34-Inch Ultrawide Round-Up: Five 3440×1440 Gaming Monitors Lab-Tested

A 34-inch, 3440×1440 curved VA ultrawide costs anywhere from R4,399 to R8,999 in our range, and a specifications table does not tell you what the extra money buys. We put five of them through the same motion, colour, brightness and uniformity tests to see what each one actually does, and which overdrive setting to use on it.

This round-up covers the WootVision Pro 34QC M240, Alienware AW3425DWM, Gigabyte G34WQC2, WootVision 34UW V180 and WootVision 34QC V180. Three of them, the Pro 34QC M240, the Gigabyte and a current-stock Alienware, went through our lab in October and November 2026. The two WootVision V180 models were tested in August 2026 using the same methods.

Price and specification snapshot

Prices include VAT, reflect the discounted EFT price shown on each product page, and were checked on 13 November 2026.

How we tested

For motion, every monitor ran at its native 3440×1440 resolution and its maximum refresh rate: 180Hz for the Alienware and both V180 models, 200Hz for the Gigabyte and 240Hz for the Pro 34QC M240. We applied the same sequence of grey-to-grey transitions and the same response threshold to every display, and we tested every overdrive setting on each monitor to find the one that looks best in practice. For each run we recorded initial and perceived response time, overshoot, how many transitions met that threshold inside one refresh window, and an overall visual-response rating out of 100.

For colour, each monitor was calibrated and then verified against the same colour-patch sequence. The accuracy figures in this article are post-calibration results, so they show what each panel can achieve rather than how it looks out of the box. We also measured brightness at the centre of the screen at the minimum and maximum brightness settings and, on four of the five monitors, backlight uniformity across 25 zones.

Pixel response: the best overdrive setting for each monitor

Overdrive pushes pixels harder so they change faster. Push too hard and they overshoot the target shade, which shows up as bright or dark trails behind moving objects. On all five monitors the best setting was one that balances speed against overshoot, and on three of them the most aggressive setting was clearly worse than the one below it.

Gigabyte G34WQC2: use Balance

At Balance the Gigabyte recorded the fastest result in this group: 3.75ms average perceived response, 3.20ms initial response and a 90.88/100 visual-response rating, with 73.33% of transitions inside its 5.00ms refresh window. Transitions out of black, usually the weak spot of a VA panel, all measured between 3.5ms and 5.8ms. Overshoot averaged 3.07 RGB steps; a tenth of the transitions overshot by more than 10 steps, the worst by 30 on a white-to-mid-grey change.

If you are sensitive to overshoot, Picture Quality is the cleaner alternative at 4.69ms with average overshoot of just 0.23. We do not recommend Speed: initial response drops to 2.41ms, but average overshoot jumps to 11.83, more than a third of transitions overshoot heavily, and perceived response is slower than Balance at 4.97ms.

WootVision Pro 34QC M240: use Level 3

The Pro 34QC M240 has four overdrive steps. Level 3 gave the best overall result: 4.66ms perceived, 4.38ms initial and an 89.77 visual rating, with average overshoot of 3.33 RGB steps. Level 2 trades a little speed (5.10ms) for about half the overshoot (1.60). Avoid TopSpeed: its 2.23ms initial response comes with average overshoot of 25.13 RGB steps, more than half of all transitions overshoot heavily, and both perceived response (5.36ms) and the visual rating (84.89) are worse than at Level 3.

At Level 3, 56.67% of transitions met the 4.17ms window that 240Hz demands. In milliseconds its pixels are about as quick as the Alienware’s and the 34UW’s, but the target at 240Hz is a quarter tighter than at 180Hz. The slowest transitions were from black into dark grey and from white down to dark grey, at 10.2ms to 12.4ms.

Alienware AW3425DWM: use Super Fast

On the unit we tested in November 2026, Super Fast delivered 4.56ms perceived response, 4.54ms initial response and an 89.17 visual rating, with 73.33% of transitions inside the 5.56ms window. Its overshoot was the lowest of any recommended setting here, averaging 0.83 RGB steps with a worst case of 5. Extreme brought no real gain (4.52ms perceived) while nearly tripling average overshoot to 2.37, and Fast was slightly slower at 4.94ms with almost no overshoot. The slowest transition, black to dark grey, took 12.3ms.

WootVision 34UW V180: use Medium

The 34UW V180 was at its best in Medium overdrive: 4.88ms perceived response, 4.49ms initial, 3.23 RGB average overshoot and an 88.14 visual rating, with two-thirds of transitions inside the 5.56ms window. Low is the alternative for overshoot-sensitive users, cutting average overshoot to 0.63 at 6.07ms. High is not recommended: initial response falls to 2.52ms, but average overshoot rises to 23.7 RGB steps and perceived response worsens to 6.97ms.

WootVision 34QC V180: use Fastest

The 34QC V180 is tuned conservatively, so its top setting is the right one. Fastest recorded 6.20ms for both initial and perceived response, an 86.07 visual rating and 56.67% of transitions inside the 5.56ms window. Overshoot stayed low at 1.17 RGB steps on average with a worst case of 8. It is the slowest monitor in this group, and transitions into dark grey are where it shows: the slowest took 17.4ms, against 0.8ms for the fastest. That can show up as dark smearing in shadow-heavy games.

Colour reproduction and calibration

All five tested units reached an average colour error below ΔE00 1.0 after calibration, which is excellent. Individual colour patches measured higher, as the maximum figures show. The Pro 34QC M240 had the lowest average at 0.17 (maximum 0.73), followed by the Alienware at 0.19 (0.65), the Gigabyte at 0.21 (0.56), the 34QC V180 at 0.22 (1.30) and the 34UW V180 at 0.26 (0.92).

Four of the five passed both our nominal and our stricter recommended acceptance thresholds. The Gigabyte passed the nominal threshold and missed the recommended one on its white point alone; its average and maximum colour errors were among the lowest here.

Gamut is where the monitors separate. Calculated from each unit’s measured primaries, the Alienware, Gigabyte and Pro 34QC M240 cover roughly 90% to 94% of DCI-P3, while the two V180 models are close to standard sRGB panels at 79% to 83%. A wider gamut can show more saturated colours in games and video, and gives colour-managed photo or video work more of the DCI-P3 space to use; how it looks also depends on colour management.

Coverage figures are calculated from the measured red, green and blue primaries of each unit’s colour profile on the CIE 1931 chromaticity diagram. Treat them as indicative; manufacturers may quote coverage using a different method.

Brightness, contrast and HDR

Three of the five are properly bright in SDR. At the 100% brightness setting the Alienware reached 446.51cd/m², the Pro 34QC M240 443cd/m² and the Gigabyte 432.95cd/m². The 34QC V180 reached 327cd/m² and the 34UW V180 246.31cd/m², which is enough for a normally lit room but leaves less headroom next to a bright window.

At the other end, the two V180 models and the Pro 34QC M240 dim to between 13 and 23cd/m² for dark-room use. The Gigabyte’s minimum of 53cd/m² is the highest floor here.

On native contrast, measured with local dimming off, the Gigabyte stands apart. It measured 4,071:1 at its calibrated setting, in line with its published 4,000:1, with the deepest black level in the group. The Alienware (2,665:1) and 34QC V180 (2,599:1) were close to each other, followed by the Pro 34QC M240 (2,309:1) and the 34UW V180 (2,108:1). All five are well above what a typical IPS monitor manages.

The Pro 34QC M240’s 2,309:1 is also its native contrast: local dimming was off for its calibration runs. With dimming off, its panel measured below its published 3,500:1. It is, however, the one monitor here with a Mini-LED backlight, split into 1,344 zones that can dim independently, so we measured it again with local dimming on.

Local dimming on the Pro 34QC M240

We set the brightness so that a full white screen measured about 120cd/m² with local dimming off, left it there, and then measured a full white screen and a full black screen at each local dimming level. These readings were taken in SDR, in the monitor’s default Standard picture preset.

The Off reading (2,589:1) is higher than the 2,309:1 in the colour table because it was taken at the monitor’s default, warmer white point. Calibrating to the 6,500K standard costs some peak white, and with it some contrast.

Treat these as best-case figures. On a full black screen the monitor can dim every zone at once, which real games and films rarely allow; in scenes that mix bright and dark areas, the zones behind bright objects stay lit, so contrast close to them is lower. The black level itself is still the headline: on High it fell to less than a fifth of its local-dimming-off value, from 0.046 to 0.008cd/m², far below any other monitor in this round-up.

In our hands-on testing, High with Halo Control at maximum gave the deepest blacks while keeping haloes around bright objects well controlled, and it is the setting we recommend for games and films. Strong-Smooth measured almost identically and looked the same in real content.

We have not measured HDR performance on any of these monitors, so we are not ranking HDR in this article. The Pro 34QC M240 supports HDR1000. The Gigabyte and Alienware carry VESA DisplayHDR 400 certification and the two V180 models accept an HDR signal; on those four, treat HDR as a useful extra rather than a reason to buy.

Backlight uniformity

We measured a full white screen in 25 zones on four of the monitors and compared each zone with the centre. The Pro 34QC M240 was the most even by a wide margin: every zone was within about 4% of the centre. On the other three, the dimmest zone was 15% below the centre on the Alienware (along the right edge), 17% on the 34QC V180 (top centre) and 18% on the Gigabyte (along the left edge).

Fall-off of that size tends to be easiest to see on large areas of flat colour, such as a white document stretched across the whole panel. Uniformity can also vary from one unit to the next, so read these as results for the units we tested.

Connectivity and day-to-day usability

WootVision Pro 34QC M240

• USB-C with DisplayPort Alt Mode and 90W power delivery, so one cable can drive the screen and charge a laptop.
• Built-in KVM switch, picture-in-picture and picture-by-picture for two-computer desks.
• Two HDMI 2.1 inputs and DisplayPort 1.4, with adaptive sync from 48Hz to 240Hz.
• 120mm of height adjustment, swivel and tilt, and a three-year warranty.

Alienware AW3425DWM

• Two HDMI 2.1 ports that carry 3440×1440 at 180Hz, 10-bit, with VRR; DisplayPort 1.4 does the same through DSC.
• A two-port USB-A hub, including one charging port, with USB-B upstream.
• Picture-in-picture and picture-by-picture.
• Three-year warranty.

Gigabyte G34WQC2

• Two DisplayPort 1.4 and two HDMI 2.0 inputs. Use DisplayPort for the full 200Hz at native resolution; the HDMI 2.0 inputs are limited to lower refresh rates.
• Built-in 2W stereo speakers and a headphone output, but no USB hub.
• 130mm of height adjustment, swivel and tilt, and a three-year warranty.

WootVision 34UW V180 and 34QC V180

• The 34UW V180 has two DisplayPort inputs and the most adjustable stand here: 130mm height, swivel, tilt and a full 90° pivot.
• The 34QC V180 adds picture-in-picture and picture-by-picture, a USB-A port and 1440p at 120Hz for consoles. Its HDMI inputs top out at 100Hz at native resolution, so use DisplayPort for 180Hz.
• Both carry a two-year warranty.

Which one should you buy?

If fast shooters and racing games are the priority, the Gigabyte gives you the best measured motion for the money, and the Alienware is the alternative if you want HDMI 2.1 or a USB hub. If the screen is also your work display, the Pro 34QC M240’s USB-C, KVM and even backlight justify its price, and its local dimming makes it the pick here for dark films and games. And if you mainly want the immersion of a 34-inch ultrawide for RPGs, strategy games, work and video, the 34QC V180 does that for R2,100 less than the Gigabyte.

Testing limitations

• Results describe the units and firmware we tested. Performance varies between units, as our two Alienware samples show.
• Each monitor was tested at its own maximum refresh rate, so the share of transitions inside one refresh window is measured against a different target at 180Hz, 200Hz and 240Hz.
• Colour accuracy figures are post-calibration results.
• The contrast figures in the colour table are native contrast, with local dimming off. The Pro 34QC M240’s local dimming was measured separately, in SDR, using full white and full black screens. We did not measure HDR performance, input latency or VRR flicker on any monitor for this article.
• The WootVision 34UW V180 was not put through the uniformity test.
• The three newer units were tested in October and November 2026 and the two V180 models in August 2026, using the same methods.
• Stock and pricing can change after publication.

Sources

• Wootware in-house motion, colour, luminance, contrast and uniformity reports for the tested units.
• Dell official AW3425DWM specifications.
• Gigabyte official G34WQC2 specifications.
• WootVision Pro 34QC M240 at Wootware.
• Alienware AW3425DWM at Wootware.
• Gigabyte G34WQC2 at Wootware.
• WootVision 34UW V180 at Wootware.
• WootVision 34QC V180 at Wootware.

Test values were transcribed from the original Wootware laboratory reports. Product specifications, prices and stock status were checked against the live product pages on 13 November 2026.