Has LG just built the ultimate gaming monitor?

The best gaming monitors and best curved gaming monitors have a new boss to beat. LG's new UltraGear 49GR85DC-B is an extremely large, extremely wide, extremely fast display that appears to tick all the right buttons – provided you can stretch to its $1,299 price tag. 

The new LG has just launched in the US, and while a UK launch is likely we don't have a date or a price just yet. But when it does make it over here it looks extremely tempting. This is a big display with an equally big specification.

The headline features here are the 49-inch panel with 1,000R curvature and a very wide 32:9 aspect ratio. The resolution is Dual QHD (5,120 x 1,440) and there's a 1ms response rate.

Does LG's new ultrawide gaming monitor have specs appeal?

According to LG, the 49GR85DC-B supports VESA DisplayHDR™ 1000 and AMD FreeSync Premium Pro, with gaming-specific features including Dynamic Action Sync, Black Stabilizer, FPS Counter, and Crosshair. There's also a DTS Headphone:X jack for 3D audio in compatible headphones. 

The monitor's own software is OnScreen Control3, which offers both Picture in Picture and Picture by Picture as well as a selection of different GUIs such as FPS and RPS.

It's impressive stuff, but one acronym that's conspicuous by its absence from the spec sheet is this one: LCD. This is an LCD VA panel, which is a display tech you'll often find in much more budget offerings. If you're hankering for an OLED gaming monitor and you want an LG, you'll have to step down a size and look at gaming monitors with display sizes in the high thirties rather than, as her, the high forties.

US buyers can pre-order starting today at LG.com, and if you order before April 2 LG will throw in its $199 UltraGear gaming pad, an RGB-illuminated mouse pad, for free.