TECH REVIEW – The LG UltraGear 27GX790A is the kind of monitor that looks almost unreal on a spec sheet: QHD resolution, an OLED panel with punchy contrast, and an outrageous 480Hz refresh rate. The real question is how that translates into daily use, not how good it looks in a product listing. I focused on the practical stuff that makes or breaks a premium display: color behavior, motion clarity, ergonomics, OSD control, and the RGB system – and then the only question that matters in the end: does any of this justify the price?

Right out of the box, it feels like a premium product. The monitor is packed tightly, surrounded by thick protective foam, with the kind of shipping protection that suggests it could survive a genuinely bad day in transit. You get the full cable set you actually need: power cord and brick, USB uplink, HDMI, DisplayPort, and the usual manual. Nothing flashy, just complete and reassuring.

The stand is the first physical surprise: it is heavy, in the best possible way. With solid anti-skid pads on the base, the whole setup feels planted and resistant to accidental bumps. The hexagonal base is also a smart choice, because it does not invade half your desk the way some older LG stands did. I still prefer a monitor arm, but if I had to live with the default stand, this is the kind that would not annoy me every day.

Up front, the panel is slim with thin bezels; around back, there is a pronounced hump that houses ports and RGB lighting. That slimness makes mounting feel slightly delicate because there is not much safe grip area without risking a fingerprint on the screen. Once installed, however, the adjustment range is generous. Tilt and lowering feel firm but controlled, and raising the display is easy enough. There is also a clean cable-management slot near the bottom of the stand that stays visually hidden as long as you do not extend the stand all the way up.

OSD, RGB, and Connectivity – Functional, Familiar, and Not a Disco Ball

LG sticks to its familiar joystick-based OSD navigation, and after years of using LG monitors, that is a win. Press to select, flick to navigate – it is quick and intuitive. The initial menu gives you power off, input selection, settings, a handful of game presets (Gamer 1/2, FPS, RTS), and exit, with deeper menus offering more customization. With the OSD hidden, left/right adjusts headphone volume – there are no built-in speakers – while forward/back toggles accessibility beeps. Picture controls are all present, but the panel’s baseline behavior matters more than endless sliders.

The rear RGB lighting runs along multiple edges of the hexagonal rear section, casting a glow behind the monitor. You do not get a precise color picker with granular RGB values, but there is plenty of choice through preset static colors or cycling modes. It is mood lighting, not a full-on modder toolkit, and it behaves accordingly.

Ports include power input, two HDMI ports, DisplayPort, two USB inputs for peripherals, and a USB output that works as a hub. There is also a 3.5mm jack tucked toward the bottom-left area; when plugged in, it creates a bit of a “tail” that slightly changes the profile. It is not ideal long-term, but the behavior is smart: plugging in headphones triggers a clear message explaining that microphone use requires connecting the monitor to the PC via USB, acknowledging and enabling mic passthrough.

OLED Blacks and 480Hz Motion – The Part Where You Immediately Get It

The first power-on makes OLED’s advantage obvious. Black levels are genuinely black: during boot, most of the screen is a pure void with the bright LG logo sitting in the middle. Placed next to another display that is powered off but reflecting ambient RGB light, the OLED blacks can look darker than a completely inactive panel. That contrast foundation is what everything else builds on.

At 27 inches, QHD looks sharp and comfortable, and at 480Hz it is a genuinely sensible balance. A 4K panel would be more detailed, but pushing 4K anywhere near that refresh rate would demand a wildly powerful PC, so QHD at 480Hz lands in a practical sweet spot. On paper, the panel supports a wide color gamut (98.5% DCI-P3) and an extremely low 0.03ms gray-to-gray response figure, which is exactly what you want for motion clarity.

HDR can feel underwhelming at first – and that often comes down to how Windows handles HDR rather than the monitor itself. Once you feed it real HDR content in supported games or use it with devices that handle HDR well, the experience shifts: colors become bright and vivid without looking artificially oversaturated, especially against those deep OLED blacks. One of the most reassuring checks is uniformity, and here the panel shows none of the classic LCD headaches like backlight bleed, edge hotspots, or uneven brightness.

In actual gaming, the display stays responsive, with no obvious input lag or blur even as refresh rates fluctuate. A standard UFO motion test makes the 480Hz advantage instantly visible: compared to a more typical 240Hz panel, motion looks noticeably cleaner and sharper, especially if you are sensitive to motion artifacts.

Adaptive Sync – The Feature That Turns Into a Problem

The major drawback is Adaptive Sync flicker. LG even notes the possibility in the on-screen menu with a warning that screen flickering may occur intermittently in specific gaming environments, but it does not offer meaningful guidance beyond that. In practice, enabling any Adaptive Sync mode resulted in distracting flicker regardless of the game or settings. The outcome is blunt: to get a stable image, Adaptive Sync had to be disabled, which is frustrating because VRR is supposed to be a core quality-of-life feature at this tier.

On top of that, there was one alarming incident where the screen became completely scrambled and unresponsive, and the only fix was a full power cycle. Unplugging and replugging the display cable did nothing. It happened once during the test period, but on a premium monitor, even a single stability scare is worth mentioning.

Zooming out, the LG UltraGear 27GX790A absolutely delivers on the headline experience: stunning OLED contrast, rich color, and an absurdly fast 480Hz refresh rate that makes motion clarity feel next-level. Build quality is strong, ergonomics are generous, and small touches like the cable-management channel show real attention to detail. The problem is that persistent VRR flicker can push some users into disabling Adaptive Sync entirely, which is not a small compromise at this price point.

-Gergely Herpai “BadSector”-