I’m here reviewing the gigabyte G24F 2, a budget entry-level 1080p gaming monitor. I know lots of you guys have been begging for more cheap, affordable monitor reviews, and that’s exactly what we’re doing today with this particular product. The G24F 2 isn’t a particularly new product; it has been available for a while now, but a couple of months ago it dropped to just $168.
Gigabyte G24F 2 Specs and Price
GIGABYTE G24F 2- 24″ 165Hz/180Hz(OC) 1080P Gaming Monitor, 1920 x 1080 SS IPS Display
Price: $168
The Gigabyte G24F 2 has a 24-inch 1920×1080 IPS LCD gaming monitor with a maximum refresh rate of 180 Hz, which is a little higher than some of its competitors in this price range. It has adaptive sync support for all GPUs, wide color gamut support, which isn’t always a guarantee in this price range, and even what gigabyte describes as HDR ready, though I wouldn’t expect any sort of good HDR experience from such an affordable monitor. What I’m interested in seeing is how the G24 F2 stacks up against some other 1080p products we’ve looked at, including our most recent recommendation, the AOC 24 g2sp. AOC’s option is typically more expensive, but there shouldn’t be a lot separating the gigabytes, so we’ll explore that fully in this article.
Read Also: Gigabyte M28U-AE Review
Design and Build Quality
One of the things that I’ve liked about Gigabyte’s standard gaming monitor lineup is their simple yet functional design. The build quality is really not that much different from their more expensive products like the m27qx or m28u. The outer surfaces are mostly standard black plastic; there’s nothing super fancy happening on the rear, and you won’t find RGB LED lighting anywhere. I said a fair few pretty crappy monitors in the 150 range from a build quality standpoint, and this gigabyte option is definitely better than average in that area.
What’s also good to see is a height adjustable stand in addition to tilt support. Although there’s no rotation of any kind, the range of height is very solid, and the overall stand assembly has little wobble. It’s sturdy and well built. There’s also a directional toggle for controlling the OSD. Both this and height adjustability are very common on higher-end monitors, but even today you don’t always get them on entry-level monitors.
Ports and Screen
The Gigabyte G24F 2 port selection includes one display port 1.2, two HDMI 2.0 ports, a two-port USB 3.2 Gen 1 hub, and a headphone jack—all ports support the full 180 Hertz refresh rate capabilities at 1080p. As for the on-screen display, Gigabyte again hasn’t really sacrificed anything compared to their higher-tier products. We’re still getting most of the gaming-specific features like FPS cameras, timers, and crosshairs, including custom crosshair support, plus a wide range of color controls, including a black stabilizer and multiple color modes.
Response Time Performance
Response time performance is usually pretty interesting with entry-level monitors, so let’s get into it. Gigabyte provides five overdrive settings, although the smart OD mode, as far as I can tell, just applies the bounce setting. We’ll start with overdrive off, which shows native panel performance. There’s not a lot to say here; performance is not amazing with the 16 millisecond response time average and high cumulative deviation, making this not a great way to play at 180 Hertz.
The picture quality mode is only a minor improvement on overdrive off, while the bounce mode at 180 Hertz is somewhat better; a 12.7 millisecond average response is hardly incredible, though there is no overshoot here and cumulative deviation has improved relative to the previous modes, but with an overall result of 685 on average, it’s definitely more in the mediocre range.
The Speed mode is the fastest mode on offer, but it has other issues. The response time average has improved to 6.11 milliseconds, which allows for 69 refresh rate compliance at 180 Hertz, but the error rate and overshoot have increased quite a bit compared to balance, so the blur Trails we see in the bounce mode due to slow response times have simply been replaced with inverse ghosting trails in the speed mode, while the data says cumulative deviation is better in this mode. Compared to balance, it’s only clearer in some areas; in others, the trails behind moving objects are more noticeable in this mode. I’d probably prefer to use the bounce mode, though it’s much of a muchness, and really the best optimized mode is somewhere between bounce and speed, not that that mode exists for adaptive sync.
Gamers, the speed mode is not very good as once we reach even 144 Hertz, the level of inverse ghosting is too high and quite noticeable. People planning on using the variable refresh capabilities should instead stick to the bounce mode. While performance isn’t ideal at 180 Hertz, it is decent at 120 Hertz and continues to have very little overshoot down around 85 Hertz. However, while there is a large range of usable refresh rates here at 60 Hertz, the bounce mode does have quite a bit of overshoot, so it’s probably better to reduce the mode to picture quality if you’re gaming around that range. Unfortunately, this prevents the g24f2 from having a single overdrive mode experience, which would likely be tricky on this panel without, say, variable overdrive, something we have rarely seen in this sort of price class.
Gigabyte G24F 2 Response Time Performance Comparisons
| Gigabyte M27Q p (27″ 1440p 170Hz IPS) | 22.7% – 4.52 |
| MSI G274QF-QD (27″ 1440p 170Hz IPS) | 282% – 4.73 |
| Pixio PX248 Prime Advanced (24″ 1080p 144Hz IPS) | 11.8% – 5.17 |
| Sony Inzone M3 (27″ 1080p 2 40Hz IPS) | 2.7% – 5.45 |
| BenQ EX2510 (24″ 1080p 144Hz IPS) | 9.1% – 5.79 |
| AOC 24G2 2020 (24″ 1080p 144Hz IPS) | 0.0% – 6.49 |
| Pixio PX248 Prime S (24″ 1080p 165Hz IPS) | 17.3% – 6.90 |
| Pixio PX257 Prime (24″ 1080p 144Hz IPS) | 0.0% – 6.93 |
| AOC 24G2SP (24″ 1080p 165Hz IPS) | 7.3% – 8.35 |
| Pixio PX248 Prime (24″ 1080p 144Hz IPS) | 6.4% – 8.51 |
| MSI MPG Artumis 273CQRX-QD (27″ 1440p 240Hz VA) | 12.7% – 9.20 |
| Gigabyte G24F 2 (24″ 1080p 180Hz IPS) | 0.0% – 12.72 |
Compared to other monitors at their highest refresh rate and best overdrive settings, the G24 F2 is unimpressive, delivering a high average response time. I’ve chosen the bounce mode here, but the speed mode wouldn’t have been much better with a 6.1 millisecond average response but an inverse ghosting rate of 31, so either the gigabyte monitor would fall towards the bottom of the chart with no overshoot or more in the middle but with higher overshoot than its competitors, at least at the highest refresh rate.
| Gigabyte M27Q p (27″ 1440p 170Hz IPS) | 0.0% – 9.07 |
| MSI G274QF-QD (27″ 1440p 170Hz IPS) | 0.0% – 9.75 |
| Pixio PX248 Prime Advanced (24″ 1080p 144Hz IPS) | 20.0% – 5.13 |
| Sony Inzone M3 (27″ 1080p 2 40Hz IPS) | 0.0% – 10.65 |
| BenQ EX2510 (24″ 1080p 144Hz IPS) | 11.8% – 5.70 |
| AOC 24G2 2020 (24″ 1080p 144Hz IPS) | 0.9% – 6.28 |
| Pixio PX248 Prime S (24″ 1080p 165Hz IPS) | 10.9% – 8.03 |
| Pixio PX257 Prime (24″ 1080p 144Hz IPS) | 0.0% – 6.89 |
| AOC 24G2SP (24″ 1080p 165Hz IPS) | 19.1% – 6.50 |
| Pixio PX248 Prime (24″ 1080p 144Hz IPS) | 12.7% – 7.39 |
| MSI MPG Artumis 273CQRX-QD (27″ 1440p 240Hz VA) | 30.0% – 6.30 |
| Gigabyte G24F 2 (24″ 1080p 180Hz IPS) | 0.0% – 8.07 |
This indicates bad tuning relative to other monitors, and perhaps the 180 Hz refresh rate isn’t well suited to the panel being used. Luckily, the G24F 2 can redeem itself somewhat in average performance. While it is a little slower than its competitors on average across the refresh rate range, it achieves this with lower overshoot and less inverse ghosting. So while the 24 G2SP, for example, has a 6.86 millisecond average response versus 8.82 on the gigabyte model, its average inverse ghosting rate is double that of the G24F 2 for variable refresh rate gaming. This is because the gigabyte model appears to be more optimized for middle refresh rates around the 100 Hertz mark, while the AOC model is more optimized for the highest refresh rate, so on the AOC, when the refresh rate is lowered, performance Falls away, some people may prefer the way Gigabyte handles it all to the way AOC and other brands handle it depending on their expected gaming performance and the games they play. Unfortunately, in these sorts of price tiers, we rarely get a golden monitor that can do it all
Moving on to cumulative deviation, which illustrates that bounce between speed and overshoot, the G24F 2 isn’t amazing but does sit near competitors like the 24″ g2sp. It’s better than some of Pixio’s px248 offerings, but the best tune monitors for performance in this price class would be the older AOC 24″ G2 2020 model as well as the Pixio px248 prime. Advanced further tuning probably would have taken the G24F 2 up a few rankings in this chart. 120hz performance is pretty similar to other budget 1080p monitors, but on the lower end of the scale, as gigabyte has prioritized a low overshoot experience with their bounce setting models like the px248 prime Advanced and 24g to 2020 model, which again will still provide a better experience at 60hz. It’s very similar; there’s a wide range of performance here depending on the tuning offered, with the G24F 2 not being especially impressive.
| Processing Log (ms) | Processing + Refresh Log (ms) | Processing Log + Refresh Log + response Time (ms) |
|---|---|---|
| Gigabyte M27Q P | (27″ 1440p 170Hz IPS) | 0.6 + 3.5 + 8.0 |
| MSI G274QF-QD | (27″ 1440p 170Hz IPS) | 0.5 + 3.4 + 8.1 |
| Sony Inzone M3 | (27″ 1080p 2 40Hz IPS) | 0.6 + 2.7 + 8.2 |
| Pixio PX248 Prime Advanced | (24″ 1080p 144Hz IPS) | 0.4 + 3.9 + 9.1 |
| BenQ EX2510 | (24″ 1080p 144Hz IPS) | 0.2 + 3.7 + 9.5 |
| Pixio PX248 Prime S | (24″ 1080p 165Hz IPS) | 0.1 + 3.1 + 10.0 |
| AOC 24G2 2020 | (24″ 1080p 144Hz IPS) | 0.1 + 3.6 + 10.1 |
| AOC 24G2SP | (24″ 1080p 165Hz IPS) | 0.4 + 3.4 + 11.8 |
Pixio PX248 Prime | (24″ 1080p 144Hz IPS) | 0.1 + 3.6 + 12.1 |
| MSI MPG Artumis 273CQRX-QD | (27″ 1440p 240Hz VA) | 1.1 + 3.2 + 12.4 |
| Pixio PX257 Prime | (24″ 1080p 144Hz IPS) | 3.5 + 7.0 + 13.9 |
| Gigabyte G24F 2 | (24″ 1080p 180Hz IPS) | 3.2 + 6.0 + 18.7 |
Input lag also didn’t overly impress me with around a three millisecond processing delay; however, there are a couple of other 1080p monitors with similar input lag, and realistically, three milliseconds of processing delays is not very much. The bigger issue from a latency perspective is those slow response times, which since the G24F 2 are at the bottom of the chart. It takes longer for this display to finish updating the image on screen relative to others. The refresh lag component is decent, though, due to its 180 Hertz maximum compared to many others that top out around 144 or 165 Hertz. Power consumption is an excellent non-issue for this product; around 17 watts is right in the middle for a screen of this size and technology.
Backlight Strobing
The G24F 2 does support backlight strobing technology, but it’s not really worth using. There is little control over the feature, and when enabled, it disables other controls like brightness and overdrive. The actual visual quality of the strobed image is poor with blur and crosstalk, plus as the overdrive mode is fixed to speed, there’s a bit of overshoot and inverse ghosting visible. This is especially noticeable at lower refresh rates, so even using the setting at 120 hertz isn’t very good. It’s just not worth considering this monitor for its driving quality.
Gigabyte G24F 2 Color Performance
On the color quality side of things, the G24F 2 does have some decent capabilities, such as wide color gamut support, which is pretty rare among budget gaming monitors, so if you wanted the extra color space or additional vibrance and saturation, you can get that here. It’s not a huge wide gamut though, just 91 coverage of DCI P3 and 68 coverage of Rec 2020, which is better than any srgb-only monitor, but higher-tier wide gamut monitors still have an advantage.
Factory calibration is mediocre, with Gigabyte choosing the wrong gamma to use here, which affects Delta E accuracy. The color temperature is great; there’s no obvious tint to the monitor, but with a high gamma, some content will appear too dark. Also, the monitor ships without a gamut clamp, so for regular SDR content like desktop apps or YouTube videos, there is a small amount of oversaturation in the grayscale issues, which is why we see a high-ish Delta e in Color Checker.
| Gigabyte M27Q p (27″ 1440p 170Hz IPS) | 6.0 |
| MSI G274QF-QD (27″ 1440p 170Hz IPS) | 5.1 |
| Pixio PX248 Prime Advanced (24″ 1080p 144Hz IPS) | 12.5 |
| Sony Inzone M3 (27″ 1080p 2 40Hz IPS) | 11.8 |
| BenQ EX2510 (24″ 1080p 144Hz IPS) | 4.1 |
| AOC 24G2 2020 (24″ 1080p 144Hz IPS) | 9.6 |
| Pixio PX248 Prime S (24″ 1080p 165Hz IPS) | 14.2 |
| Pixio PX257 Prime (24″ 1080p 144Hz IPS) | 6.3 |
| AOC 24G2SP (24″ 1080p 165Hz IPS) | 6.0 |
| Pixio PX248 Prime (24″ 1080p 144Hz IPS) | 17.8 |
| MSI MPG Artumis 273CQRX-QD (27″ 1440p 240Hz VA) | 5.6 |
| Gigabyte G24F 2 (24″ 1080p 180Hz IPS) | 12.5 |
Compared to other 1080p monitors, though this sort of performance isn’t unusual. There are certainly other products with grayscale issues, though some are reasonably well calibrated, like the 24 g2sp card check accuracy, which is also below average but not disastrous or all that different from some other monitors. Gigabyte has included an srgb mode, which does work and clamps the gamut to srgb, reducing over saturation for SDR content, but it makes no changes to grayscale performance and locks you out of settings to adjust things like gamma and white balance, so it ends up being a below average implementation. It is relatively easy to calibrate this display; otherwise, using Calaman software with an ICC profile, we achieved quite good results in line with other monitors.
Gigabyte G24 2 Brightness, Contrast and Uniformity
The panel and backlight being used here offer mid-tier maximum brightness around 370 nits, which looking at this chart is typical performance. There are some monitors with disappointingly low results like the 24 G2 from 2020 that manages just 273 nits, but a result around 350 nits is pretty common. Minimum brightness is similar to other monitors but not amazing at 83 nits.
The good news is that for an IPS monitor, this panel has a decent contrast ratio of 1263 to 1, though again, there are other monitors on the market that also produce similar figures. We’re not getting the contrast ratio of VaPulse, but I think the results here are very good for a budget-class monitor, and we’re well beyond the days of crappy TN panels with low contrast in this price tier. Viewing angles are decent, no real issues, and uniformity is also pretty good, especially in this class. The sensor section of my unit is quite reasonable, and I didn’t see tons of IPS glow, although this will vary between units.
HUB Essentials Checklist
The final section of Gigabyte G24F 2 review is the Hub Essentials checklist, which looks at where the gigabyte is accurately advertising this monitor and meeting basic minimum performance standards.
| Design and Ports | Fail Conditions | Advertised | Real |
|---|---|---|---|
| Height Adjustment | Not Included | — | Supported |
| Directional OSD Toggle | Not Included | — | Yes |
| Bezel Size | False or Misleading Advertising | Normal | Normal |
| HDMI Spec | Insufficient Bandwidth or Misleading Advertising | HDMI 2.0 | HDMI 2.0 |
| DisplayPort Spec | Insufficient Bandwidth | DisplayPort 1.2 | DisplayPort 1.2 |
| VESA Mounting Support | Not Included | — | Supported |
| Color Performance | Fail Conditions | Advertised | Real |
|---|---|---|---|
| Panel Bit Depth | False Advertising or Native 6*Bit | 8-bit | 8-bit |
| Peak SDR Brightness | False or Misleading Advertising | 300 nits | 367 nits |
| Contrast | False or Misleading Advertising | 1,100:1 | 1,263.1 |
| Color Space | False or Misleading Advertising | 95% DCCI-P3 | 91.4% DCI-P3 |
| sRGB Mode | Not Included (For Wide Gamut Displays) | — | Yes |
| sRGB Mode Limitations | Any | — | Some Limitations |
| Factory Calibration | Advertised and Avg Color Checker dEITP >5 in Best Included Display mode | No | Not Best dEITP 11.09 |
It’s good to see gigabyte including height adjustment, a directional OSD toggle, and not falsely advertising bezel size with this monitor. Color performance is also good, although my numbers for P3 coverage are a bit below gigabytes and the srgb mode does have limitations.
| Motion Performance | Fail Conditions | Advertised | Real |
|---|---|---|---|
| Response Time Average | False Advertising or Native 6*Bit | 1ms MPRT | 8.82ms |
| Best Recorded Response Time | False or Misleading Advertising | 1ms MPRT | 1.55ms |
| Refresh Compliance, Max Refresh Rate | 50% or Less | —- | 69.1% |
| Processing Log | Greater than 1ms | — | 3.2ms |
| Single overdrive Made Experience | No | — | No |
| Adjustable Overdrive Control | No In Any Mode | — | Yes |
| Variable Refresh Rate Support | Not Included | Yes | Yes |
| Backlight Strobing Support | Not Included | — | Supported |
| backlight Strobing Quality | No Strobing + VRR, no 60Hz, No Tuning Controls, Red Fringing, or bad Crosstalk | — | Significant Issues |
The big issues are in the Motion Performance section. I don’t believe advertising this as a one millisecond monitor is very accurate, and although gigabyte specifies mprt here, I think this is confusing for customers. Processing lag and a lack of a single overdrive mode experience are also downsides. Gigabyte probably shouldn’t have advertised this as an HDR monitor as the panel lacks any form of local dimming, is not bright enough for HDR, and even the car space coverage is mediocre. You can enable HDR, but it’s just not worth using at all. However, I liked that it passed through our flickering and pixel inversion tests with no issues.
Final Thoughts
The gigabyte G24F 2 is pretty much as expected for a budget entry-level product. It gets some things right, but performance isn’t amazing in other areas, and a few corners have been cut based on my testing results and experience using it. This monitor isn’t a standout option. It’s pretty similar to some of its competitors, but it is also quite cheap at just 150 USD, which definitely has to factor into this discussion among budget 1080p monitors. There tend to be two categories: slower monitors with better colors and faster monitors with worse colors.
The G24F 2 is definitely the former. The response time speed here is underwhelming, and overdrive tuning could be better. It’s not too bad for variable refresh. Gamers targeting the middle of the range somewhere around 80 to 120 hertz, but elsewhere it’s mediocre. There’s no big advantage to this monitor having a 180 hertz refresh rate either versus 144 or 165 hertz in other displays. The experience is very similar, and this panel isn’t ideal for running at 180 Hz. The upside is the color experience. wide gamut supports a decent contrast ratio. good levels of brightness and great viewing angles These are good features, and P3 coverage is rare to see in this sort of class.
So if you want a bit of additional saturation, you’ll get that here, but I would have liked to see Gigabyte tune it a bit better if this is to be a color performance-focused gaming monitor. Factory calibration could be improved. I think what ended up impressing me the most is the build quality; there’s really no step down in build compared to gigabytes higher-tier monitors. It’s a very sturdy design; it’s well built, and it includes stuff like height adjustability, a directional OSD toggle, and plenty of OSD features. It’s still a fairly basic design overall, but on the higher end of the scale in terms of quality among sub-200 monitors.
Looking at price and competition, I think 150 is a fair to good price for what you’re getting here. It probably would have been an outstanding buy with better tuning, but as things stand, it’s fairly priced, and there may be other options that will tempt you. For example, the AOC 24 g2sp is better tuned for high refresh rate gaming and has better factory calibration, but it’s also around 20 more expensive most of the time, sitting near 180.
The Pixio px248 prime Advanced is one of the better entry-level 1080p IPS monitors in terms of speed and motion performance, but you’ll sacrifice wide gamut support, brightness, and contrast versus the G24F 2 gaming monitor, and it’s also 10 more expensive. It makes it hard to choose because, ultimately, there’s no golden monitor in the budget class that does it all for a great price, but if you’re on a tight budget and have $168 to spend, the gigabyte G24F 2 gaming monitor is a reasonable choice, and I would continue to recommend this sort of monitor over VA or TN LCD alternatives in the entry-level.
