Review: ASUS ROG Swift OLED PG34WCDM has a big price tag | Tweakers

This is a shortened version of a review that appeared on Tweakers.

In April 2022, Dell released the Alienware AW3423DW, the first OLEDultrawide for gaming and the first monitor with a QD OLED panel. Thanks to lightning-fast response times, infinitely high contrast and excellent viewing angles. Later that year and in 2023, various manufacturers released monitors based on the same Samsung panel, with a diagonal of 34 inches, 3440×1440 pixels and in most cases a maximum refresh rate of 175Hz.

LG, as a manufacturer of OLED screens for televisions, is now also involved in the monitor market. The company does not supply QD OLED screens, but Woled screens, just like LG’s television panels. Last year, this resulted in somewhat less bright screens than Samsung’s QD LED screens. There are several Woled screens on the program in 2024 that should be a bit better. The ASUS ROG Swift OLED PG34WCDM was the first to reach the Tweakers’ test lab.

The ASUS ROG Swift OLED PG34WCDM has the same ‘gamey’ design as the ROG Swift OLED PG27AQDM that we reviewed last year. The panel is slightly less thin at the ends than that of some other OLED monitors, such as the Samsung Odyssey OLED G8 (34BG850), but you can hardly call this ASUS monitor thick. We find the ROG logo and RGB lighting all over the monitor’s housing. This gives the whole thing a somewhat aggressive look.

The base of the PG34WCDM feels sturdy, just like the rest of the housing. It has a metal inside, but on the outside you mainly feel plastic. The design is striking, with pointed legs that all point outwards at a different angle. At the bottom of the vertical part of the base is a red spotlight that shines through a removable plexiglass window onto your desk. It comes standard with a glass that projects the ROG logo, but ASUS also supplies extra blank glasses on which you can draw or engrave your own logo. Fortunately, for those who are not fans of all this kind of play, the logo projector can also be turned off, and this also applies to the lighting of the logo in the middle of the screen and the RGB lights on the back.

There is a spacious recess in the base for cable management. You can tilt the screen, turn it from left to right and adjust its height by 11 cm. On top of the stand, just like the PG27AQDM, there is a screw hole for camera accessories. The hole accepts standard tripod screws with 1/4-20 thread. For example, you can mount a camera as a webcam. If you prefer a different stand under the screen, ASUS includes a VESA bracket in the box.

The PG34WCDM has four video connections: two HDMI 2.1 ports, a DisplayPort 1.4 port and a USB-C port. Via USB-C, the USB hub with three ports is also active and you can connect a laptop if it has a USB-C port. The ‘Smart KVM’ function is interesting for those who want to use two PCs on the screen. ASUS also placed that function on the PG49WCDM. When you install a supplied program on both PCs, you can drag the mouse pointer between both screens, you can also copy files between the systems by dragging and have a shared clipboard available.

The PG34WCDM is not only aimed at gamers when it comes to design: the functionalities are also specifically aimed at playing games. Shooting and strategy games in particular, where a quick reaction from the player is very important for the course of the game, benefit from a screen that shows images with as little delay as possible. Fortunately, with OLED screens this is already very low, with response times of less than a millisecond.

During our tests, the PG34WCDM scored excellently, with an average response time of 0.4ms, which is lightning fast even for a gaming monitor. QD OLED screens can also do this, but they show a maximum of 175 images per second, while the PG34WCDM has a refresh rate of 240Hz. For this you need a computer with a thick video card that manages to display 240 frames per second while gaming. This is an expensive screen that needs to complete an even more expensive gaming setup.

What makes the PG34WCDM unique is that it is the only OLED monitor to date with a motion blur reduction function. This function only works at 120Hz and not if you game on a console.

We first tested the screen straight out of the box with almost no adjustments and it was noticed that the screen is not set to the best setting when it comes to color reproduction, but still performs very well. The HDR color reproduction is also good, according to our measurements. It is one of the brightest OLED screens we have tested. It is not as bright as a good LCD monitor, because OLED screens traditionally do not score very well on maximum brightness, but that is why any improvement such as we now see with the PG34WCDM is welcome.

Due to the high price compared to Samsung’s QD OLED screens that have been out for some time, the ASUS ROG Swift OLED PG34WCDM is not that interesting at the moment. That does not mean that the monitor does not have any strengths. The screen has a higher refresh rate of 240 Hz for sharper moving images, with the peak brightness being higher than most other OLED screens. ASUS has provided the monitor with an extensive feature set and excellent color adjustment for SDR and HDR content. As with other OLED screens, the response times are very fast.

At the time of writing, the PG34WCDM costs more than 600 euros more than the cheapest 34-inch QD OLED screen. For the same amount as the PG34WCDM you can buy a much larger 49-inch QD OLED monitor with a resolution of 5120×1440. Without a price reduction, the PG34WCDM is therefore not convincing compared to the existing offering. But what if the price eventually comes close to the QD OLED competition and the ASUS monitor, for example, is only 100 to 200 euros more expensive? In that case, there are certainly arguments why the PG34WCDM could be interesting.

Want to know more about the ASUS ROG Swift OLED PG34WCDM, such as specifications, user experiences and the stores with the best prices? Then view the overview in the Tweakers Pricewatch.