Dell burst onto the gaming monitor scene earlier this year with the Alienware AW3423DW, a 34-inch ultrawide that was pricey, but still the best deal around when it comes to that sweet ultra-vibrant quantum dot OLED panel. (Oh, and a PCWorld Editor’s Choice!) The company is bringing it back again for a nearly-identical model, the AW3423DWF, which swaps Nvidia’s G-Sync for the more general AMD FreeSync Premium Pro system. It’s launching later this year for a slightly more affordable $1099.99, $200 off the price of the original design.
A thousand bucks and change is still a lot of money for any monitor, but this model makes a compelling argument that it still counts as a value. It’s the cheapest QD-OLED screen you can get designed for PC gaming (unless you find a deal on a smaller OLED TV), and with 165Hz of refresh rate, a claimed 0.1ms gray-to-gray refresh rate, and the usual 3440×1440 ultrawide resolution, it’s packing the specs that a lot of gamers crave. Yes, it’s nearly identical to the previous model, but this one comes clad in black plastic all over instead of the panda-ish look, with a somewhat gaudy “34” LED lighting up the rear.
Dell
The shift from Nvidia to AMD branding for the refresh system probably won’t matter too much — anyone planning to drop this much cash on a monitor can put out frames fast enough, and FreeSync works with Radeon and GeForce GPUs alike (unlike the Nvidia-only G-Sync). BConnections include two DisplayPort 1.4 ports, one HDMI 2.0 port, four USB 3.2 gen1 ports (two on the bottom bezel for easy access), and headphone jacks on the bottom and rear. It’s a shame that there’s still no USB-C option on a screen this expensive, though.
Gamers can go with the elaborate built-in stand or the usual 100x100mm VESA mount, but get one that’s sturdy if you replace it — this thing is nearly 14 pounds for the screen alone. Along with refreshed Aurora desktops packing the latest Nvidia RTX 4090 cards and a new tenkeyless mechanical keyboard, the AW3423DWF will launch “later this fall.”
Author: Michael Crider, Staff Writer
Michael is a former graphic designer who's been building and tweaking desktop computers for longer than he cares to admit. His interests include folk music, football, science fiction, and salsa verde, in no particular order.