We’re taking a look at a brand new 32-inch 4K IPS gaming monitor from LG that’s more affordably priced than their previous offerings at this size. It’s the 32gr93u, and unlike a good majority of LG’s Ultra Gear gaming lineup, this monitor does not use a panel from LG Display instead opting for one from Boe that we haven’t tested before, so lots of interesting discoveries to be had.
Note: In these articles we link the product and when you purchase, we earn a small commission through the Affiliate Program.
Specs and Price
LG 32″ Ultragear UHD 1ms 144Hz Gaming Monitor with NVIDIA G-SYNC Compatible, Black
Price: $799
The basic specifications are pretty typical for this type of gaming display: 3840×2160 resolution, 32-inch panel size, IPS LCD technology, maximum refresh rate of 144 Hertz adaptive sync variable refresh support, and fairly typical ratings like one millisecond response times and 95 DCI P3 coverage. It’s also been display HDR400 certified, but there’s no real HDR hardware to be found here, no local dimming at all, so its hardware capabilities should largely be ignored. LG is pricing this new model at $800, far below the $1300 MSRP of the last 32-inch 4K gaming monitor we reviewed from them, the 32GQ950, although that display is often available at or below a thousand dollars. This puts the 32GR93u in the mid-range of current pricing for displays like this, where right now there are quite a few options to choose from.
Design and Build Quality
The design LG has gone with is pretty similar to their other recent Ultra Gear products, with the angular v-shaped stand legs and relatively flat design on the back, with the central hexagonal box housing the components. All of the outer surfaces are plastic in a medium grey colour with varying textures, and I think the hexagonal pattern on the rear looks pretty good. LG seems to be really leaning into this hexagon theme because even their RGB LED lighting system has two strips on either side of the central component box; it’s called hexagon. Lighting in the settings menu The front is dominated, of course, by the 32-inch LCD panel, which has slimmer bezels on three sides than the 32-inch GQ 950. However, the bottom chin is pretty thick on this one, not that that’s a dealbreaker or anything. We also get a matte finish to the display, which is effective at eliminating reflections and, in my opinion, is the ideal configuration for a PC monitor like this. While I do like the design overall, I was a little disappointed with the stand’s stability, and there’s a bit of wobble.
Read Also: LG Gram 16 (2022) Review
LG UltraGear 32GR93U Ports
I really like the easily accessible port layout on the rear, there’s one DisplayPort 1.4 with DSC, two HDMI 2.1 ports, and a 2-port USB hub, The HDMI 2.1 ports are 48 gigabits per second, so they provide the best compatibility with a variety of input devices. The OSD is controlled through a directional toggle on the bottom edge of the display. The menu includes LG’s typical feature set, such as crosshairs. Shadow boosting and various colour controls I like the ability to disable deep sleep, which is a feature often requested by viewers, and you can also turn off DSC if you want to. Hardware calibration is supported too, which I’ll evaluate later. Unfortunately, there is no KVM switch.
Response Time Performance
Motion Performance is relatively straightforward with the 32GR93U. There are four overdrive settings available, one of which is overdrive off, which we’ll look at first. Here we see native panel performance at 144hz, in this case 8.43 milliseconds with the expected zero overshoot. While not especially fast, we do see cumulative deviation around 520, which is great for native speed without overdrive. The next setting up is normal overdrive, which improves the average response to 7.12 milliseconds again with no appreciable overshoot.
A step up from there is fast mode, which delivers the 6.03 millisecond response average with a small but negligible increased overshoot. This mode provides the best cumulative deviation of all four at 144 Hz and is what I choose when gaming at the highest refresh rate. The faster mode is the highest overdrive setting on offer, and like a lot of top modes, it has a lot of overshoot and poor cumulative deviation in an attempt to reduce response times for marketing purposes or less. That’s what I would assume anyway, and I wouldn’t recommend this mode.
What’s good to see is that the 32GR93U does offer a single overdrive mode experience. When using fast overdrive at 144hz, we get good refresh compliance, and while it’s not the fastest mode I’ve ever seen, this sort of speed is preferable to pushing response times too high and introducing more overshoot. As we move down the refresh rate range, response times stay relatively consistent around the six millisecond mark, and overshoot increases somewhat, but even near 60 hz, we only see an inverse ghosting rate of five percent, which is still highly usable and doesn’t really present as obvious artefacts on screen, so variable refresh Gamers can opt for the fast mode and enjoy a good experience no matter their in-game FPS.
Response Time Comparisons
| Asus ROG Swift OLED PG27AQDM (27″ 1440p, 240Hz WOLED) | 0.0% – 0.27 |
| Dell Alienware AW3423DWF (34″ 1440p 21:9 165Hz QO-OLED | 0.9% – 0.29 |
| Asus ROG Swift PG27AQN (27″ 1440p 360Hz IPS) | 2.7% – 2.29 |
| Samsung Odyssey Neo G8 (32″ 2160p 240Hz VA) | 25.5% – 2.51 |
| Samsung Odyssey Neo G7 (32″ 2160p 165Hz VA) | 4.5% – 4.12 |
| Gigabyte M28U (28″ 2160p 144Hz IPS) | 20.9% – 4.14 |
| LG 27GP950 (27″ 2160p 160Hz IPS) | 10.9% – 5.38 |
| LG 32GR93U (32″ 2160p 144Hz IPS) | 0.9% – 6.03 |
| Lenovo Legion Y32P-30 (32″ 2160p 144Hz IPS) | 0.0: 6.29 |
| MSI Optix MPG321UR-QD (32″ 2160p 144Hz IPS) | 13.6% – 6.57 |
| Asus ROG Swift PG32UQX (32″ 2160p 144Hz IPS) | 15.5% – 8.77 |
| Asus ROG Swift PG32UQ (32″ 2160p 155Hz IPS) | 4.5% – 8.88 |
| MSI MAG 274UPF (27″ 2160p 144Hz IPS) | 0.0% – 9.24 |
compared to other monitors using their best overdrive settings at the highest refresh rate the 32 gr93u offers a solid mid-taper results this new panel outperforms last generation offerings like we saw in the Asus PG32UQ and MSI MPG321ui-qd offering better response times and lower overshoot it is similar to a few other 4K monitors I’ve tested like the LG 27GP950 and Lenovo Y32P30 however it’s not quite as well tuned as the previous 32GQ950 from LG and on the bounce of things it seems similar to the gigabyte fi32u/m32u.
| Asus ROG Swift OLED PG27AQDM (27″ 1440p, 240Hz WOLED) | 0.7% – 0.27 |
| Dell Alienware AW3423DWF (34″ 1440p 21:9 165Hz QO-OLED | 1.5% – 0.29 |
| Asus ROG Swift PG27AQN (27″ 1440p 360Hz IPS) | 7.0% – .08 |
| Samsung Odyssey Neo G8 (32″ 2160p 240Hz VA) | 12.3% – 4.01 |
| Samsung Odyssey Neo G7 (32″ 2160p 165Hz VA) | 20.0% – 4.34 |
| Gigabyte M28U (28″ 2160p 144Hz IPS) | 45.8% – 4.51 |
| LG 27GP950 (27″ 2160p 160Hz IPS) | 27.3% – 4.52 |
| LG 32GR93U (32″ 2160p 144Hz IPS) | 1.6% – 8.80 |
| Lenovo Legion Y32P-30 (32″ 2160p 144Hz IPS) | 9.3% – 5.97 |
| MSI Optix MPG321UR-QD (32″ 2160p 144Hz IPS) | 11.1% – 10.01 |
| Asus ROG Swift PG32UQX (32″ 2160p 144Hz IPS) | 22.5% – 8.97 |
| Asus ROG Swift PG32UQ (32″ 2160p 155Hz IPS) | 6.9% – 8.53 |
| MSI MAG 274UPF (27″ 2160p 144Hz IPS) | 0.9% – 9.28 |
The 32GR93U on average though ends up pretty well tuned it performs similarly to the 32GQ950 despite coming in at a lower price while outperforming the 27GP950 also from LG again performance is much better than last generation offerings and it’s better tuned than the gigabyte f532u which does have faster response times but much higher average inverse ghosting this looks to be a great bounce for this new LG model
| Asus ROG Swift OLED PG27AQDM (27″ 1440p, 240Hz WOLED) | 35 |
| Dell Alienware AW3423DWF (34″ 1440p 21:9 165Hz QO-OLED | 44 |
| Asus ROG Swift PG27AQN (27″ 1440p 360Hz IPS) | 290 |
| Samsung Odyssey Neo G8 (32″ 2160p 240Hz VA) | 420 |
| Samsung Odyssey Neo G7 (32″ 2160p 165Hz VA) | 485 |
| Gigabyte M28U (28″ 2160p 144Hz IPS) | 526 |
| LG 27GP950 (27″ 2160p 160Hz IPS) | 497 |
| LG 32GR93U (32″ 2160p 144Hz IPS) | 479 |
| Lenovo Legion Y32P-30 (32″ 2160p 144Hz IPS) | 522 |
| MSI Optix MPG321UR-QD (32″ 2160p 144Hz IPS) | 796 |
| Asus ROG Swift PG32UQX (32″ 2160p 144Hz IPS) | 825 |
| Asus ROG Swift PG32UQ (32″ 2160p 155Hz IPS) | 796 |
| MSI MAG 274UPF (27″ 2160p 144Hz IPS) | 584 |
So let’s confirm with cumulative deviation, as I thought it might be, that the 32gr93u is among the best tuned 32-inch 4K gaming monitors I’ve tested, with an average cumulative deviation of just 479 on par with other great displays like the Neo G7 from Samsung and the 32gq950. It’s only nine percent better in this metric than the Lenovo y32p30, so that’s pretty negligible, but it does hold an advantage over the older crop of large 4K displays, 30 better than the gigabyte f532u45, better than the PG32uq Those are significant differences for IP monitors at a fixed 120 hertz. The 32GR93U offers a good experience with its six millisecond average response and no overshoot, though I still think there’s a bit of extra performance to be extracted at that refresh rate. 60hz performance is very good, offering a relatively fast response time and low overshoot, a combination you don’t see often for 4K monitors and something I think is still quite relevant given the performance requirements to game at 4K. There’s no backlight strobing support on this monitor, a feature that LG typically doesn’t like to expose if the quality isn’t good enough. Several of its competitors, like the Lenovo Y32p30 and the Asus PG32uq, do offer strobing, but the quality across these products is not amazing, so I don’t think this is a big loss.
LG UltraGear 32GR93U Input Lag
Input lag is great on this display for a product that tops out at 144 Hertz with just a 0.4 millisecond processing delay. All other 32-inch 4K gaming monitors I’ve looked at deliver a sub 1 millisecond experience, so from a competitive sense, this isn’t unusual, but it does confirm that we get a solid latency experience. That said, 144 Hz isn’t especially fast these days, so competitive gamers that are gunning for the best latency might prefer something with a 240Hz refresh, even if that means sacrificing resolution. Boe tends to produce displays with excellent efficiency, and that’s no different with the 32 gr93u. Similar to what we’ve seen from the MSI 274 UPF, which also used a Boe panel, the 32 gr93u uses 19 less power at the same 200 nit brightness level as the next best 32-inch 4K 144Hz monitor, the Y32p30. It’s also around 25 watts better than Au Optronix quantum dot panels like we get in the mpg 321ui-qd, 30 watts better than the Interlux panel in the FI32u, and 34 watts better than the LG panel in the 32gq 950, with up to an 18 watt difference that’s sizeable for a monitor, and while it may not have a huge impact on your power bill overall, it’s good to see efficiency improvements.
Color Performance
For color performance, the 32gr 93u is a wide gamut monitor sporting 98 coverage of the DCI P3 color space, which is excellent and makes this monitor quite suitable for color accurate work in this gamut. It also provides 74 coverage of Rec 2020, which is a mid-table result these days. Buyers that are after the absolute highest gamut coverage will still prefer the quantum dot enhanced LCDs like the pg32uq that deliver over 80 coverage and excellent Adobe RGB coverage, but this new LG is still decent. I was quite happy with this Monster’s Factory grayscale calibration; it delivers a flat CCT average, decent adherence to the sRGB gamma, and low Delta E’s for a gaming monitor. However, like most wide gamut displays, it doesn’t ship with an sRGB clamp enabled by default, so regular SDR content will be oversaturated to some degree.
Color Performance Comparison
| Asus ROG Swift PG27AQN (27″ 1440p 360Hz IPS) | 3.0 |
| LG 32GP950 (27″ 2160p 160Hz IPS) | 3.3 |
| MSI MAG 274UPF (27″ 2160p 144Hz IPS) | 4.4 |
| Gigabyte M28U (28″ 2160p 144Hz IPS) | 4.5 |
| LG 32GR93U (32″ 2160p 144Hz IPS) | 5.0 |
| Dell Alienware AW3423DWF (34″ 1440p 21:9 165Hz QO-OLED | 5.1 |
| Asus ROG Swift PG32UQ (32″ 2160p 155Hz IPS) | 5.1 |
| Asus ROG Swift PG32UQX (32″ 2160p 144Hz IPS) | 9.4 |
| Lenovo Legion Y32P-30 (32″ 2160p 144Hz IPS) | 5.5 |
| MSI Optix MPG321UR-QD (32″ 2160p 144Hz IPS) | 5.9 |
| LG 27GP950 (27″ 2160p 160Hz IPS) | 6.2 |
| Gigabyte Arus FI32U (32″ 2160p 144Hz IPS) | 6.3 |
| Samsung Odyssey Neo G7 LS43 (43″ 2160p 144Hz VA) | 9.2 |
When we compare these results to other monitors, the 32gr93u does perform favourably for grayscale content, though not quite as well as the 32GQ950’s previously reported color checker results in mid-table, and with most of these monitors not including a factory gamut clamp, these are highly influenced by color space coverage. The included RGB mode was pleasantly surprising both in terms of accuracy and features. Normally we’d see things like white balance controls locked when the sRGB mode is enabled, but that’s not the case here. The white balance settings are still available, but overdrive settings are disabled, which is a bit bizarre although thankfully the mode you’re locked to is the fast mode, which is the best mode to use. Accuracy in the sRGB mode is great, and while it does perform slightly differently to the default mode, this actually improves performance and Delta ease. The biggest changes are obviously for saturation, which is now fixed for SDR content and provides an excellent experience with a low Delta average.
Compared to other monitors, this is excellent performance the srgb mode is the best in grayscale of all the 32-inch 4K gaming displays I have tested, and it also performs very well in colour checker. If you would like a monitor that is decent out of the box and has a good srgb mode, this is very much a strong contender. LG does support hardware calibration, and I ran it through LG’s provided software using my i1 display Pro Colorimeter to see what results are achievable using an affordable consumer-grade calibration tool. I wasn’t able to improve performance substantially compared to the included modes, which I guess isn’t a huge surprise as the built-in modes are pretty good. This isn’t a knock-on hardware calibration, but it’s still a handy feature to have, but for most users, I probably wouldn’t bother and would just use the included settings. However, you can improve performance when you have access to a pro-grade tool and software utilities like Calman. The results here are excellent for both srgb and P3, so for those that must have the best experience for colour critical work, I think that’s quite achievable on this monitor, and having a good baseline level of performance in hardware certainly helps in that regard.
Brightness, Contrast, Uniformity
Maximum brightness on offer is solid at 432 nits, which, judging by this chart, seems to be what LG aimed for with their 4K monitors, this is a great level of brightness for typical indoor usage. Minimum brightness wasn’t amazing though, at just 76 nits. Typically, we’d like to see below 50 nits. native panel contrast is as expected for an IPS LCD coming in at 1148 to 1 after calibration that’s a similar result to several other 32-inch 4K gaming monitors though notably better than the gigabyte fi32u which only had 907 to 1 contrast in general ipsl cities are not good in terms of contrast though getting destroyed by VA panels or oleds if black levels are something you desire then an IPS LCD won’t be the best choice although compared to other IPS LCDs this level of contrast is fine angles are good and won’t limit your gaming experience even on a largeish panel like this the edges look just like the center when viewing from dead on which you don’t get from say a flat VA display uniformity is average There is really not much to say here, and there is a risk of IPS glow with monitors like this, so your mileage may vary on that one.
LG UltraGear 32GR93U HUB Essentials
| 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 2.1 | HDMI 2.1 |
| DisplayPort Spec | Insufficient Bandwidth | DisplayPort 1.4 | DisplayPort 1.4 |
| VESA Mounting Support | Not included | Yes | Supported |
The final section of the LG 32GR93U review is the Hub Essentials checklist. LG does well in the first two sections, accurately advertising things like HDMI 2.1 and various colour performance specs. Even the colour space measurements are a little conservative, and I would have been fine with LG advertising factory calibration because accuracy here is pretty good.
| Motion Performance | Fail Conditions | Advertised | Real |
|---|---|---|---|
| Response Time Average | False or Misleading Advertising | 1ms | 6.05ms |
| Best Recorded Response Time | False or Misleading Advertising | 1ms | 0.92ms |
| Refresh Compliance, Max Refresh Rate | 50% or less | — | 80% |
| Processing Lag | Greater than 1ms | — | 0.4ms |
| Single Overdrive Control | No | — | Yes |
| Adjustable Overdrive Control | No In Any Mode | — | No in sRGB Mode |
| Variable Refresh Rate Support | Not Included | Yes | Yes |
| Backlight Strobing Support | Not Included | —- | Not Supported |
| Backlight Strobing Quality | No Strobing + VRR, No 60Hz, No Tuning controls, Red Fringing, or Bad Crosstalk | — | Not Supoorted |
Motion Performance seats the U.S. penalties as LG advertised a one millisecond response time without that being realistically achievable. On average, the fastest responses are in the one millisecond range when tested using legacy methods, but I think the one millisecond claim is a bit misleading. LG also bizarrely limits overdrive options in the srgb mode, not that this has a huge impact on the experience.
| HDR Performance | Fail Conditions | Advertised | Real |
|---|---|---|---|
| HDR Sync | Advertised and fake HDR | DisplayHDR 400 | Fake HDR |
| Peak HDR Brightness | Less Than 600 Nits or False Advertising | 400 Nits | 515 nits |
| Rec. 2020 Gamut coverage | Less than 70% | — | 74% |
| Local Dimming Zone Count | Less Than 500 | — | No local Dimming |
| Best Case Single fframe Contrast | Less Than 50,5000:1 | — | 1,66 1:1 |
| Checkerboard Contrast | Less Than 5,000:1 | — | 1,128:1 |
LG also received penalties for advertising HDR despite this monitor not including any real HDR hardware and having no local support, which basically makes it impossible for this type of LCD to deliver the contrast required for true HDR visuals. With that said, it sails through the issues and defects section with no problems.
Final Thoughts
I’ve come away from testing the LG 32gr93u reasonably impressed with what it offers from a performance standpoint, There’s nothing that is especially groundbreaking, but it just performs well across a number of categories, and it’s clear that LG has put in time and effort to optimise this display. That’s what you’d want to see from a high-end 4K 144 Hertz gaming monitor using a new Boe panel. The 32gr93u delivers respectable response times, and LG has tuned it well to offer a single overdrive mode experience. It’s not the fastest monitor going around at 144 Hz, but on average across the refresh rate range, it’s quick for an IPS LCD and very well tuned so it won’t produce any ugly inverse ghosting artefacts. On the balance of things, this is one of the best displays I’ve seen in its class for motion.
LG complements this with great factory tuning, including an excellent srgb mode, good default performance, hardware calibration support, and strong color space coverage, given the popularity of 4K monitors for mixed-use gaming and productivity workloads. LG has really nailed the versatility we like to see from this type of product. Whether you’re gaming or working, the experience provided here is great. LG is also able to stand out more than usual with a product like this because I haven’t been super impressed with other 32-inch 4K displays, particularly those released a few years ago. Early models were plagued with slow or unoptimized response times, and while models like the mpg 321ui-qd do still offer great color space coverage today, they’re harder to recommend for people wanting to game on a nice big 4K monitor.
Where the 32gr93u isn’t as impressive is that it’s an 800 monitor that offers no real HDR hardware, which is a bit disappointing given that excellent true HDR monitors start around a thousand dollars or even less these days. It can be difficult to find a 32 inch 4K IPS monitor with true HDR for 800; usually they are more expensive, but in 2023 I think even some form of HDR like maybe a 500 Zone backlight would be nice. With that said, the previous LG 32GQ950 is even more expensive, and despite being rated as display HJL 1000, it’s actually only edge lit dimmable, so at least we aren’t paying more money for below standard HDR. At the end of the day, the 32gr93u sits in a good position among its competitors. At 800, it’s around 20 dollars more expensive than the popular gigabyte m32u, but based on what I’ve seen from the near identical gigabyte f32u, the LG is a better product with superior response times and better color quality. Whether that’s worth an extra 150 dollars is going to be up to your use case; certainly, I could see reasons for going either way.
The Lenovo Legion Y32p30 is probably the closest competitor at 750 US. Again, I think LG’s pricing is fair in comparison, and I would definitely buy either of these instead of an older product like the PG32uq or MPG 321ui-qd. These days, I think LG has done just enough here, and like with many of their other monitors, hopefully it will age well due to LG’s constant price cuts and sales.
