Picture Quality

The Cooler Master GM34-CWQ ARGB features an 8-bit Quantum Dot VA panel capable of displaying 16.7 million colors. The panel can in fact be pushed to display 10 bits of color per channel by using Frame Rate Control (FRC), a method of temporal dithering to create a perception of 1,024 individual shades of RGB color (1.07 billion colors in total). Unless you're a creative professional with an established end-to-end 10-bit color workflow, you shouldn't lose sleep over the 8-bit+FRC nature of this monitor.

Quantum dots should be very familiar to everyone who's into television technology, where they've been actively used for more than five years. Samsung in particular leans into them as their entire QLED TV lineup featured Quantum Dot panels, which they considered so good that they made a point of steering clear of the OLED technology. This of course changed this year after Samsung released their QD-OLED panels, but those too again feature Quantum Dot technology, which is what the "QD" in the name stands for. In short, quantum dots are semiconductive nanocrystals measuring 2–10 nanometers which are able to produce pure red, green, and blue light. Their exact color is determined by the number of atoms within. They're usually applied to a sheet of film located between the backlight and panel/color filter. The quantum dot enhancement film then tries to improve various aspects of the picture quality, such as color accuracy, saturation, and brightness, while using substantially less energy than a conventional LCD panel, which we already found to be true earlier in the review. Cooler Master isn't the first one using Quantum Dot technology on a gaming monitor, but they brought it to a 34-inch ultrawide priced at $650.

The backlight unit is controlled by direct current (DC), which makes it flicker-free at any given brightness level. The screen coating on the Cooler Master GM34-CWQ ARGB is light anti-glare (AG). The screen is very resistant to reflecting its surroundings even when used in a room with a lot of natural or artificial light, and the picture isn't perceived as grainy or dirty from a normal sitting distance, which can be the case with heavier AG coatings. The maximum specified brightness of the panel is 400 cd/m², accompanied by a static contrast ratio of 4,000:1.

To test the picture quality of the Cooler Master GM34-CWQ ARGB, I've used a combination of the X-Rite i1Display and DisplayCAL, a powerful software solution for display calibration and profiling, which is completely free to use assuming you own a supported colorimeter.

Picture Quality at Factory Settings

The picture quality of the Cooler Master GM34-CWQ ARGB at its factory defaults was tested right after plugging it in and allowing it to warm up for about an hour. At the factory settings, I measured a high brightness of 362.5 cd/m², with the color temperature sitting at 6,300 K, so 200 K below our preferred target. The measured static contrast ratio was even higher than specified in the datasheet, coming in at 4,863:1. Subjectively, the picture looked very good due to the aforementioned high brightness and accompanying vibrant, punchy colors. The Quantum Dot technology is obviously doing its thing here, and Cooler Master made sure to tune the monitor to look attractive when turned on.


The measured out of the box gamma had an average value of 2.16, which isn't far from ideal (2.2). The gamma curve didn't look perfect though, as my colorimeter showed that the GM34-CWQ ARGB is overshooting the input signal brightness at lower levels (<50%), and slightly undershooting it past that point. Luckily, neither of these deviations were drastic, so I didn't notice a substantial loss of detail in very bright or very dark scenes.


As for the color accuracy, the out of the box ΔE was 2.72, with the maximum ΔE climbing as high as 5.44. The gray tones were very accurate, but the colorimeter caught some substantial inaccuracies in various red, green, and blue color tones.

As for image sharpness, 3440x1440 pixels stretched over a 34-inch ultrawide panel result in a pixel density of 110 PPI. This results in sharp fonts, icons, and other visual elements of whatever is displayed on screen. You also get plenty of screen real estate to work with, partially because using Windows UI scaling isn't necessary. Simultaneously working in two side-by-side windows feels as if using two monitors, but without ugly bezels splitting the image in half.


A quick way to get the picture quality of the Cooler Master GM34-CWQ ARGB in excellent shape both visually and technically is to manually switch it to the sRGB color space, which is done in the Color Adjust > Color Space menu. Unlike many other monitors, the GM34-CWQ ARGB doesn't lock you out of adjusting the color temperature after activating sRGB mode, so I was able to easily address the only issue present in default sRGB mode: slightly high color temperature adding a noticeable bluish tint to the picture. I fixed it by going to the Color Adjust > Color Temperature menu, selecting User Color, and reducing the Blue channel gain to 48. After doing so, I ended up with a 6.545 K color temperature, 4,608:1 static contrast ratio, color accuracy with an average ΔE of 1.17, and a 2.17 average gamma value, with the measured gamma curve now much closer to the referent one.

If you don't want to limit the monitor to the sRGB color space, you can leave the Color Space option on Auto and proceed to adjust the color temperature closer to the desired 6,500 K value. On my sample of the GM34-CWQ ARGB, this is done by going to the Color Adjust > Color Temperature > User Color menu, and setting the color channels to 47 (Red), 50 (Green), and 49 (Blue). I also wanted to lower the brightness to a more comfortable 250 cd/m² to save my eyes from being wrecked in the dark. I was able to do so by lowering the brightness (Color Adjust > Contrast / Brightness > Brightness) to 38. Let's take a look at what happened after those tweaks.



With our minor tweaks, we improved pretty much every aspect of the picture quality, most notably the color temperature and black luminance. The slight reddish hue was successfully removed from the picture, and we got an increase in static contrast ratio, as well as some improvements in gamma tracking. Of course, the brightness was lowered to my preference too, although that won't necessarily be the case for you if you prefer a brighter picture.


As we can see by examining the CIE diagram, we get 99.8% coverage of the sRGB and 92.2% coverage of the DCI-P3 color space with our adjusted settings. The gamut volume equals 140.4% for sRGB and 99.5% for DCI-P3 color spaces. These are some excellent numbers, as well as a clear demonstration of the benefits of adding a quantum dot film layer between the backlight and panel.


This is what the luminance and color uniformity of the Cooler Master GM34-CWQ ARGB look like when measured at 25 different patches across the panel. Please click on the image to see it in high resolution and examine the data in greater detail. Luminance uniformity is very good, managing to stay between a 3–5% deviation on average, which is of course impossible to spot with the naked eye. The same is true for contrast deviation. It never exceeds 7% and actually stays below 5% on the majority of the panel's surface. As for color uniformity, it can be rated as decent, but not spectacular. The ΔE hovers around 2.5 on most of the panel, with a couple of hikes to 3.5 and 4 in the upper left and both bottom corners of the panel. While this isn't an issue at all when using the monitor for gaming and everyday work, it could pose an issue for high-level color-critical work.

The Cooler Master GM34-CWQ ARGB comes with a "DisplayHDR 400 compatible" badge, so it can achieve a peak luminance of 400 cd/m². This isn't a mere blanket statement; the monitor is capable of reaching a full-screen brightness of around 525 cd/m² in HDR mode. While such above-average brightness and the quantum dot technology do improve the HDR experience to a certain extent, the GM34-CWQ ARGB is still missing a backlight local dimming technology, which is essential for a "true" HDR experience.

Picture Quality After Calibration

I calibrated the display by using the X-Rite i1Display Pro colorimeter and DisplayCAL software solution. Initial profiling and calibration were done with the luminance target set to 250 cd/m², which presents a happy medium for a comfortable combined daytime and nighttime usage. The calibration was conducted with the adjusted settings listed above.

Here's what we get after calibrating the monitor.



A proper hardware calibration results in excellent color accuracy, almost perfect gamma tracking, and even better color temperature. The average color accuracy ΔE went down to 0.42, and the maximum measured ΔE is 1.29, which is good enough even for more demanding tasks, such as photo and video editing.


Calibrating the Cooler Master GM34-CWQ ARGB also completely fixed the gamma-related issues. As you can see by examining the graph, the measured gamma response is now almost perfectly aligned with the referent curve, so actual picture brightness is completely in line with the input signal requirements.

Backlight Uniformity

To give you an idea of the backlight's uniformity, I set the brightness of the monitor to 250 cd/m² before taking a photo of the panel in a completely dark room. I did my best to find the ISO value and shutter speed combination that would capture the screen in a way that has it look as close to what my eyes were seeing in real life.



There's slight backlight bleed around the top and bottom edge of the panel, but it is completely unnoticeable when using the monitor.

Viewing Angles

The viewing angles of the VA panel built into the Cooler Master GM34-CWQ ARGB are excellent. There's no visible shift in colors when you change your sitting position. Cooler Master was smart to give the 34-inch ultrawide panel a 1500R curvature, which solves any potential vignetting issues around its edges.