MSI Creator PS321QR review: a 32-inch Quad HD 165 Hz monitor for creative people who play games

The design of the MSI Creator PS321QR monitor is versatile, with a sober edge-to-edge screen and good-quality gray plastic.

The stand allows the monitor to be rotated ± 30 ° to the left or to the right; useful for more easily showing a project to someone who is not in front of the screen.

This MSI monitor has a height adjustment of 10 cm and the tilt between -5 ° and + 20 °. On the other hand, the foot does not allow the passage in portrait mode.

The central foot is relatively imposing, since it measures 30 cm wide and 23.5 cm deep.

The back of the monitor is gray plastic. The connection is oriented downwards. The screen is also compatible with VESA 100 x 100 mm mounts once the stand has been removed.

MSI does not forget the players by installing a halo of RGB leds on the back, which has an effect at night.

The base of the stand has a removable plastic clip which groups all the cables together, but which does not completely hide them.

The connection consists of two HDMI 1.4 inputs, a DisplayPort input, a USB-C port (not compatible with Power Delivery), a USB 3.0 port and an audio input. On the edge, there is also an SD card reader, two USB 3.0 ports, an audio input and a headphone output. This model does not ship speakers. We simply regret the lack of power from the USB-C port which does not allow charging a laptop when it is connected to the monitor.

The clickable joystick is still the most pleasant and efficient way to navigate the settings. Pressing the button displays the menu. Then, you have to move the cursor to the right to validate the choices and to the left to go back. It is possible to change the source, mode (presets) and access the settings (brightness, contrast, sharpness, overdrive, temperature, etc.). The menus are readable and navigation is quick. Pressing one of the sides gives quick access to the choice of source, display mode, timer and template.

On our 140 x 60 cm desk, the MSI CReator PS321QR is just right at home. The depth of the foot (23.5 cm) remains fairly contained for a 32-inch monitor, but the latter overflows quite a bit on the front. Note that with a 32-inch panel and a Quad HD definition, the resolution of only 92 pixels per inch still requires a certain distance in office automation (at least 1 meter). For games, this is not a problem since the eye is less sensitive to a lower definition when looking at moving images. On a 32-inch panel, we now prefer an Ultra HD definition, perfectly managed by modern operating systems and allowing to enlarge the workspace. The MSI monitor comes with a headset to hide much of the stray light, a fairly common accessory among graphic designers and photographers.

Monitor image quality is not optimal out of the box. If the temperature and gamma curves are good and stable (respectively 7120 K and 2.2, for reference values ​​at 6500 K and 2.2), the colorimetry suffers from a too high average delta E (4.7 ) to be considered faithful. It is necessary to switch to sRGB mode to find colors perfectly faithful to the source (average delta E of only 1.7; much lower than the value of 3, below which the human eye no longer perceives the drifts). After calibration with the probe, the gamma curve remains perfect, the color temperature (6750 K) is even closer to the reference value, and the colors are even a little more precise (delta E at 1.2). You can download the color profile by following this link.

The native contrast of 1060: 1 is a little behind those measured on theAsus TUF Gaming VG27AQ and theAOC 27G2U, in both cases greater than 1200: 1. This contrast is average for an IPS panel, without being bad. In any case, this device remains far from the contrast observed on the best VA monitors on the market, such as the Philips Momentum 436M6 where the MSI Optix MAG271CR which benefit from a rate greater than 4000: 1. Darker scenes and solid blacks appear grayish, especially in a dark room, but that’s okay during the day.

The average white homogeneity deviation is 15% on this 32-inch panel. There is relatively little variation in brightness perceptible to the eye, but the difference in homogeneity is one of the highest recorded in the laboratory and is a bit blotchy on a monitor dedicated in part to professionals. We did not find any light leaks in the corners or any clouding (cloud effect) on our test model. IPS technology also offers very good viewing angles with very little variation when moving away from the viewing axis.

The MSI PS321QR does not use Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) to adjust brightness; it is therefore devoid of flickering and does not cause headaches to those who are sensitive to this phenomenon.

This monitor manages the FreeSync between 48 and 165 Hz and therefore works best when the graphics card sends between 48 and 165 fps. The supported range is therefore very wide and covers all uses. We still recommend a high performance graphics card, such as theAMD Radeon RX 6800 XT or the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080, in order to take advantage of the native Quad HD definition and a high number of images. In all cases, the fluidity is there and the image does not suffer from tearing problems (tearing) or jerks (micro-stuttering).

We measured the afterglow time at 5.5 & ms with the overdrive set to “fastest”. This value is used to limit the ghosting (ghosting effect). This is an excellent afterglow time, especially for a Quad HD IPS panel. This monitor does better than the Asus TUF VG27AQ which, with its 8 ms, was long considered the most responsive IPS Quad HD monitor on the market. However, we find more responsive, like the VA models Samsung Odyssey G7 27 and 49G9, with an afterglow time of only 4.5 ms. Finally, we measured the display delay (input lag) at just 8.9 ms (at 60 Hz). There is therefore no lag between the mouse action and its repercussion on the screen.