ASUS ROG OLED 34” Ultrawide 240 Hz Gaming Monitor is EPIC
It’s about time I upgrade my desk with a new ultrawide monitor, so ASUS sent out their new ROG Swift OLED PG34WCDM display - yeah, that’s a fun model number to say. I’ma just refer to it as their new Ultrawide 34 inch gaming display for 2024.
This display costs $1299 retail, includes a 2 year warranty, and it has a ton of features packed in, including a few surprises that very few monitors have. At first glance, it looks like many 34 inch ultrawide displays, but some of the little perks give it an advantage.
For example, this thing can hit 240 hz refresh rates. It’s got a universal thread mount for things like a webcam, camera or a microphone at the top of the base stand. It’s also got KVM built in so you can connect two computers to it (and yes, I tested this), and there’s USB C 90W power delivery.
Starting with the setup, it’s very easy to assemble from the box, and it includes all the accessories you’d expect, plus a nice reusable bag for additional cables. The box has a perforated section that you can pop out to easily slide the stand into place via a 2 pin connector which snaps right into place. That means you won’t have to move the monitor from it’s safe space to get it set up. You’ll notice this back mount is also VESA mount compatible. The 800R curvature means the curve will be a little stronger than higher numbers (like my older monitors are 1800R), so I’ll get more immersion and less distortion at the edges.
I did wanna delve into the display tech a bit to explain the upgrades with OLED technology, since LED displays traditionally had higher refresh rates, though this one hits at 0.03ms. The ROG Swift OLED features third-generation OLED technology, and that’ll give you great contrast and color accuracy. It’s also got 100% DCI-P3 color gamut coverage, that’s great for my photography editing. And ASUS has this thing called Clear Pixel Edge Algorithm. That means images are sharper and more defined, especially around the edges. So colors are so vivid and lifelike, in my experience gaming was really beautiful and editing videos was excellent on this immersive display. Plus, it’s a matte screen so it minimizes glare, which I found to be very useful since I have a ton of lights in this studio.
This screen matches my older monitors at 3440x1440, a resolution my current setup can easily manage. The refresh rate is impressive and makes me want to build a new PC because my current one is from late 2019 - I’m overdue for a new build, I know. 240Hz refresh rates, though my current PC and laptop can hit about 120, I’m definitely not pushing this monitor with my current tech. But that refresh rate will be excellent for newer gen games. In my case, I had to go into the settings and change my rig to 120 from the default settings. On top of that, the response time of 0.03ms is great. It was plenty responsive for my Horizon Zero Dawn gameplay, and it looked excellent at this widescreen resolution.
In terms of connectivity, it does offer plenty of upgraded ports. That includes 1x DisplayPort 1.4, 2x HDMI 2.1, and USB-C with 90W power delivery, plus, the inclusion of multiple USB ports gives you plenty of convenient access to your accessories, whether it's a keyboard, mouse, or external storage drive, whatever ya gotta connect. That includes 2 3.2 gen USB ports and 1 USB 2.0 port up top. There’s also a headphone jack and a digital optical cable port for your speaker hardware.
This monitor comes equipped with VESA Adaptive Sync technology, for syncing between the monitor and compatible graphics cards. I’m an Nvidia girly, but this’ll work with either NVIDIA G-Sync or AMD FreeSync. I had no issues with tearing or stuttering. The beauty of this game continues to bring me so much joy. ASUS also has this proprietary GameFast Input technology which gives you responsive controls with minimal input lag.
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While this display does not pivot, it can be adjusted for height, tilt, and swivel. The universal thread mount is located on the stand, not the display, so when you raise your monitor, make sure you aren’t going to hit the bottom of whatever you choose to mount there. Or another suggestion - grab a thread mount adapter with a cold shoe mount so you can add a little bit more height or adjustment to this thread. Like I could use my Ulanzi adapter, add a compatible screw, and mount it on top of that thread mount and that acts like an additional 2 to 3 inches of space for my camera. The lens will still pop out so I’d have to be careful not to hit it with the monitor if I raise the display.
I mentioned it has some other cool features, not just for gaming. There is the ASUS Display Center for custom display settings and preferences. The main menu of controls is located at the bottom center. The menu navigation has plenty of customizations and gaming capabilities. You can enable an FPS counter, a crosshair, change the image as well as the color. The input select is below those, as well as a picture in picture mode, continuing down to your lighting effects, and shortcut menu for your favorite settings, and system settings. ASUS made this thing very colorful, with tons of RBG lighting that can be customized. And the logo image that reflects onto your surface can be switched out using these little discs that come in the box.
The ROG Smart KVM function is so cool, especially since I do often switch between my laptop and desktop. The setup was kind of a lot but once it’s ready to go, it wasn’t 100% seamless for my use case, but it came close. You’ll need to connect your laptop via the USB C port, and your main PC via the USB A- USB B, as well as via HDMI or display port. So you have two cables going to the main PC and one to your laptop. I have my keyboard and mouse powered by my main PC. Then in the monitor’s menu you have to disable variable refresh rate. Also in this menu, you need to go to the PIP / PBP setup and turn on PIP / PBP Mode. This is also where you can choose the ratio of display that will be delegated to each machine. ASUS does note some features won’t work when you turn on this mode - VRR and ELMB Sync just to name a couple.
This PIP PBP Source menu is where you’ll define which input is your laptop and desktop. And then you go to system setup, USB Setup, then turn on Smart KVM. The Smart KVM app didn’t auto install on my PC, so I just manually installed it. It does take a while to install. Once it’s installed, you can tell Smart KVM where your laptop is - on the right or the left. Then you should be able to switch between your two machines.
This is why I don’t say it’s 100% seamless. In my case, there’s this red X on the kvm icon but it doesn’t tell me why, and I have to use a hotkey to switch between my two machines from one mouse and keyboard. So I hit alt-s and my mouse and keyboard switch to the other computer. I also wanted to mention that drag and drop doesn’t work on my setup, neither does copying and pasting a file from one computer to the other. This is fine, because I run all my data through a NAS, so I already have access to all my files on both machines, but if you store data locally on a machine, this is a complication I ran into. Hopefully that’s an easy fix but honestly I don’t have time to do tech support on products right now and it does what I need it to do, so I’m happy.
This display is quite the powerhouse. You get stunning visuals, exceptional performance, and innovative features in one shiny pretty new display. Obviously the price is steep, and KVM didn’t work perfectly for me, but if you’re looking for something high end, with tons of features, as an upgrade that hopefully you’ll keep around for many years, this is a great choice. Since I’m both a content creator and a gamer, I’ve found excellent use cases for this display and can take advantage of all of it’s features in one way or another.
