LG UltraGear Evo 39GX950B

Introduction

This is the review we know a lot of you have been waiting for! The LG UltraGear Evo 39GX950B is finally here, the World’s first 5K2K resolution (5120 x 2160), 39” ultrawide OLED monitor, and one of the most exciting screens to be released this year. It offers an improved curvature, higher resolution and a wide range of new technologies and features compared with earlier OLED monitors of this size, and it is the first ultrawide Tandem WOLED technology panel produced so far.

It’s a long-awaited new screen that’s now available to order in some regions (check our affiliate link below), and we’ll be testing it thoroughly to see how it performs. We’ve also published an accompanying video on our YouTube channel which you can find here, which talks about all the key features and performance areas, and includes loads of footage and demos of various performance areas. We’d recommend checking that out alongside this written technical review, and you’ll then find loads of additional detail and data here.

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Video Review and Coverage

Key Specs

• 39″ (precisely 38.86″) ultrawide, 21:9 aspect ratio
• 1500R curvature
• 4th Gen Primary RGB Tandem WOLED panel
• 5120 x 2160 “5K2K” resolution
• 165Hz native refresh rate
• 330Hz dual-mode refresh rate at 2560 x 1080 (WFHD)
• AI Upscaling feature (along with AI Sound and AI Scene Optimization features)
• Wide colour gamut covering 99.5% DCI-P3
• VESA DisplayHDR 500 True Black certification, with 1500 nits peak brightness spec (1.5% APL)
• Hardware calibration support
• 1x DisplayPort 2.1a (UHBR20), 2x HDMI 2.1, 1x USB type-C (90W power delivery)
• 2x USB-A data ports, 1x 4-pole headphone and mic jack, PiP / PbP support
• 2x 7W integrated speakers
• Adjustable stand with tilt, height and swivel (no rotate)

Design and Features

The 39GX950B comes in a simple but professional looking design and is similar to LG’s previous OLED monitors. There is a 4-side “borderless” panel which has a thin ~1.5mm plastic edge around all sides, but an additional black panel border which gives a total edge of ~12mm along the sides and bottom, and ~8.5mm along the top.

The stand has a dark grey plastic arm and a matching metal foot which provides a strong base for the large screen.

There’s a cable tidy hole in the back of the stand as well, and the arm has a quick release mechanism to attach to the back. It can be removed in favour of VESA 100 x 100mm mounting if you’d rather.

The back of the screen is encased in a matte black plastic with a simple, smooth design. There is an RGB light feature on the back as you can see above, and this can be customized or disabled from the OSD menu.

The stand provides tilt, height and swivel adjustments which are all pretty easy to use, although height adjustment can be a bit stiff sometimes and there is a bit of wobble from the screen as you move it around or use the OSD menu joystick toggle on the bottom edge.

There is a small fan in the screen as with LG’s previous OLED monitors, but this is super-quiet and you really have to press your ear right up to the top of the screen to be able to hear anything at all. We don’t think that’s something to worry about.

Screen Curvature

This is the first LG Ultrawide OLED monitor to offer a more subtle 1500R curvature, a positive improvement we think over the steep 800R curvature used for all their previous models. When we tested the larger 45″ 45GX950A model last year we felt that the 800R curvature was ok in many situations on such a large screen once you got used to it, but a lot of people found it too aggressive for their uses, and certainly as the screen size gets smaller, that curve becomes too steep we think.

LG to their credit have listened to reviewer and market feedback and it’s nice to see this more gentle 1500R curvature offered from this new screen, we really liked the balance here on a 39” ultrawide.

OSD menu

The on screen menu provides a decent range of options and settings, and navigation of the menu is quick and easy using the joystick toggle on the bottom edge. This also provides quick access to adjust the volume and brightness levels, and there’s a dedicated button on the bottom edge of the screen to switch dual-mode on and off.

OSD Menu
Joystick toggle controller
Quick and snappy
Intuitive to use
User updatable firmware
Software application control

You can also install the LG Switch app for control via your PC which works simply over a DisplayPort connection. That also includes support for firmware updates within it, and various useful additional settings.

Connectivity

The 39GX950B offers 1x DisplayPort 2.1a (with UHBR20 bandwidth, 80Gbps), 1x USB type-C (with DP Alt mode, 90W power delivery and data), and 2x HDMI 2.1 video connections, along with a 4-pole headphone/mic combo jack and 2x USB-A data ports. No USB-B upstream port is provided so that upstream connection is handling over the USB-C port, perhaps a bit inconvenient if you were using the DisplayPort from a PC and the USB-C from a laptop or something, but wanted to use the built in USB-A data ports on the monitor from your PC.

This model has an external power supply with a large external brick keep in mind. A selection of Picture in Picture and Picture by Picture modes are supported for handling multiple video inputs too.

Make sure you’ve got a certified DP80 cable if you want to use the screen from a DP 2.1 graphics card at the full 80Gbps speed, without DSC being used. We confirmed it was running in that configuration from an RTX 50 series card at 5K2K @ 165Hz, 10-bit.

You can also use this screen at full spec from an older DP 1.4 graphics card as well courtesy of DSC, so there’s wide support for older systems still, just keep in mind the demands on your system of powering this spec for games.

OLED Care and Warranty

OLED care settings are very limited on this model which is surprising in today’s market but in keeping with LG’s previous OLED screens. There’s only an option for screensaver, and the image cleaning cycle. We’d have liked to have seen a wider range of modern OLED care features like logo detection, taskbar detection, pixel shift and so on. It felt very limited in this area.

OLED Care and Warranty
Warranty period	2 years
Burn-in cover
Screen saver
Pixel / screen shift
Logo dimming
Taskbar detection
Motion / proximity sensor
Other OLED care features

This particular LG OLED monitors comes with a 2 year warranty, but the website doesn’t explicitly mention or promote burn-in cover. However, when we asked the LG Chatbot this time, we were told that burn-in cover IS now included, so that is positive news.

We’d like to see a more explicitly promoted message around this really, and a move to a 3 year warranty which is what most other OLED monitor manufacturers offer as standard.

Brightness and Contrast

The screen offers 3 settings for ‘brightness level’ – uniform (the default for SDR), low and high. We measured the luminance performance at maximum 100% brightness in each mode:

Thanks to this latest generation of Tandem WOLED technology the screen offers improved SDR luminance compared with earlier ultrawide WOLED screens, which we measured as reaching up to the advertised 335 nits in the uniform brightness mode with some minor fluctuation depending on the scene APL.

A further brightness boost is available in SDR when moving out of the uniform mode and using the low and high brightness level settings, although you have to live with some ABL dimming as your content changes, but these modes are often useful for dynamic SDR content like gaming and movies if you want a brighter image.

The luminance improvements here represented a luminance improvement of 28% compared with earlier gen WOLED panels, like for instance the 45” ultrawide model we reviewed last year (45GX950A) which was impressive. It doesn’t quite reach as high as a couple of the smaller 27″ Tandem WOLED monitors we’ve tested in the past, but it’s still a decent improvement over earlier gen WOLED panels.

Black depth and contrast	Uniform Brightness OFF	Uniform Brightness ON
Max luminance (nits)	541	335
Min Luminance (nits)	52	51
Uniform / No ABL
Remains uniform in Windows desktop

Keep in mind also that as a result of the amazing contrast ratio of the OLED panel, the perceived brightness in SDR mode is equivalent to an approximate 550 nits LCD monitor, even when using the uniform brightness mode so that should be plenty bright enough for most users. We explained the principles behind this in our article here, although we can’t officially give this screen a ‘TrueBright’ certification tier as that’s a programme created for QD-OLED monitors. The same principles apply though.

Testing Methodology Explained (SDR)

Performance is measured and evaluated with a high degree of accuracy using a range of testing devices and software. The results are carefully selected to provide the most useful and relevant information that can help evaluate the display while filtering out the wide range of information and figures that will be unnecessary. For measurement, we use a UPRtek MK550T spectroradiometer which is particularly accurate for colour gamut and colour spectrum measurements. We also use an X-rite i1 Pro 2 Spectrophotometer and a X-rite i1 Display Pro Plus colorimeter for various measurements. Several other software packages are incorporated including Portrait Displays’ Calman color calibration software – available from Portrait.com.

We measure the screen at default settings (with all ICC profiles deactivated and factory settings used), and any other modes that are of interest such as sRGB emulation presets. We then calibrate and profile the screen before re-measuring the calibrated state.

The results presented can be interpreted as follows:

• Gamma – we aim for 2.2 gamma which is the default for computer monitors in SDR mode. Testing of some modes might be based on a different gamma but we will state that in the commentary if applicable. A graph is provided tracking the 2.2 gamma across different grey shades and ideally the grey line representing the monitor measurements should be horizontal and flat at the 2.2 level, marked by the yellow line. Depending on where the gamma is too low or too high, it can have an impact on the image in certain ways. You can see our gamma explanation graph to help understand that more. Beneath the gamma graph we include the average overall gamma achieved along with the average for dark shades (0 black to 50 grey) and for lighter shades (50 grey to 100 white).
  
  
• RGB Balance and colour temperature – the RGB balance graph shows the relative balance between red, green and blue primaries at each grey shade, from 0 (black) to 100 (white). Ideally all 3 lines should be flat at the 100% level which would represent a balanced 6500K average colour temperature for all grey shades. This is the target colour temperature for desktop monitors, popular colour spaces like sRGB and ‘Display DCI-P3’ and is also the temperature of daylight. It is the most common colour temperature for displays, also sometimes referred to as D65. Where the RGB lines deviate from this 100% flat level the image may become too warm or cool, or show a tint towards a certain colour visually. Beneath this RGB balance graph we provide the average correlated colour temperature for all grey shades measured, along with its percentage deviance from the 6500K target. We also provide the white point colour temperature and its deviance from 6500K, as this is particularly important when viewing lots of white background and office content.
  
  
• Greyscale dE – this graph tracks the accuracy of each greyscale shade measured from 0 (black) to 100 (white). The accuracy of each grey shade will be impacted by the colour temperature and gamma of the display. The lower the dE the better, with differences of <1 being imperceptible (marked by the green line on the graph), and differences between 1 and 3 being small (below the yellow line). Anything over dE 3 needs correcting and causes more obvious differences in appearance relative to what should be shown. In the table beneath the graph we provide the average dE across all grey shades, as well as the white point dE (important when considering using the screen for lots of white background and office content), and the max greyscale dE as well.
  
  
• Luminance, black depth and contrast ratio (static) – measuring the brightness, black depth and resulting contrast ratio of the mode being tested, whether that is at default settings or later after calibration and profiling. We aim for 120 cd/m² luminance which is the recommended luminance for LCD/OLED desktop monitors in normal lighting conditions. Black depth should be as low as possible, and contrast ratio should be as high as possible.
  
  
• Shadow detail – this is evaluated with the screen configured to a 200 nits white luminance for consistency between different monitors, and viewed in a dimly lit room. This first 16 greyscale shades are measured using our UPRTek MK550T spectro device (0.002 nits lower limit) for shades near-black, and the results are plotted on a graph relative to a target gamma curve (usually 2.2 gamma). Where the measurement line crosses the 0.01 nits point on the Y-axis is typically the visual threshold for where we would start to be able to detect luminance compared with black (0.00 nits). We combine these objective measurements with visual tests using a grey shade test pattern to determine the first visible shade, and then rank the shadow detail performance accordingly.
  
  
• Gamut coverage – we provide measurements of the screens colour gamut relative to various reference spaces including sRGB, DCI-P3, Adobe RGB and Rec.2020. Coverage is shown in absolute numbers as well as relative, which helps identify where the coverage extends beyond a given reference space. A CIE-1976 chromaticity diagram (which provides improved accuracy compared with older CIE-1931 methods) is included which provides a visual representation of the monitors colour gamut coverage triangle as compared with sRGB, and if appropriate also relative to a wide gamut reference space such as DCI-P3. The reference triangle will be marked on the CIE diagram as well.
  
  
• dE colour accuracy – a wide range of colours are tested and the colour accuracy dE measured. We compare these produced colours to the sRGB reference space, and if applicable when measuring a wide gamut screen we also provide the accuracy relative to a specific wide gamut reference such as DCI-P3. An average dE and maximum dE is provided along with an overall screen rating. The lower the dE the better, with differences of <1 being imperceptible (marked by the green area on the graph), and differences between 1 and 3 being small (yellow areas). Anything over dE 3 needs correcting and causes more obvious differences in appearance relative to what should be shown. dE 2000 is used for improved accuracy and providing a better representation of what you would see as a user, compared with older dE methods like dE 1994, as it takes into account the human eye’s perceptual sensitivity to different colours. 

SDR Performance

Default Setup

The screen comes out of the box in the ‘Gamer 1’ preset mode, with ‘Mode 2’ set for gamma and the brightness mode set to ‘Uniform’. There’s no setting for the colour space in the menu, so this mode is expected to operate with the full native gamut of the backlight. We also made sure that the ‘Smart Energy Saving’ function was turned off.

Gamma tracking was around 2.06 average, being lower than our target 2.2 and following a similar pattern to what we saw with the 45GX950A model last year when we tested it. This is with the default ‘mode 2’ setting selected, although the user manual states that “if you do not need to adjust the gamma…select mode 4”, so we will test that in a moment too.

The RGB balance was pretty decent, being a little too cool though in lighter grey shades and for the white point, by around 5 – 6% and leaving us with a mediocre greyscale accuracy and dE 2.6 average.

There’s 4 gamma modes available in the OSD menu (the default is mode 2) so we tested each of them to see how they perform. They are mostly quite variable across the greyscale, although as we saw with the 45″ model last year, mode 4 seems to be a little closer to the 2.2 target and is likely a preferred choice. It’s still a little lower than intended with 2.11 average measured, resulting in a slightly brighter greyscale.

This screen has a very wide colour gamut, with a 152% relative coverage of sRGB. As a result, there’s poor colour accuracy for sRGB / SDR colours which is normal for a wide gamut screen due to the massive over-coverage of the colour space. We will explore ways to work more closely with sRGB content in a moment.

There’s also very wide coverage of The DCI-P3 colour space, with 99.7% absolute coverage measured, but a large amount of over-coverage here as well, reaching 121% relative. This is especially extended in blue shades. There’s reasonable overall colour accuracy for DCI-P3 colours in this mode due to the closer match between the monitors colour space and the DCI-P3 reference, but there’s still a large error in blue where the most significant over-coverage appears. Again we will explore how we can more closely work with DCI-P3 content in a moment, this is just the native colour space mode which will always be more saturated than intended for these target colour spaces.

Default Setup – Adjusted Gamma

We changed here simply to the more optimal mode 4 gamma and re-measured the screen. This has a positive impact on the RGB balance and colour temperature as well, resulting in a far more accurate greyscale (dE 1.1 average) and some improvements to overall colour accuracy too.

sRGB Emulation mode

In the absence of a specific colour space setting in the OSD menu, there is instead an ‘sRGB’ preset mode in the game menu.

In the ‘sRGB’ preset mode some of the on-screen settings are now unavailable. You still have access to the brightness and contrast controls, but the gamma setting is locked, and the colour temperature presets are also unavailable. However it is set in the custom mode, and so you can alter the red, green and blue channels if you want so overall it’s a pretty flexible mode.

Gamma seemed to perform the same as the mode 4 configuration we’d tested earlier and was pretty close to the 2.2 target, just a little lower than intended with a slightly brighter greyscale. RGB balance remained good, just with a slightly cool white point (3% deviance).

Most obvious in this mode was the clamping of the very wide native colour space back close to the sRGB reference, now measured at 95.6% absolute coverage which was very good, although it had gone a little further than intended and left us with some minor under-coverage. Regardless, as a result of this smaller active colour space, the accuracy of sRGB colours was good now, with dE 2.0 average measured. The colour space clamping and sRGB accuracy could have perhaps been a little better, but this is still a very usable mode for those wanting to work with SDR / sRGB content more accurately.

DCI-P3 Emulation mode

The DCI-P3 preset mode is configured to a 2.6 gamma it seems, although the actual gamma setting is not available in the OSD menu. Like the sRGB mode you have access to the brightness, contrast and RGB controls, but not the gamma setting or colour temp modes. 2.6 gamma is the target for the DCI-P3 Theatre standard, so it’s not uncommon to see this configuration on some displays, although adjustments have been made near black, where the gamma drops much lower, to help improve shadow detail. We will examine shadow detail and near-black accuracy in a moment. RGB balance and colour temp remained very good in this mode.

This preset clamps the native colour space of the panel back close to the DCI-P3 reference, leaving us with a little over-coverage still in blue shades but only by around 7%. The accuracy of DCI-P3 colours was now good thanks to this closer matching, and this mode could be useful for those wanting to work with DCI-P3 content more closely, often used for HDR.

Shadow Detail

We also explored and tested the near-black shadow detail which can sometimes be a challenge on OLED panels, even though they have a true 0 nits black depth and ~infinite contrast. We explored the reasons for this and the challenges that display manufacturers face when calibrating OLED panels in our detailed article here.

For these tests screen was configured to 200 nits white luminance, and we tested the screen in several colour space modes, as well as at different refresh rates.

• Gamer 1 (native gamut)
• sRGB mode
• DCI-P3 mode

Gamer 1 (native gamut)

sRGB mode

DCI-P3 mode

Shadow detail was very good on this screen overall which was pleasing, as we’ve seen some OLED panels really struggle in this area. There was a shift in the gamma and shadow detail performance at different refresh rates, a common variance you will see on all WOLED panels but not on competing QD-OLED. We explored that in more detail in our article on this topic. This meant that near-black shades were a bit brighter at lower refresh rates due to the gamma shift, which made darker content a bit easier to see.

The DCI-P3 mode, despite being targeted to a 2.6 gamma as we found earlier, has some adjustments to the gamma curve near black as we commented on earlier in the review. This helps preserve shadow detail and that mode was still reasonable overall.

LG provide a ‘black stabilizer’ setting in the OSD menu as well which can help improve near-black detail and make darker content easier to see. This seems to function up to the maximum 100 setting without raising black depth at all which is great news, so you can experiment with this setting if you feel that darker scenes are a little tricky to see.

Calibration (Profiling)

Calibration and profiling can produce some very good overall results and could be useful though if you wanted to operate the screen within its native wide gamut mode, but then map the colour space back to something else like sRGB or Adobe RGB for instance for colour-aware applications (e.g. Photoshop). You would need a suitable calibration device and software for this, or you could also try our calibrated ICC profile.

The screen was profiled to 2.2 gamma, 6500K colour temp and to the sRGB colour space. The screen was left in its native wide gamut mode, but this profile will be used in colour-aware applications to map back to sRGB in this instance. Overall the calibrated results were very good as you’d hope.

Best Settings Guide

• On our Patreon Insider tier and above you can find our full ‘Best settings guide’ for this screen which includes all our recommended calibrated settings and ICC profile for SDR mode, as well as other best settings guidance for other options and gaming.
• If you only want just our standard SDR settings and calibrated profile, that is available via our ICC database (without all the other best settings guide).

beenhere

ICC Profiles and Monitor Calibration Database

Find the recommended settings and a calibrated ICC profile for your display.
[View here]

Hardware Calibration

The 39GX950B, like many of LG’s other high-end monitors, supports hardware level calibration. This allows you to calibrate 2 separate preset modes at a hardware LUT level. You can use LG’s free ‘Calibration Studio’ software for this, which also supports a wide range of third party calibration devices which are sold separately. This includes loads of the popular devices from X-rite (including i1 Pro, i1 Display Pro, ColorMunki etc), Data Colour (Spyder series) and others.

We’ll re-use some screenshots from last time we explored this software, so forgive us if anything has been tweaked since. The software is straight forward to use, and you can define your targets for colour gamut at the top which includes preset options for sRGB and DCI-P3 for example. For some reason there’s no option to choose Adobe RGB here, but you can select the ‘manual’ mode and enter the target RGB coordinates easily enough. You can also define your target brightness, colour temp and gamma here.

The settings menu provides some additional options as shown above. One thing missing from this software that you will find as a feature in high end (and expensive) packages is the ability to profile a meter – so for instance profile a colorimeter against a spectrophotometer for improved accuracy. This is not likely to be a problem for most normal users, who will generally have a single device.

A simple summary at the end of the calibration process confirms if your selected targets have been matched. There is an additional ‘validation’ process you can also follow too:

You are presented with some further analysis of the performance here including dE accuracy measurements for greyscale and various colour patches too.

The support for hardware level calibration is great to see included, as it’s a feature usually reserved for professional screens. We’ve not seen any other OLED monitors in the consumer space offer this feature either so far, so it’s exclusive to LG Electronics for their line-up at this time. It provides a quick and easy way to configure the screen to different targets and modes, and is especially useful should you want to configure the screen to anything other than the common D65 / 2.2 gamma setup too. For instance if you wanted to calibrated to DCI-P3 gamut but target the 2.6 gamma associated with that reference. It’s great to see that the software is free to download and easy to use too. We’d like to see more manufacturers offer this feature with their flagship monitors.

General and Office

Resolution, scaling and text clarity

This screen is the World’s first to offer a so-called “5K2K” (5120 x 2160)  resolution on an OLED monitor of this size, a resolution we’ve seen in the past from the 45” OLED segment on one monitor from LG Electronics, but it’s now being offered on a slightly smaller 39” screen size that many people have been crying out for. 39” is a still large and immersive for sure, but it’s a more comfortable size for many people, and we think it’s a great balance between comfort and immersion, a nice upgrade in size if you’ve been using a 34” ultrawide screen before, or if you’re one of those people who’ve enjoyed some of the 38” ultrawide IPS screens released in the past like we have.

There’s been some other 39” sized OLED monitors in the past, but only with a much lower resolution and pixel density (3440 x 1440 at 96 PPI), and the shift here to 5K2K gives a massive improvement in both areas.

The pixel density is now very similar to all the 32” 4K OLED monitors on the market and that provides a really sharp and crisp image.

In fact the screen has a very similar vertical height to LG’s 32” OLED monitors and the same vertical resolution so it could fit nicely alongside those in multi-screen setups potentially, and you of course get a wider screen experience here with the 21:9 aspect ratio.

This high pixel density, along with an updated sub-pixel layout that we’ve seen on LG Display’s other sized WOLED panels in recent times, provides really good text clarity as well, and despite the additional white sub-pixel still present in the layout, we think fringing issues are basically resolved here for the vast majority of users, like they were on the 32” 4K panels previously. Text looks sharp and clear at this density, and it’s great to see 5K2K offered here when traditionally screens of this size have a lower resolution.

• Additional content: The latest 2026 OLED Panel Updates and Roadmap

Some people may be ok with using this resolution at 100% OS scaling, giving you a really large desktop space to work with but the text is pretty small, while others may want to use something like 125% scaling for more comfortable text size and a decent desktop space to work with. 100% scaling was appropriate on the larger 45″ model, but we think you’d want to scale it a bit here for a sensible text size.

At 125% the text size is very similar to a common 27” 1440p monitor, although with a better pixel density and sharper image and that’s a good balance we felt.

Panel Coating

Panel coating is always a controversial topic and we’ve seen plenty of people asking about a glossy version of this screen since it was originally announced in January. At the moment there’s no other 39” ultrawide WOLED monitors announced using this new panel from any brand, and so this LG model with its matte anti-glare coating is the only choice currently.

LG.Display the panel manufacturer have indicated that a glossy version of the panel is available for monitor manufacturers to adopt if they want, so we’ll have to wait and see whether any will be introduced at any point. It’s always nice to have choice, but personally I’m a little sceptical that a glossy coating would be desirable on a curved screen like this, as the curve causes stretching and distorting of reflections which could be especially distracting.

We’ve seen that sometimes in the past on curved QD-OLED monitors in brighter environments which have a glossy finish but also have some added anti-reflective properties too, and so a fully glossy solution like we’ve seen offered on some WOLED panels so far could be even more challenging.

We’ll reserve final judgement for if we ever see one produced, but I’m not convinced glossy is necessarily the right choice on a curved screen myself, despite the promise of a clearer image. Some people will feel different I’m sure, this is just my opinion on the topic, but the point I’m trying to make here is that glossy isn’t as simple when the screen is curved. Anyway, the matte anti-glare coating used here does a good job of handling glare and reflections as you’d hope, and looks the same as earlier gen WOLED panels. There’s some further analysis and demos of this in our video review.

Grey banding

We also tested the screen for the ‘grey banding’ issue which affects many OLED panels, especially WOLED technology and the latest Tandem WOLED panel variants. The screen was adjusted to a 0.2 nits dark grey shade and the provided photos are adjusted to capture the image as close to what we see with the naked eye as possible to give a fair reflection of real-world experience.

Keep in mind that these are still “extreme” test scenarios with solid dark grey patterns, and the visibility of any banding in real usage will likely vary. Where present in these tests, you may experience it in dark-mode apps and some darker gaming situations, but outside of that it is often much harder to spot. This can also vary between different samples and over time, with a wear-in period recommended and several manually run pixel refresh cycles recommended.

For loads more detail on what the issue is, how we can test for it and what causes it, check out our detailed article here.

At native refresh rate (165Hz) the banding was at low levels on our sample and we never saw any issues with this during regular testing.

As is common, the banding reduced quite a lot at lower refresh rates for reasons we explored in our study on the topic.

Because of the higher refresh rate, banding was more noticeable in dual-mode operation and so may become more noticeable in darker content and darker games.

Useful office features

	Features	Notes
USB type-C connectivity (DP Alt mode)
USB type-C power delivery		90W
Daisy chaining support
KVM switch
PiP and PbP support		Various modes supported
USB data ports		2x USB-A on back
Easy access USB data ports
Integrated speakers		2x 7W with AI Sound and Virtual 7.1.2
Audio output / headphone out		4-pole sound connection headphone/mic
Mic input		4-pole sound connection headphone/mic
Integrated webcam
Ambient light sensor
Motion sensor
Stand adjustments		Tilt, height, swivel (no rotate)
VESA mount support		100 x 100mm
Integrated power supply		External power brick
Tripod socket
Firmware updates		Via ‘LG Switch’ software
Fan-less design		Small but very quiet internal fan

Picture in Picture and Picture by Picture modes are supported for handling multiple video inputs and there’s also 2 USB-A data ports, a 4-pole headphone and mic jack, and some pretty decent 2x 7W integrated speakers as well which are useful certainly for external devices you might want to connect. Those provided pretty decent audio for general usage.

The only things missing of note would be a KVM switch function, which seems like something that could be easily integrated in the future on new models given the USB-C connection, and perhaps an ambient light sensor or motion sensor. Regardless, there’s a good feature set here for those looking for a hybrid gaming and work screen.

There’s some additional options in the menu for AI Sound which “intelligently separates individual audio elements—voices, effects, and background sounds—and adapts to gameplay for more controlled, immersive audio, creating a virtual 7.1.2 channel sound experience.” LG say that “through 7W×2 built-in stereo speakers or headphones, voices remain clear even in intense firefights, while critical cues like approaching footsteps stay easy to detect during gameplay.”

An additional feature called AI Scene Optimization “recognizes what’s on screen and automatically adjusts key picture settings such as colour temperature, colour enhancement, and sharpness to match each content type—including Office, Animation, Movie, Game, and Sports modes.” Basically this can switch modes and settings depending on your usage if you want, although we expect most people will prefer to control this themselves.

Flicker-free performance

Flicker
Flicker free verified
PWM / flicker frequency	n/a

Blue light and eye care

Blue light output
Blue peak wavelength	451 nm
Blue light portion	30.93%
Software low blue light modes available	but ‘Reader’ Preset available
Low blue light mode temp	5244K (Reader mode)
Low blue light certifications	Low Blue Light Hardware Solution Platinum – V745051 Eyesafe 3.0 CPF60 – V745354 Eyesafe 3.0 RPF40 – V275741

The native panel spectral distribution is shown above at a calibrated 6500K white point, where the blue peak is at 451 nm. The screen has a “hardware low blue light solution” as it’s called, with certification under the Low Blue Light Hardware Solution Platinum – V745051, Eyesafe 3.0 CPF60 – V745354 and Eyesafe 3.0 RPF40 – V275741 schemes LG say.

There’s no additional software based low blue light modes but there is a ‘Reader’ preset mode in the menu which delivers a warmer image which could be more comfortable for lots of text work, or usage in the evening and night time. This has most of it’s colour, gamma and other settings locked and a separate (and accessible) brightness control. It delivers a 5244K white point and ~65 nits luminance by default, although the brightness can be adjusted to taste.

Gaming

The 39GX950B is well suited to gaming, especially for titles which support a 21:9 ultrawide aspect ratio where you can enjoy the full widescreen experience and immersion of a large display. For more common 16:9 sources, including games consoles, once you set the correct aspect ratio option in the menu, the screen will scale the image and put black borders down the sides, and it can support 4K content natively with 1:1 pixel mapping.

The OLED panel is very well suited to HDR gaming and the latest generation Tandem WOLED panel offers improvements in colours, vividness and contrast, including in brighter room conditions.

The OLED panel offers the usual near-instant response times you’d expect, and there’s a native 165Hz refresh rate which offers very good motion clarity, combined with the excellent detail and sharpness you get from the high resolution panel.

You can find much higher refresh rates from smaller OLED monitors of course now, but powering 5K2K at high refresh rates will always be a challenge and that’s the limit from currently available OLED panels of this spec. Some people may be disappointed with what could probably be considered a “low” refresh rate by today’s standards and it would have been nice if this had been 240Hz we think – although you’d definitely need a DP 2.1 GPU to power that, even with DSC.

Let’s not lose sight of the fact though that 165Hz on an OLED is still very good, equivalent in motion clarity to a ~250Hz LCD and likely more than enough for most typical gamers. If you’re a serious or competitive gamer or focused on taking gaming experience further on an OLED panel, you’re probably more likely to look at a smaller sized screen and there’s a much bigger choice there.

Dual-mode

To support faster gaming situations where you might want to prioritise speed and frame rates over detail and resolution, this model also supports a dual-mode function, allowing you to increase the refresh rate to 330Hz when dropping to a lower WFHD resolution (2560 x 1080). You can enter dual mode either view the on screen menu options, or by the click of the quick launch button on the bottom edge of the screen and there’s a range of different modes and screen size emulations available to choose from as well.

We experienced an occasional bug coming back out of dual-mode where the Windows desktop seemed to be split in to weird sections, and we had to do a screen reset to fix it. It’s only happened maybe twice during all our testing, so it seems to be an intermittent bug. We mention it in case you experience the same.

Dual-mode is obviously quite a significant drop in resolution and you wouldn’t be using it for desktop apps, but in dynamic content and gaming it is likely fine for a lot of situations, especially if you’re sat a bit further away from the screen using a control pad. It’s also potentially useful for lower end systems where driving 5K2K gaming may be difficult.

This mode does not operate with true integer scaling (i.e. 4 pixels to 1), but we don’t feel that that is always optimal for these situations in our opinion as it can sometimes make things look too sharp and jagged when using such a low resolution on a large screen. A little bit of “smoothing” can help here we think for dynamic content.

You’ve got dual-mode as an option here anyway which is good news, and the motion clarity, fluidity and gaming experience is noticeably improved at these higher frame rates too.

Variable Refresh Rates

(at native resolution)	Refresh Rate
Maximum Refresh Rate DisplayPort	165Hz native, 330Hz dual-mode
Maximum Refresh Rate USB type-C	165Hz native, 330Hz dual-mode
Maximum Refresh Rate HDMI	165Hz native, 330Hz dual-mode
VRR range	48 – 165Hz + LFC
ClearMR certification tier

Variable refresh rates are supported using adaptive-sync with certification under the AMD FreeSync Premium Pro, NVIDIA G-sync Compatible and VESA AdaptiveSync schemes and a VRR range of 48 – 165Hz. LFC is used below that.

Note that at the time of writing the screen isn’t certified under the ClearMR scheme, but the 45GX950A had received ClearMR 9000 and that had the same refresh rate, so we expect the same certification will be granted in time to this model.

	VRR capabilities and Certification
AMD FreeSync certification	FreeSync Premium Pro
Native NVIDIA G-sync module / G-sync scaler
NVIDIA ‘G-sync Compatible’ certified
VESA ‘AdaptiveSync’ certification
VRR (consoles via HDMI 2.1)
OLED VRR Anti-flicker modes

VRR Flicker

All OLED monitors can show flicker and gamma fluctuations in VRR situations and this is something we studied and tested in detail in our article here. Remember that just because a screen can show flicker, doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily experience it during your usage and from your system. Please see our detailed article for loads more information about this issue on OLED monitors.

• Native mode
• Dual-mode

Native mode

Dual-mode

In our testing we saw an active VRR range of 48 – 165Hz in native mode, or 48 – 330Hz in dual-mode. LFC is used below that range.

Like other WOLED technology panels we tested in our detailed study, the gamma response is directly tied to the frame rate during VRR situations. For instance at RGB 10 this gets progressively brighter up to RGB 13 (native mode) or RGB 16 (dual-mode) as the frame rate drops down as low as 48fps. This is the same kind of gamma shift that we observe on WOLED panels at different refresh rate which impacts shadow detail too, it’s just here it’s changing dynamically during VRR situations and that’s what is causing the visible flicker. For gaming this flickering only applies when using VRR we should reiterate and only in certain situations.

It is large swings in frame rate that cause the most potential flicker and gamma shift on this panel. We see more gamma shift when going from 330 > 48 fps than we do going from 165 > 48 fps, which is why flicker can be more pronounced with higher refresh rate panels, and here, in the dual-mode operation.

The trick with this panel would be to keep frame rates as consistent as possible, at whatever level you can achieve, to reduce the likelihood of flicker. Remember that this data represents the maximum potential flicker, and it would be less with more steady frame rates. We only really saw noticeable flicker in the very darkest scenes, with basically none visible in lighter content which was good.

Additional Gaming Features

	Other Features
Dual-mode function
Black Frame Insertion (BFI)
Gaming extras	Various preset modes Black stabilizer Crosshair FPS counter
Emulated gaming sizes	24.5″, 27″, 34″ (inc with dual-mode)

While there are a range of additional gaming settings, there were a couple of things missing for gaming that you can find on some other modern OLED monitors. We’d like to see LG explore adding a Black Frame Insertion blur reduction mode and perhaps some VRR Anti-flicker settings as well if possible in the future, those would be welcome additions to their UltraGear OLED line-up we think.

The Black stabilizer setting is useful for darker gaming situations and can be increased all the way up to the maximum 100 setting without raising black depth which is good.

Console Gaming

	Console Gaming
Native panel resolution	5120 x 2160
Maximum resolution and refresh rate supported	4K @ 120Hz
4K at 24Hz support
4K at 50Hz support
HDMI-CEC auto switch	No, but auto detect
VRR (variable refresh rates)
Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM)
HDR10 support
Dolby Vision HDR support
Display aspect ratio controls for 16:9
Blur reduction mode
AI upscaling support	at 1080p only
Integrated speakers
Headphone connection
Ultra high speed HDMI 2.1 cable provided

Console support was also good, and you can use the aspect ratio controls in the menu to avoid image stretching, and the integrated speakers are also handy here. There’s no HDMI-CEC feature to auto switch over to the HDMI input when you power on a console, but the next best thing is that it detects a new device and pops up a message asking you if you want to change over so that’s fine. There’s native support for 4K content with 1:1 pixel mapping, or you can make use of the AI upscaling as well if you’re playing games at lower resolutions. More on AI Upscaling in a moment.

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Console Gaming Monitor Guide

If you’re looking to buy a new monitor for console gaming, this guide should help you understand the specs and features to look out for.
[View here]

Input Lag

Read our detailed article about input lag and the various measurement techniques which are used to evaluate this aspect of a display. The screens tested are split into two measurements which are based on our overall display lag tests and half the average G2G response time, as measured by our oscilloscope. The response time element, part of the lag you can see, is split from the overall display lag and shown on the graph as the green bar. From there, the signal processing (red bar) can be provided as a good estimation of the lag you would feel from the display. We also classify each display as follows:

Lag Classification (updated)

• Class 1) Less than 4.17ms – the equivalent to 1 frame lag of a display at 240Hz refresh rate – should be fine for gamers, even at high levels
• Class 2) A lag of 4.17 – 8.33ms – the equivalent of one to two frames at a 240Hz refresh rate – moderate lag but should be fine for many gamers. Caution advised for serious gaming
• Class 3) A lag of more than 8.33ms – the equivalent of more than 2 frames at a refresh rate of 240Hz, or 1 frame at 120Hz – Some noticeable lag in daily usage, not suitable for high end gaming

There is an extremely low lag on the 39GX950B at native refresh rate and in dual-mode operation, measured at 0.714 ms total display lag (165Hz), and leaving us with only 0.594 ms of estimated signal processing lag. This is perfectly fine for competitive gaming and basically zero. In dual-mode operation the lag was exactly the same.

There was slightly higher input lag for fixed 60Hz input signals at ~3.6ms, but this is still very low and is only applicable for fixed 60Hz input sources anyway. It’s the lower 330/165Hz number that applies in VRR situations, even when your frame rate drops.

AI Upscaling

One of the key new capabilities of the new monitors being launched in the UltraGear Evo line-up is the AI upscaling feature, an on-device technology which can upscale lower resolution content to enhance detail and clarity, all without putting any additional strain on the source device.

There’s two settings for this mode in the menu, low and high. High obviously gives you the most noticeable improvements, low is only a slight difference compared with the off setting we felt, so if you’re going to use AI upscaling, we think you might as well set it on high for maximum benefit in scenarios where it’s supported. You can leave it enabled in the menu too, you don’t have to worry about turning it on and off for normal use, it just won’t do anything when you’re using the screen at native resolution, It will just kick in when you input a signal which is a lower resolution, although that’s a complicated topic.

Supported modes – PC

Let’s start by talking about the available modes and use cases as this feature behaves a little differently to what we you might expect. From a PC input if you want to use this feature the tricky thing is getting the display to truly operate at a lower resolution. Most of the time if you play a game at a lower resolution or even if you set a lower resolution manually in Windows or your graphics card control panel, the GPU scales it back to the native 5K2K resolution and you end up with a different active signal to what you expected.

The AI upscaling feature can only work when the screen detects a non-native active signal, and you can check whether this is the case by what is reported in Windows advanced display settings, and in the information section of the on screen menu (shown above) which confirms what the screen sees it as.

For instance here’s a screenshot showing what happens if you select 3440 x 1440 in NVIDIA control panel, and how Windows ends up detecting the ‘active signal’ in the advanced Display Settings menu. You can see that it gets upscaled back to 5120 x 2160 by the GPU and so the screen thinks you’re still running at that native resolution.

We tested a range of lower ultrawide resolutions and refresh rates and you can see the results here. 3440 x 1440 only operates with that as a the actual signal resolution at 100Hz and 60Hz, and the AI upscaling only seems to work at 60Hz, but only by a small amount visually, because there’s not a large difference to account for anyway.

We’re not sure why this shouldn’t work at higher refresh rates, or if there’s a good way to avoid the native 165Hz refresh rate from being scaled to 5K2K in the active signal and rendering the upscaling feature inactive. We should say that in the menu you can still enable the function in the non-supported signals, it just won’t make any visual difference at all, as behind the scenes it won’t be active.

2560 x 1080 isn’t available as a native resolution to select in normal mode but if we create one via NVIDIA control panel then it also appears as a 5K2K signal at 165Hz, and at 100Hz and 60Hz it operates at 3440 x 1440 again, so it’s the same result and it only works at 60Hz.

It doesn’t work at all in dual-mode operation where the screen thinks 2560 x 1080 is now the native resolution due to the way this function works, and so won’t upscale that anyway, and whenever you set any other lower resolution the GPU seems to scale it back to the same again as the active signal, and so AI upscaling isn’t available. This is the scenario where we were most hopeful the function could be used, allowing you to use the higher refresh rate of dual-mode, render games at a lower, easier resolution for higher frame rates, and then use the AI Upscaling to improve the image detail and quality back to 5K2K-like levels. That would have been ideal. With all this considered, this means that for PC usage there’s very few scenarios where you can actually use this feature unfortunately.

Note that you also don’t seem to be able to use dual mode to give you access to higher refresh rates for things like 1080p at 240Hz, those don’t work either just like the 165Hz mode hadn’t.

Is this really needed for PC inputs anyway?

In normal 5K2K mode when you’ve got technologies like NVIDIA DLSS available there’s probably few scenarios where you’d ever want to use it anyway for PC gaming as those technologies would provide more optimal upscaling of games rendered at a lower resolution, while also handling UI elements at native resolution as well.

Perhaps you might want to try and use it for video playback in Windows, but to achieve that you’ve got a messy situation of having to manually set a supported lower resolution and 60Hz refresh rate first, in order to get the upscaling to function. Again for video there are then other upscaling approaches you can take at a software level anyway without having to make those changes all the time.

So for PC usage we think realistically the AI upscaling isn’t of much practical value to be honest and it doesn’t deliver what we think many people are probably expecting which is a shame. It’s advertised as offering upscaling without straining your GPU, but we can’t really see any scenarios where this is practically useable.

Real-World use-cases and console support

However, where this feature does become of more value is for consoles, Blu-ray players and external devices which are simpler. Where a device is outputting a signal at 1920 x 1080, the screen detects that properly and can use the AI upscaling feature nicely. We tried it from an Xbox Series X set manually to 1080p in the display setting and found that when specifically set at 1080p resolution, both 60Hz and 120Hz worked, although 60Hz provided the most significant upscaling improvements to image quality. LG tell us that better support for 120Hz is coming soon. The Xbox Series X didn’t offer a 1440p mode on this screen, so we couldn’t test that.

For input signals at 1080p, they get upscaled to an equivalent 4K resolution, since 2160 pixels is the maximum vertical resolution of the panel and they operate with a 16:9 aspect ratio. So really on this model it’s 4K upscaling as opposed to 5K upscaling.

But then for modern consoles like the Xbox Series X this begs the question as to whether you’d be actively setting a lower resolution output which you probably wouldn’t, and you’d need a scenario where the output is sent to the screen at a lower resolution for upscaling to kick in. It seems that if you’ve set the console to output at 4K 120Hz, even when you find a game which supports 120 fps performance mode and use that, the game may get rendered at lower resolutions where needed, but the active signal the console is sending is still 4K, and so that leaves upscaling unavailable. We’ve not been able to test this with a PS5 but expect similar behaviour.

To use the upscaling feature you’d have to manually set a lower resolution in the console settings. Perhaps that’s viable if you’re primarily playing 120fps supported games and know that the game rendering is going to be primarily at these lower resolutions anyway. Older consoles and media players will likely be 1080p and 60Hz maximum anyway so those are a bit simpler and can use the upscaling feature more easily and with the most visual benefit.

For scenarios where upscaling is supported, primarily for 1080p 60Hz signals we’ve captured the visual differences as best we can in these various demonstrations and side by side comparisons but there’s loads more in our video coverage of the screen.

Here’s some photos of a game selection screen from the Xbox comparing the sharpness when set at 1080p with AI upscaling off and on high and you can see it does a decent job of sharpening things up, looking less blurred when it’s activated. It’s not quite as sharp as a true 4K input, but it’s a decent mid-ground.

From a PC if you were to set your graphics card to 1920 x 1080 at 60Hz, which is one of the few inputs which is handled properly, even in Windows desktop you can see the changes quite nicely with improved text clarity and sharpness.

Conclusion and our thoughts

Where it is actually supported, mainly for non-4K external devices and consoles, we thought this upscaling function worked well and offered some good improvements in sharpness and image detail for lower resolution content which could be really handy for those scenario. It’s disappointing that it doesn’t work more broadly for PC inputs, although there are fewer potential usage scenarios there anyway but it would have been ideal if it could have been used to improve the image quality in dual-mode we think. We’ve fed this all back to LG as well in case there are ways they can improve PC support too and we’ll update the review if we receive any relevant updates.

HDR

HDR hardware capabilities

Being an OLED panel, the 39GX950B is well-equipped to handle HDR content from a hardware point of view with its per-pixel level dimming allowing for true blacks, a basically infinite contrast ratio and the avoidance of all blooming and halos. In these regards it can easily surpass any Mini LED backlit LCD monitor. However, it cannot reach the same luminance levels as Mini LED screens in brighter overall scenes, and carries a “peak brightness” spec of 1000 nits, which will then also lower as the content on your screen changes and the APL increases which is normal on this technology. This is one key area where Mini LED screens have the potential to look brighter and deliver a more impactful HDR experience in some situations.

Black depth and ambient light handling

The Tandem WOLED panel maintains better contrast and black depth in the presence of ambient light than alternative QD-OLED panels, which show raised blacks that start to go grey / purple as ambient light increases, especially where those light sources are in front of the screen. QD-OLED has been improved a bit with the 2026 panels and the new ‘QuantumBlack’ film Samsung Display are using, but WOLED panels remain a step ahead in brighter room conditions. Especially the latest Tandem WOLED panels.

You can see here some minor improvements in black depth from the most recent Tandem WOLED panel technology compared with earlier gen WOLED. Note by the way that this is consistent across different WOLED panel sizes as long as the coating remains the same, so these results here from various 27″ models that we’ve used for the photos remain consistent with this new 39″ WOLED panel. It would appear the same as the matte-coated Tandem WOLED panel in the photos.

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HDR Demo and Test Video

Test and demo the HDR on your display using our handy compilation, highlighting black depth, contrast and peak brightness capabilities.
[View here]

HDR Modes and Operation

There’s a wide range of modes and settings available for HDR, with a selection of different preset modes to choose from, along with two particular settings of note, those being the ‘brightness level’ setting – where you can set it to low or high, and the ‘dynamic tone mapping’ option which impacts EOTF tracking and overall scene brightness quite significantly.

Each preset mode is pre-configured with different settings for things like colour temp and sharpness as shown above, and you can change these to suit in most modes as well.

Behind the scenes there also seems to be some differences with colour saturation, as despite setting the Gamer 1 and Gamer 2 modes to the exact same available settings during our testing, the Gamer 2 mode looks noticeably more vivid and colourful in real content. Both have the same colour gamut, so it must be the saturation or similar colour setting that’s turned up for Gamer 2.

HDR Testing Methodology Explained

Performance is measured and evaluated with a high degree of accuracy using a range of testing devices and software. The results are carefully selected to provide the most useful and relevant information that can help evaluate the display while filtering out the wide range of information and figures that will be unnecessary. For measurement, we use a UPRtek MK550T spectroradiometer which is particularly accurate for colour gamut and colour spectrum measurements. We also use an X-rite i1 Pro 2 Spectrophotometer and a X-rite i1 Display Pro Plus colorimeter for various measurements. Several other software packages are incorporated including Portrait Displays’ Calman color calibration software – available from Portrait.com.

We measure the screen at default settings (with all ICC profiles deactivated and factory settings used). The results presented can be interpreted as follows:

HDR accuracy section

• Greyscale dE – this graph tracks the accuracy of each greyscale shade measured from 0 (black) to 100 (white). The accuracy of each grey shade will be impacted by the colour temperature and gamma of the display. The lower the dE the better, with differences of <1 being imperceptible (marked by the green line on the graph), and differences between 1 and 3 being small (below the yellow line). Anything over dE 3 needs correcting and causes more obvious differences in appearance relative to what should be shown. In the table beneath the graph we provide the average dE across all grey shades, as well as the white point dE (important when considering using the screen for lots of white background and office content), and the max greyscale dE as well.
  
  
• RGB Balance and colour temperature – the RGB balance graph shows the relative balance between red, green and blue primaries at each grey shade, from 0 (black) to 100 (white). Ideally all 3 lines should be flat at the 100% level which would represent a balanced 6500k average colour temperature for all grey shades. This is the target colour temperature for desktop monitors, popular colour spaces like sRGB and ‘Display DCI-P3’ and is also the temperature of daylight. It is the most common colour temperature for displays, also sometimes referred to as D65. Where the RGB lines deviate from this 100% flat level the image may become too warm or cool. Beneath this RGB balance graph we provide the average correlated colour temperature for all grey shades measured, along with its percentage deviance from the 6500k target. We also provide the white point colour temperature and its deviance from 6500k, as this is particularly important when viewing lots of white background and office content.
  
  
• ST 2084 EOTF (PQ) tracking – this graph tracks the PQ curve in HDR mode, akin to gamma measurements in SDR. The yellow line represents the ideal PQ curve, while the grey line plots the monitors measured performance.
  
  
• Luminance, black depth and contrast ratio (top right hand table) – measuring the brightness, black depth and resulting contrast ratio of the mode being tested. The luminance figure captured here is from a standard 10% APL window area measurement, although further luminance measurements are included in a separate section to capture “peak brightness” and the luminance at other APL areas. This section also measures the black depth on the screen and the resulting contrast ratio.
  
  For HDR, any local dimming is left enabled, and so we measure the black depth adjacent to a white test image and calculate the “local contrast ratio” from there. We also measure the black depth towards the edges of the screen, away from the white test area in order to calculate the “maximum full frame contrast ratio” across the whole panel. These figures will often be different on LCD screens with local dimming, as this dimming can be more effective for dark areas further away from light areas.
  

HDR colours section

• Gamut coverage (2D) – we provide measurements of the screens colour gamut for HDR relative to the very wide Rec.2020 colour space. Coverage is shown in absolute numbers as well as relative, which helps identify where the coverage extends beyond a given reference space. A CIE-1976 chromaticity diagram (which provides improved accuracy compared with older CIE-1931 methods) is included which provides a visual representation of the monitors 2D colour gamut coverage triangle as compared with Rec.2020. The higher the coverage, the better.
  
  
• dE colour accuracy – a wide range of Rec.2020 colours are tested and the colour accuracy dE measured. An average dE and maximum dE is provided along with an overall screen rating. These numbers are calculated based on the colour tone and hue, and ignore any luminance error. The lower the dE the better, with differences of <1 being imperceptible (marked by the green area on the graph), and differences between 1 and 3 being small (yellow areas). Anything over dE 3 needs correcting and causes more obvious differences in appearance relative to what should be shown. dE 2000 is used for improved accuracy and providing a better representation of what you would see as a user, compared with older dE methods like dE 1994, as it takes into account the human eye’s perceptual sensitivity to different colours.

HDR Brightness

We measured a peak luminance in the default Gamer 1 mode, which reaches up to around 1430 nits in the high setting, with a reduced maximum luminance in the low mode as you’d expect, although that still reaches around 800 nits peak as well. There is no difference with other modes like Gamer 2, it’s only the low/high ‘brightness level’ setting which impacts these particular measurements for white luminance.

Real scene brightness was very comparable between the low and high modes for most scenes, but the high mode could reach noticeably brighter highlights in the darkest, lower APL scenes below around 10% APL. That observation is supported by measurements of the average greyscale luminance as well which are shown above. Again these remain pretty consistent between Gamer 1 and Gamer 2 modes although Gamer 1 is a little brighter, especially in darker scenes.

We also measured some real-scene brightness where you can see that the ‘high’ mode offers ever so slightly higher luminance than the ‘low’ mode, and also ends up being a little brighter than the ‘Gamer 2’ mode. All are pretty close in real terms though as you cycle between them during usage.

HDR Brightness Comparisons

• vs 45GX950A (prev. Gen WOLED)
• vs PG27AQWP-W (27″ Tandem WOLED)

vs 45GX950A (prev. Gen WOLED)

vs PG27AQWP-W (27″ Tandem WOLED)

The 39GX950B reaches up to around 26% higher peak white luminance in many situations compared with the 45” model, and around 33% higher for average greyscale luminance which is impressive. There’s been some decent improvements in brightness with this new Tandem panel in the ultrawide OLED space.

We’ve seen some smaller sized Tandem WOLED panels reach even little brighter, especially in darker, lower APL scenes. The Asus PG27AQWP-W for instance has around an 18% higher white luminance and around 23% higher greyscale luminance and the smaller panel seems to be turned for an even higher brightness. This is likely because the smaller panel produces less overall heat, and so managing that and avoid burn-in and image retention is easier than on a much larger 39″ panel. Also keep in mind that due to the much bigger size, visually the larger screen can look brighter than these figures might suggest as there is more screen to view. That’s a tricky one to capture in data though.

HDR EOTF Tracking

• Gamer 1
• Gamer 2
• High mode comparison

Gamer 1

Gamer 2

High mode comparison

We can also examine the EOTF tracking in the ‘low’ and ‘high’ modes in both the Gamer 1 and Gamer 2 presets, which behave a little differently to one another in the darker parts of the image.

For Gamer 1 you can see that in both modes the greyscale is over-brightened a little in dark to mid grey shades, a little more so in the ‘high’ mode but not by anything too drastic. This serves to make those shades a little brighter than intended, crushing a little bit of detail but impacting the real-world brightness of dark scene HDR content in a positive way a little too. That makes them a bit easier to see.

For Gamer 2 the EOTF tracking is more accurate in terms of following the PQ target, and avoids that over-brightening in dark to mid grey shades. For accuracy purists, that is a good option, although it makes detail in darker scenes a little harder to make out. It doesn’t impact the absolute shadow detail as the first visible grey shade in both modes is RGB 5 (at 165Hz), but the brightness of other darker shades and in darker games and multimedia is enhanced a little with the Gamer 1 mode. There are some other differences in colour appearance though between Gamer 1 and Gamer 2 which we will talk about in a moment.

Dynamic Tonemap Setting

The ‘Dynamic Tonemap’ option (settings for off and on) serves to alter the EOTF tracking significantly, causing more drastic over-brightening, especially in the high mode. This makes many scenes brighter, including dark content where shadow detail improves a little as well (RGB 2 now visible).

This does enhance overall HDR brightness as you can see from the associated dotted lines on this graph for the average greyscale again, although the over-brightening causes noticeable loss of detail in many situations, and we preferred the overall balance and image detail with that turned off. It’s too aggressive in terms of over-brightening we think.

HDR Greyscale

We can also measure the greyscale accuracy and colour temp, which we’ve provided above in our preferred ‘Gamer 1’ mode, where the colour temp setting is defaulted to ‘manual 0’. You can see a consistent RGB balance and good greyscale temp here which is great news. Other preset modes have different default colour temp settings, most are cooler than this Gamer 1 mode and so will be slightly more bluish in appearance (unless you change that setting).

HDR Colours

The colour space in HDR appears to be clamped back a little compared with what we’d measured in SDR in the native mode, and it seems this is the same approximate clamping as the DCI-P3 mode. It quite closely matches the DCI-P3 colour space commonly used for HDR content, although reduces the Rec.2020 coverage a little from ~84.8% absolute / 88.2% relative Rec.2020 coverage to ~79%.

Colour accuracy for HDR colours was good overall as well, and we preferred the more natural looking colours of this Gamer 1 preset overall. Gamer 2 seems to increase the colour saturation a bit, so you can experiment with that if you like a more vivid experience in certain HDR content and games.

HDR best settings guide

• On our Patreon Insider tier and above you can find our full ‘Best settings guide’ for this screen which includes all our recommended calibrated settings and ICC profile for SDR mode, as well as other best settings guidance for other options and gaming.

Conclusion

The 39GX950B is an excellent screen and it’s a no-brainer recommendation if you’re looking for a larger format ultrawide screen, offering loads of significant improvements and updates compared with earlier 39” models that have been released. It’s also a great upgrade if you want a larger screen with a higher resolution and pixel density than the wide range of 34”. We thought it was a really great screen overall and we expect it to be very popular with those looking for an ultrawide OLED monitor.

The higher resolution and pixel density are excellent for professional applications, general usage and productivity and it provides a super-sharp and clear image very similar to a 32″ 4K display, just with an ultrawide aspect ratio. We also really liked the more subtle curvature of this model as we’ve found the curve on previous 34 – 39″ WOLED models too steep, and it’s a great change here.

It’s also great to see Tandem WOLED technology make its way in to more panel sizes, with noticeable improvements to brightness in both SDR and HDR, colours and blacks compared with earlier gen WOLED panels. Additional updates like the improved pixel layout also help here, and we were impressed by the all-round performance of the screen in many usage scenarios.

Gaming is also strong on this screen, although some people may be disappointed with what could probably be considered a “low” refresh rate by today’s standards. The dual-mode function is available for some gaming situations at least which gives you a nice boost, and gaming experience overall was very good with low lag, good console support and a sharp, clear, colourful and impactful image. We would have liked to have seen a BFI blur reduction mode added, but on the other hand it’s nice to see additional features like decent integrated speakers and hardware calibration support on a screen like this which aren’t offered by many OLED monitors.

We were honestly disappointed with the AI Upscaling feature, really our main gripe with this display to be honest after continued testing over the last couple of weeks. It promised a lot and we were excited to test it out, but realistically it was never going to be of much practical value for PC gaming anyway when you have versatile graphics card options like DLSS available. It could have in theory been useful to mitigate any processing overheads associated with those other technologies if you had a struggling system perhaps; and it could have been useful especially in dual-mode operation to improve image detail and clarity while gaming at a lower refresh rate. Alas, it doesn’t work in dual-mode at all and it’s availability for PC inputs is incredibly limited. Where it does work, mostly for 1080p 60Hz external input devices like older consoles and Blu-ray players, we thought it did a nice job and worked well; it’s just very limited in usage scenarios sadly. Maybe LG can improve support and compatibility moving forward as it’s a nice feature that could be useful to more people if support could be improved.

Only LG Electronics have so far announced a monitor using this new Tandem WOLED panel of this size, and so it’s unique in the market at this point in time, but that does mean it carries a high price tag of course which you will have to consider. It’s available to order in a few regions at the time of this video, with other regional webpages starting to appear now too. We’ve got a tracker for availability here and pricing if you want to stay up to date on its release, and you can check our affiliate link below for pricing and availability too.

Pros	Cons
5K2K resolution is great on a screen this size, offering a sharp and clear image and impressive pixel density	AI Upscaling was disappointing and had very limited practical use cases
Tandem WOLED panel provides nice improvements	Refresh rate could be considered low by todays OLED standard
Nice additional features like decent speakers and hardware calibration are rare in the OLED market	Missing some features like BFI which could have been useful

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