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When shopping for a price-no-object display, it’s easy to find some incredible products that dazzle and amaze. When you want that same performance for less money, you have to look for the best price/performance ratio. That is a moving target for sure, but at this writing, I haven’t seen a monitor lately that impressed me as much for so little money as the Titan Army C34A1R.
The C34A1R checks all the fundamental boxes for gaming enthusiasts looking for high performance. The 165 Hz refresh rate isn’t the highest out there, but when coupled with good overdrive and low input lag, it runs with the very best. It also adds value with a properly implemented backlight strobe that reduces blur with no major artifacts and reasonable light reduction that can be compensated for easily.
Peak output is nearly best-in-class as well, with almost 500 nits available for HDR content. Though there’s no dimming, contrast is over 4,500:1 for SDR and almost 5,200:1 for HDR. That’s better than most VA panels can boast. I also found plenty of color with over 90% coverage of DCI-P3 and decent out-of-box accuracy that can be made even better with calibration. I noted minor grayscale errors in HDR mode, but these did not deter me from gaming enjoyment.
The Titan Army C34A1R costs $230 at this writing. That alone is hard to ignore. It delivers a ton of performance and image quality for the money and embarrasses a few more expensive monitors in the process. If you’re on a budget and want the ultra-wide screen experience, definitely check it out.
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