Cooler Master Tempest GP27U MiniLED Quantum Dot Gaming Monitor Review

Cooler Master already has a range of truly awesome monitors, but today is a very special day indeed. While a few brands are hitting the market this season with their first MiniLED monitors, the new Cooler Master GP27U is the first one I’ve been lucky enough to get hands-on with. The Tempest MiniLED Monitors come in two flavours, the Tempest GP27Q (QHD), and Tempest GP27U (UHD) and both are the new flagships in the Cooler Master range.

Cooler Master Tempest GP27U

This new monitor means serious business, and at $799 for a 27″ 4K monitor, you won’t be surprised to hear it’s extremely well-equipped. MiniLED technology provides a full array backlight with 576 Local Dimming Zones, allowing for 600 nits brightness in SDR content and 1200 in HDR content; that’s BRIGHT! Furthermore, the QLED technology allows it to hit some truly staggering colour reproduction figures, with up to 98% of DCI-P3, so images are going to look incredible. Add to that an Ultra Speed IPS 1ms panel that can deliver 160Hz refresh rates, with Adaptive Sync, HDMI 2.1 and more. If you understood what all that means, you’re likely salivating already. The two new models are fairly similar, offering a choice of a 2K or a 4K panel, while the Tempest GP27Q has an MSRP of $499 while the 4K Tempest GP27U has an MSRP of $799.

Features

• MiniLED Panel – 576 local dimming zones with 50000:1 Contrast Ratio (Local Dimming enabled). Note, Local Dimming can actually be turned off in HDR mode. 
• Peak Brightness – 1200 nits (HDR), 600 nits (SDR)
• Fully Adjustable Overdrive + Dynamic Overdrive– in the OSD menu, users can customize the level of Overdrive using values from 0-100 for a more precise overdrive setting. There’s also a dynamic overdrive setting that automatically sets the overdrive based on the refresh rate.
• Quantum Dot Layer – Up to 98% DCI-P3 colour coverage
• Color Calibration Delta E <2 – Delta E<2 for sRGB, Adobe RGB and DCI-P3.
• UltraSpeed IPS Panel – Ultra-Fast response times, up to 0.5ms MPRT on GP27Q. MPRT is not available on GP27U. Response times of (up to) 1-2ms GtG on both.
• FreeSync Premium Pro Certification – We are aiming to achieve FreeSync Premium Pro certification on both of our devices. The units have been sent to AMD already and we are waiting to hear back. As such, we’ve used the certification in our review guide, but officially we have not received it yet. 
• KVM Switch – Connect an extra device and use one set of peripherals to control both devices.
• Full-Bandwidth HDMI 2.1– Full 48Gbps bandwidth to support the latest consoles for true 4K 120Hz.

576 Local Dimming Zones

Thanks to MiniLED technology, local dimming zones are even smaller and more granular than ever before. With local dimming activated you can obtain extraordinary HDR performance with a contrast ratio of 50,000:1. Reach a new level of clarity for everything you watch. MiniLED’s improved display technology brightens whites and darkens blacks for an HDR picture that has an unprecedented level of picture quality. This is how MiniLED shows all your favourite content in a whole new light with up 1200nits of Peak Brightness in HDR and 600 nits of Peak Brightness in SDR.

Specifications