With Cooler Master, we have another player in the monitor market. And with the GP27U, Cooler Master is damn serious and goes “all in”. The UHD panel with 3840 x 2160p resolution comes with a refresh rate of 160 Hz. The panel itself comes from AU-Optronics – Fast IPS and Quantum Dot enhanced with 576 dimming zones and a mini-LED full array backlight awaits us. The monitor is manufactured by KTC in China. We already had a look at a KTC with LG OLED last year. Is that good or rather bad?
I’ll put it this way, KTC offers the “same” monitor as the M27P20P and it can’t even begin to keep up with the GP27U. Thus, I can give the all-clear in advance. Cooler Master stands behind its products and pays attention to quality. Before I go into details, I would like to say a few words about the GP27U and the GP27Q. I have had both monitors in my home since October 2022 and have experienced a few things with both monitors.
Maybe some of you have noticed that the GP27U/GP27Q had some initial problems. For example, HDR did not work in conjunction with Adaptive Sync. The 160 Hz also did not work with VRR, which only worked with 144 Hz. The other things – like color accuracy and color space coverage – really convinced me. Delta E less than 2 was not a marketing joke. Interestingly, the first firmware updates came in November and the “madness” took its course.
(Source: Cooler Master)
HDR with Adaptive Sync suddenly worked, but all color spaces (P3, sRGB, Adobe) were suddenly gone. Color accuracy gone! Then came the next update and then the color spaces were fixed correctly again. But then the gamma tracking and the white point didn’t fit anymore. Long story short. Cooler Master probably wanted to take advantage of the 2022 Christmas business and launched the GP27U and GP27Q monitors too early.
From my point of view – the firmware updates were thrown onto the market untested. Which only made the problems worse. I didn’t publish all this, because I’m not the type who wants to tear down an actually very good product, just to swim along on the wave of clickbait. I am so fair and let the manufacturer the possibility of rectification. Besides, the monitor was basically in very limited supply at the time.
(Source: Cooler Master)
A purchase warning or negative press about an actually very cool product – is hard to get out of the heads again. See the topic of G-Sync causing latency. That still lingers in people’s minds today, even though it’s the biggest nonsense. We humans can do 100 things well and no one cares, but we do one thing badly and people will still be talking about it in a hundred years. That’s how it is – unfortunately! I can keep my mouth shut even without an NDA.
What I really have to praise Cooler Master for is that they took my feedback on the GP27U and GP27Q very seriously. Unfortunately, there was no direct communication initially, which led to more firmware updates being released untested. Contrary to my warning and the offer on my part to send such updates first to me and if necessary to other testers (like Tim from HW UB). In the meantime, there is a direct line to Cooler Master and they have also carried my suggestion of pre-testing to the decision-making levels. I am curious.
Cooler Master sent me a second monitor for today’s test. My first sample is meanwhile covered by firmware updates and own test settings. Thus, the first monitor no longer allows any conclusion about the product a customer buys from the retailer. My second sample is new, but was also flashed to the new firmware afterwards. So here we go with the usual…
Technical Data
As always, here is a PDF and the link to Cooler Master’s homepage: click here!
Product Sheet - Tempest GP27U
Will Cooler Master be able to keep all this in the end? You know the prequel a little bit now. I am curious to see what the second GP27U monitor in my test – with the current firmware – can do now.
- 1 - Introduction, Features and Specs
- 2 - Workmanship and Details
- 3 - How we measure: Equipment and Methods
- 4 - Pixel Response Times
- 5 - Variable Overdrive?
- 6 - Display Latencies
- 7 - Color-Performance @ Default Settings
- 8 - Direct Comparison
- 9 - Color-Performance calibrated
- 10 - HDR-Performance
- 11 - Summary and Conclusion
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