LCDs for efficiency, roughly matching the LG 32GR93U at 200 nits. You'll be saving at least 10 watts compared to earlier 32-inch 4K LCDs, and this technology continues to be much more efficient than OLEDs for typical desktop work – plus, you don't have to worry about burn-in.

SDR Color Performance

Color Space: Gigabyte M32UP - D65-P3

The M32UP is a wide gamut monitor like nearly all of today's gaming displays. It packs 95% DCI-P3 coverage and 93% coverage of Adobe RGB, which are decent results for an LCD. However, overall Rec. 2020 coverage is just 70%, which is on the lower side compared to most others that we've tested. It certainly lacks that additional gamut you'd get from a quantum-dot-enhanced display, though it's not hugely different from products like the M27U or 32GR93U.

Default Color Performance

Gigabyte M32UP - D65-P3, tested at native resolution, highest refresh rate
Portrait CALMAN Ultimate, DeltaE Value Target: Below 2.0, CCT Target: 6500K

Grayscale, Saturation and ColorChecker

Factory color performance is strong in greyscale, with near-perfect gamma and white balance performance leading to a deltaE ITP average of just 5.03. There are the usual concerns around oversaturation, as this display does not use an sRGB gamut clamp out of the box. Compared to other monitors, this is a good showing.

New for 2025, we'll be testing the performance of monitors when using Windows' Auto Color Management feature, introduced in Windows 11 24H2. This feature color-manages the display at a system level by using the color data the monitor reports.

On wide gamut monitors, this allows SDR sRGB content to be displayed more accurately without the use of a monitor's sRGB mode, as the color space emulation is performed by Windows instead of the monitor. It also allows you to avoid any sRGB mode restrictions, like locked white balance, because the monitor remains in its standard configuration with full setting control.

Default ACM Color Performance

Gigabyte M32UP - D65-P3, tested at native resolution, highest refresh rate
Portrait CALMAN Ultimate, DeltaE Value Target: Below 2.0, CCT Target: 6500K

Grayscale, Saturation and ColorChecker

When enabling ACM, the M32UP retains strong greyscale accuracy, but now color performance is improved as there is OS-level sRGB emulation. As this display is generally well-calibrated, we see a deltaE average below 3.0 in saturation and below 4.0 in ColorChecker, which is great and sufficient to call this a calibrated experience.

sRGB Mode Color Performance

Gigabyte M32UP - D65-P3, tested at native resolution, highest refresh rate
Portrait CALMAN Ultimate, DeltaE Value Target: Below 2.0, CCT Target: 6500K

Grayscale, Saturation and ColorChecker

If you want to take calibration to the next level or have a source device that doesn't support color management, then the sRGB mode will be useful for SDR content. This mode is very accurate, with outstanding greyscale performance and very low deltaEs in our color tests.

This makes the M32UP one of the most accurate displays you can get, a fantastic result that keeps Gigabyte in the leadership position when it comes to calibration in the sRGB mode. Performing a full calibration on this monitor isn't a necessity due to its out-of-the-box performance. We'd just use the sRGB mode or Auto Color Management, though Calman can improve things if you want.

Brightness, Contrast, Uniformity

SDR brightness is on the low side for an LCD at just 360 nits, which is still very sufficient for most use cases. One of the main competitors to this display, the LG 32GR93U, does get quite a bit brighter if that's important to you. Minimum brightness was fine at 58 nits, but not amazing.

As for the native contrast ratio, there's nothing special about the M32UP – it's delivering a typical IPS LCD experience with a contrast of 1,069:1. Most gaming LCDs today are a little over 1,000:1, so this monitor fits right into that range. Overall, this is a poor contrast ratio with weak black levels, just an inherent flaw of this technology that is easily beaten by VA LCDs and OLEDs.

Viewing angles are great and very usable, which is in line with other IPS LCDs on the market today – the only display technology that's better is OLED. As for uniformity, it's not too bad, though there was a slight falloff in brightness along the left and right edges. This is not noticeable while gaming.

HUB Essentials Checklist

The final section of the review is the HUB Essentials Checklist. Gigabyte does an okay job advertising this display. Some of the listed specifications are accurate or even conservative, like color gamut and brightness.

Other aspects are misleading, such as HDR support and response time performance. This isn't unusual for an LCD of this type, though we continue to be disappointed when things like HDR aren't properly advertised.

In the Essentials Checklist, there aren't any surprises. As a non-HDR monitor, the M32UP doesn't meet the requirements of many HDR criteria. However, it does offer some fairly basic backlight strobing, which, in our opinion, doesn't look amazing, and a great port selection – except for USB-C power delivery.

What We Learned

The Gigabyte M32UP is a solid bang-for-buck 32-inch 4K gaming monitor, though it doesn't do anything particularly unique or different compared to other products in the same category. With LCD panel technology where it currently is, it's hard to push beyond existing standards, but at the very least, Gigabyte has nailed the basics.

What we always appreciate about testing Gigabyte monitors is the balance they offer across all areas of performance. This is especially important in a 32-inch 4K monitor, where many users are likely interested in both productivity work and gaming.

The M32UP has fantastic color accuracy, a great resolution, suitable brightness, and good viewing angles, making it a solid choice for work. On top of that, you get reasonable response times with variable overdrive, a great 160Hz refresh rate, and low input lag, delivering a strong gaming experience.

The biggest standout in performance is Gigabyte's sRGB mode calibration, which is excellent. But in most other categories, the M32UP delivers fairly standard performance. That said, we didn't find any major flaws either, which is a good sign. It's a well-rounded, versatile monitor that gets the job done.

Like many value-oriented products, the M32UP's success will depend on pricing. While not available in the United States yet at the time of testing, our understanding is that it will be priced around $500, similar to what the M32U retails for today. That's about as cheap as 32-inch 4K monitors get these days among models with a refresh rate of at least 144Hz. We'd love to see more true HDR products at this price point with similar specs, but the reality is we're just not there yet – so the lack of HDR hardware in the M32UP is understandable.

The main competition for this monitor is the LG 32GR93U, which offers very similar performance. It's often available at roughly the same price, though pricing in the US fluctuates between $500 and $600. In Australia, it's priced the same as the M32UP at $900 AUD. Whether you choose the Gigabyte or LG option, we think you'll be satisfied with the outcome.

Based on our testing, the LG monitor is slightly better tuned for response times and motion performance and has higher SDR brightness. Meanwhile, the Gigabyte monitor has better factory calibration and includes extra features like a KVM switch and USB-C port. There's no clear winner here – it ultimately depends on which features matter most to you. Both options are fairly priced right now, so our advice is to check pricing in your region and decide from there.

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