Cooler Master Tempest GP27U MiniLED Quantum Dot Gaming Monitor Review

How Much Does it Cost?

There’s no getting around the price, as the Cooler Master Tempest GP27U MiniLED Quantum Dot Gaming Monitor is very much just $799 in the US and £799 in the UK. It’s a very high-end and very capable monitor, and the price reflects that. However, it’s not overpriced for what you get, and actually, pretty respectable value considering the overall quality on offer. You can spend this sort of money on a very colour-accurate display, but throwing in gaming features like VRR, FreeSync, G-Sync, RGB, and more add to the overall return on your investment.

Overview

Cooler Master demands a big price for the Cooler Master Tempest GP27U, but not without considerable effort to deliver a quality product. The first aspect is the build quality, as the monitor feels very well constructed. The stand is minimalist, yet heavy and stable for the slightly thicker monitor design. The mount is also very practical, offering a significant range of height adjustment, as well as tilt, angle and even a portrait mode that’s very easy to manoeuvre into and out of.

The panel does a good job of dismissing reflections from brighter light sources, with a mostly matte finish, yet it’s not completely lacking in shine, striking a midpoint between diffusing reflections and still giving you the extra visual pop a glossier panel would provide. However, the sun be damned, as the peak brightness on this monitor can overcome a lot. If the sun is shining, it’ll attempt to outshine it.

The backlight of the GP27U is the main party trick of merit though, it works very well indeed. There’s very little blooming, but there certainly still is some blooming if you go looking for it. Extremely bright and small elements will trip the backlight a little. However, compared to an edge-lit panel that would project a whole shaft of light for that one bright spot, it’s truly next level. It’s very close to what you can expect from an OLED panel, but with the distinct advantage of being much brighter than a typical OLED panel would be, and having no burn-in risk (albeit, that’s not much of a concern on newer panels).

For watching movies, it’s stunning, and while I’d prefer a larger screen for just movies, the backlighting, brightness, and colour reproduction are truly remarkable in both SDR and HDR colour spaces. When it comes to gaming, you really get to flex those expanded HDR colours in ways that few movies short of brighter CGI animation really explore. However, adding to that the 4K resolution, the high refresh rate and VRR technologies take gaming to the next level, then the next, and really you’re just riding the elevator to the top level all around. VRR does limit the monitor to 144Hz, but at 4K that’s plenty as you’ll need a very potent gaming PC to get the most out of this monitor anyway.

Should I Buy One?

Cooler Master are not the only one launching new MiniLED models this month, as I’ve seen a few pop up in my daily work, but they are the first one to get a sample to me, so they’re the best one I’ve seen yet! It’s certainly a big upgrade and the Cooler Master Tempest GP27U is by far one of the best monitors I’ve ever had the pleasure of testing, and there have been many. Brilliant colours from a truly stunning panel, fast refresh rates, high resolutions, excellent brightness and contrast, and HDR performance that is actually on par with high-end TVs. This may be £799, but it lives up to its price tag. If this is just the start of the MiniLED future for PC gamers, bring it on!