Green House Gaming is hardly a household name outside of the Land of the Rising Sun, but the company is bringing one of the industry's first IGZO gaming monitors to the market.
IGZO, which stands for indium gallium zinc oxide, is a semiconductor material that is used on backlighting modules of LCD panels. IGZO features a 20–50 times faster electron mobility, considerably better translucency (transparency) and smaller transistor size, compared to amorphous silicon (a-Si) traditionally featured on backlighting modules of LCDs.
Better transparency means lower power consumption, since less power is required to achieve certain brightness levels. Additionally, faster electron mobility enables somewhat lower response time and smaller transistor dimensions facilitate higher pixel density.
Green House Gaming's GH-ELCG27WA-BK/GH-GLCC27WA-BK monitor detailed via PC Watch boasts IGZO technology, plus specs that can compete with the best gaming monitors. Resolution is 1440p with a 165 Hz refresh rate and 2ms GTG response time and Adaptive-Sync.
The monitor also claims up to 350 nits brightness and a 1,000:1 contrast ratio.
However, the monitor does not support the DCI-P3 color space that is becoming increasingly popular with games. Instead, it claims 99.9% sRGB and 96% Adobe RGB coverage.
In the I/O department, you get one DisplayPort, three HDMI inputs, one USB Type-C connector and a 3.5mm jack The monitor 's stand can adjust height, tilt and swivel and even has a hanger for your best gaming headset.
Incorporating IGZO material into a backlighting module is not cheap. Only two companies in the world — Samsung and Sharp — have licensed IGZO technology from its inventors at Tokyo Institute of Technology. Meanwhile, only Sharp, (which is owned by Foxconn), has been actively using IGZO technology for mobile (smartphone, tablet, etc.), laptop and high-end TV panels in the recent years. Therefore, it is likely that Green House Gaming is using a panel made by Sharp. Whether or not other makers of monitors will adopt the same panel is something that remains to be seen.
Green House Gaming did not announce pricing of its IGZO monitor but availability is expected for this month.
