Gigabyte Aorus Answers The Call For A 4K OLED Gaming Monitor With DisplayPort 2.1
Monitor makers have been slow to adopt DisplayPort 2.1/2.1a connectivity, which is a bummer if you're in urgent need of a display and want to future-proof your setup (as much as possible, anyway—true future-proofing is an impossible task). Well, that's about to change. Gigabyte has introduced a trio of new displays under its Aorus division, and one of them—Aorus FO32U2P, not be confused with the FO32U2—is being pitched as the world's first OLED gaming monitor with DisplayPort 2.1 onboard.
That claim will really depend on how fast Gigabyte can bring the Aorus FO32U2P to market, as we suspect other monitor makers will adopt the faster input standard as the year goes on. Why does this matter? DisplayPort 2.1 is a pretty big upgrade over DisplayPort 1.4 and supports the full bandwidth of the Ultra High Bit Rate 20 (UHBR 20) transmission mode—four 20Gbps DisplayPort lanes for 80Gbps total.
Gigabyte teased the Aorus FO32U2P at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) earlier this year. Now two months later, it looks like a retail release is imminent, with Gigabyte hosting multiple product pages (on its own Gigabyte and dedicated Aorus domains).
The DisplayPort 2.1 specification has the bandwidth to handle a 4K resolution at 240Hz or 8K at 85Hz, without Display Stream Compression (DSC). Using DSC, however, it can feed a 16K resolution at up to 60Hz. There are other possibilities too, like 1440p at up to 500Hz and 1080p at up to a staggering 900Hz. But that's getting a little ahead of ourselves.
Gigabyte's Aorus FO32U2P sports a 31.5-inch QD-OLED panel (sourced from Samsung) with a 3840x2160 (4K Ultra HD) resolution and 240Hz refresh rate. Other specs include 99% coverage of the DCI-P3 color space, 250 nits brightness (typical), a 1,500,000:1 contrast ratio, a negligeable 0.03ms gray to gray (GtG) response time, and DisplayHDR True Black 400 certification (which means the peak brightness is at least 400 nits).
In addition to a DisplayPort 2.1 input, the FO32U2P also comes equipped with a mini DisplayPort 2.1 input (UHBR 20), a pair of HDMI 2.1 ports, a USB Type-C port (Alternate Mode; Upstream port, Power Delivery up to 65W), an upstream USB 3.2 port and two downstream USB 3.2 ports, and 3.5mm audio jacks for an earphone and microphone.
The monitor also boasts a pair of 5W speakers and a built-in KVM switch, so there's a lot to like about this monitor.
Regarding the DisplayPort 2.1 connectivity, one thing to note is that today's gaming GPUs do not natively support the full 80Gbps of the standard. Hence why it's a future-proofing move, as we'd be surprised if DisplayPort 2.1 UHBR 20 didn't show up on the GeForce RTX 5000 and Radeon RX 8000 series, and probably Intel's next-gen discrete GPUs too (Battlemage). You'd need to invest in a compatible cable, too. But all of that is a discussion for another day.
No word yet on when exactly the Aorus FO32U2P will land at retail or how much it will cost. Stay tuned.
