Most monitors are meant to be used with a PC, but what if you need a great screen to pair with XBox, PlayStation or Nintendo Switch? Sure, you could connect to a large-screen TV, but when you're in a dorm room or a bedroom, a more reasonably-sized display makes sense. This week, Asus introduced the CG32, a 31.5-inch monitor that's specifically designed for console gaming, with a special place to put your controllers and charge them, 4K resolution, and extremely vibrant colors.
Due out later this year for an undisclosed price, the Asus CG32 is extremely bright and colorful. The company claims that it can get as luminous as 600 nits and that it can hit 95 percent of the DCI-P3 color gamut, which is wider than the sRGB gamut that we (and many others) usually test against.
The CG32 also supports AMD's FreeSync anti-tearing technology so it can keep your session running smoothly. Unfortunately, of the major consoles, only the XBox One supports FreeSync. However, it's always possible that another platform will add this capability and, if you are using this monitor with a PC that has AMD graphics, you can also take advantage of it.
This monitor certainly has the kind of color and resolution that PC gamers appreciate, but its refresh rate tops out at 60 Hz and its response time is a modest 13 milliseconds. By comparison, the leading gaming monitors have refresh rates around 144 Hz with a response rate in the 3 to 5 ms range. So this may not be the best premium screen for PC gamers, but game consoles don't don't yet support lofty refresh rates anyway.
If you want to use the CG32 with several different systems, it has plenty of ports for you, including three HDMI connections and one for DisplayPort 1.2. Its base has two hexagonal spaces to place your controllers, along with four USB ports: two for charging and two for upstream data connections to your system(s). There are also two 5-watt speakers and a 3.5mm audio jack.
At Computex Taipei, we had a chance to play some God of War on the Asus CG32 connected to a PS4, and were impressed with its smooth movement and razor-sharp images. If you want to play console games on a monitor, or you're just after a premium gaming screen that doesn't take up a large portion of your room, this monitor might be a good fit for you.
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Avram Piltch is Managing Editor: Special Projects. When he's not playing with the latest gadgets at work or putting on VR helmets at trade shows, you'll find him rooting his phone, taking apart his PC, or coding plugins. With his technical knowledge and passion for testing, Avram developed many real-world benchmarks, including our laptop battery test.
