Gigabyte GS27F2 Review UK (2026) - 240Hz Budget Gaming Monitor Verdict

Budget 240Hz monitors are a bit of a minefield, honestly. You'll find panels with backlight bleed in the corners, pixel response that looks nothing like the "1ms" sticker on the box, and HDR badges that are basically decorative. So when a monitor like the Gigabyte GS27F2 lands in the budget bracket at under £150, the question isn't "is it perfect?" It's "is it good enough for what it actually needs to do?" And for a competitive gaming monitor aimed at 1080p players who want a smooth, fast experience without remortgaging, that's a fair question worth answering properly.

The short answer is: yes, mostly. The GS27F2 is a solid pick for anyone upgrading from a 60Hz or 144Hz panel who plays fast-paced games, wants 240Hz on a tight budget, and isn't going to lose sleep over the HDR badge being more aspirational than functional. It's not without compromises, and we'll get into those. But the core proposition, a 240Hz IPS panel with FreeSync and DisplayPort 1.4 for under £150, is genuinely hard to argue with at this price point. Sixty owners have rated it ★★★★☆ (4.4), which for a budget monitor is a decent signal that it's not quietly terrible.

So here's the full picture, spec by spec, with a look at what real owners are saying and how it stacks up against the obvious alternatives.

The panel is IPS, which is the right call for a gaming monitor in this category. You get decent viewing angles, better colour than TN, and good enough response for fast gaming. The rated response time is 1ms, which Gigabyte lists as MPRT (Moving Picture Response Time) rather than GtG (Grey-to-Grey). We'll dig into what that actually means in the response time section, because it matters. Peak brightness is rated at 300 cd/m², which is adequate for indoor use but not a standout figure. The monitor carries an HDR Ready badge, which we'll also address honestly in its own section.

Connectivity is straightforward: one HDMI 2.0 port and one DisplayPort 1.4. HDMI 2.0 can handle 1080p at 240Hz, so console users on a PS5 or Xbox Series X are covered, though those consoles top out at 120Hz anyway. DisplayPort 1.4 is the right connector for a PC at 240Hz and gives you the headroom for proper high-refresh gaming without bandwidth bottlenecks. There's no USB hub, no USB-C, and no built-in speakers. At this price point, that's expected rather than disappointing.

IPS does have its own characteristic quirk though: IPS glow. This is the slightly milky, bright haze you see in the corners of the screen when displaying dark content in a dim room. It's a property of how IPS panels work rather than a manufacturing defect, and it's present to some degree on virtually every IPS monitor. Owner feedback on the GS27F2 is broadly positive, with most reporting the glow is manageable and not intrusive during actual gaming. A small number of owners mention some backlight bleed, which is typical panel lottery territory. Some units are better than others, and at this price point you're not getting binned panels with guaranteed uniformity.

Native contrast on IPS panels typically sits around 1000:1, and the GS27F2 is in that range. That's fine for gaming and everyday use, but it's noticeably lower than VA panels, which can hit 3000:1 or higher. If you're playing a lot of dark atmospheric games, films with lots of night scenes, or you game in a darkened room, the IPS contrast limitations will be more apparent. Blacks look dark grey rather than truly black when the panel is backlit. For competitive gaming in a normally lit room, it's a non-issue. For cinematic single-player games in the dark, it's a genuine trade-off you should know about before buying.

The anti-glare coating is a matte finish, which is the sensible choice for a gaming monitor. Glossy screens look vivid in controlled lighting but become mirrors the moment there's a window behind you. The matte coating on the GS27F2 handles ambient light well, and owners in normally lit rooms report no significant glare issues. The coating does add a very slight grain to the image, which is standard for matte IPS panels and something you stop noticing after about ten minutes.

Brightness uniformity across the panel is something the spec sheet doesn't tell you much about, and it varies between units. The 300 cd/m² peak brightness is adequate for indoor use, and in practice most owners run IPS monitors at 60 to 80 percent brightness anyway, which brings the actual operating level well below peak. At typical indoor brightness settings, the panel looks even and consistent according to owner feedback. The 300 cd/m² figure also means this isn't a monitor you'd want to use in direct sunlight or a very bright conservatory, but for a standard desk setup it's perfectly fine.

The GS27F2 supports AMD FreeSync, which is the adaptive sync technology that eliminates screen tearing by syncing the monitor's refresh rate to your GPU's output. FreeSync is free to implement (unlike Nvidia's G-Sync, which requires a hardware module), which is partly why this monitor can hit its price point. The FreeSync range on the GS27F2 covers 48Hz to 240Hz, which is a solid range. The Low Framerate Compensation (LFC) feature kicks in when your frame rate drops below the minimum sync threshold, effectively doubling or tripling the frame to maintain tear-free output. So even if your GPU dips below 48fps in a demanding scene, you shouldn't see tearing.

It's also that FreeSync monitors are often compatible with Nvidia's G-Sync Compatible mode. Nvidia certifies some FreeSync monitors officially, but even uncertified ones frequently work with VRR enabled in the Nvidia control panel. The GS27F2 isn't listed as G-Sync Compatible certified at the time of writing, but Nvidia GPU owners have reported it working with variable refresh rate enabled. Your mileage may vary, and Nvidia can't guarantee the experience, but it's worth trying if you're on a green GPU. AMD users are fully sorted with native FreeSync support.

IPS panels at this price point typically measure around 4ms to 6ms GtG in practice, which is perfectly fine for 240Hz gaming. The concern with overshoot (also called inverse ghosting or pixel overshoot) is more relevant here. Some monitors push their overdrive settings too aggressively to hit impressive-looking response numbers, and the result is bright halos or coronas trailing behind fast-moving objects. Owner feedback on the GS27F2 suggests the overdrive implementation is sensible rather than aggressive, with no significant complaints about coronas or halos in normal gaming. That's a good sign. A monitor with a measured 5ms GtG and no overshoot is more pleasant to use than one claiming 1ms with visible halos everywhere.

In practice, at 240Hz the frame interval is just 4.17ms, so the panel needs to transition reasonably quickly to avoid smearing. The IPS panel in the GS27F2 appears to handle this well based on what owners report. Fast-paced shooters feel responsive, and there's no widespread complaint about motion blur or smearing that would suggest the panel is struggling to keep up. If you want to use the MPRT mode (backlight strobing), it does reduce motion blur further, but it also reduces brightness and can introduce some flicker sensitivity issues for people prone to that. Most owners stick with the standard mode and are happy with the result.

Factory calibration on budget monitors is rarely impressive. You shouldn't expect a Delta-E below 2 out of the box (Delta-E is the measure of colour accuracy, where lower is better and below 2 is considered good for most uses). Most budget IPS monitors ship with a Delta-E somewhere between 3 and 6, which means colours are close but not precise. For gaming, this is irrelevant. For content creation where accurate colour reproduction matters, it's a limitation. Owner feedback doesn't flag any dramatic colour issues, with most describing the image as vivid and pleasing rather than clinically accurate. A few mention that the default colour temperature runs slightly warm, which is common and easily adjusted in the OSD.

The on-screen display (OSD) gives you the usual controls: brightness, contrast, colour temperature presets, and a few picture mode options including a gaming mode. There's no factory calibration report included, which again is standard at this price. If you want to get the best out of the panel, spending ten minutes in the OSD to dial in brightness and colour temperature to your preference is worthwhile. You don't need a colorimeter for that. Just set brightness to a comfortable level for your room, pick the colour temperature that looks neutral to you, and you're done. The panel will look good. It won't look like a professional reference display, but that's not what it's for.

In practice, "HDR Ready" on a monitor at this price point means it can accept an HDR signal and process the HDR metadata, but the panel doesn't have the brightness headroom or local dimming capability to actually render HDR content in a meaningful way. True HDR requires peak highlights well above 600 cd/m² and ideally some form of local dimming to control the backlight zone by zone. The GS27F2 has neither. What you get is tone-mapped HDR, where the monitor takes the HDR signal and maps it to the panel's SDR capabilities. The result often looks similar to or slightly worse than a well-calibrated SDR image.

This isn't unique to the GS27F2, and it's not really Gigabyte's fault. It's a budget monitor. Proper HDR at this screen size requires technology that costs significantly more. The honest advice is to leave HDR mode off in Windows and your games, run the monitor in SDR, and enjoy a clean, well-calibrated image. Enabling HDR in Windows on a monitor like this often makes the image look washed out rather than better. Plenty of owners have figured this out and are happy running it in SDR. The HDR badge is essentially marketing for this tier of monitor. Useful to know, not a dealbreaker.

Native contrast on IPS panels is typically around 1000:1, and the GS27F2 sits in that range. This is one of the fundamental limitations of IPS technology compared to VA. A VA panel at the same price can deliver 3000:1 or even higher native contrast, which makes blacks look genuinely dark rather than dark grey. The trade-off is that VA panels have slower pixel response times, which makes them less suitable for 240Hz competitive gaming. So for this use case, IPS is the right choice, and the contrast limitation is an acceptable trade-off. Just don't expect cinema-quality blacks.

Brightness uniformity across the panel is generally reported as good by owners, with no widespread complaints about obvious hot spots or dark patches. Some variation across the panel is normal and expected at this price point, but it doesn't appear to be a significant issue based on the feedback pattern. The matte anti-glare coating helps in real-world conditions by diffusing reflections rather than concentrating them, which makes the perceived contrast in a normally lit room feel better than the native contrast ratio might suggest on paper.

The GS27F2 does support VESA 100x100mm mounting, which means you can remove the stand and attach a third-party monitor arm. A decent monitor arm costs around £20 to £40 and gives you full height, tilt, swivel, and even pivot adjustment. If you're serious about your desk setup and ergonomics, budget for an arm alongside this monitor. The stand itself is stable enough that it won't wobble annoyingly during gaming, and the footprint is reasonable for a 27-inch display. Owners don't flag any issues with stability or wobble, which is reassuring.

The overall build quality is what you'd expect from a budget Gigabyte monitor. The bezel is slim on three sides, which looks clean and modern. The rear has a simple design without RGB lighting, which some people will appreciate and others will find boring. The OSD buttons are physical buttons on the rear of the monitor, which is less convenient than a joystick control but functional once you know where they are. Cable management is basic, with no dedicated routing channel. The monitor feels solid enough for everyday use, and owners don't report any build quality failures or material concerns. It's not premium, but it's not cheap-feeling either.

• 1x HDMI 2.0 - Supports 1080p at 240Hz, suitable for consoles and PCs
• 1x DisplayPort 1.4 - Full bandwidth for 1080p at 240Hz from a PC, recommended for PC gaming
• No USB hub - No USB-A ports for peripherals
• No USB-C - Not relevant at this price point, but
• No built-in speakers - You'll need external speakers or headphones
• 3.5mm headphone jack - Audio out is present for headphone connection

The DisplayPort 1.4 connection is the one you want for PC gaming at 240Hz. DisplayPort 1.4 has a maximum bandwidth of 32.4 Gbps, which is more than enough for 1080p at 240Hz without any compression. HDMI 2.0 can also handle 1080p at 240Hz, so if your graphics card only has HDMI outputs (some budget cards do), you're still covered. The absence of HDMI 2.1 isn't a problem at 1080p, since HDMI 2.0 handles the resolution and refresh rate combination without issue. HDMI 2.1 would only matter if you were running higher resolutions or refresh rates.

The lack of a USB hub is a minor inconvenience if you're used to plugging your keyboard, mouse, or headset into your monitor. At this price point it's expected, and most people have enough USB ports on their PC to manage without a monitor hub. The 3.5mm headphone jack is a nice inclusion since there are no built-in speakers, giving you a direct audio output from the monitor if you want to use it. Overall the connectivity is lean but practical for the target use case.

The AOC 27G2ZN is probably the GS27F2's most direct rival. Both are 27-inch 240Hz IPS panels in the budget bracket, both have FreeSync, and both have similar connectivity. The AOC has a longer track record and more owner reviews, which gives you a better picture of long-term reliability. The GS27F2 is the newer product, which means it benefits from Gigabyte's more recent panel sourcing and may have minor improvements in overdrive tuning. Honestly, at this price tier the differences between these two are marginal. Whichever is cheaper on the day you buy is probably the right call.

The LG 27GN650-B is a different proposition. It's 144Hz rather than 240Hz, but LG's IPS panels have a strong reputation for colour accuracy and factory calibration. If you're a casual gamer who also does creative work or just wants a really nice-looking display for everyday use, the LG might serve you better. But if 240Hz for competitive gaming is the priority, the GS27F2 wins on the headline spec. You're not going to go back to 144Hz once you've used 240Hz in a fast shooter.

Who should buy this? If you're a competitive gamer on an AMD GPU (or willing to try FreeSync on Nvidia), upgrading from a 60Hz or 144Hz panel, and you want the smoothest possible experience in fast-paced multiplayer games without spending a lot of money, this is a strong choice. It's also a reasonable option as a second monitor for a dual-screen setup where you want high refresh rate gaming on the primary screen. The VESA mount support means you can pair it with a cheap monitor arm and get a properly ergonomic setup without spending extra on a premium stand.

Who should skip it? If you sit close to a 27-inch screen and pixel density matters to you, consider a 24-inch 1080p 240Hz monitor instead, where the PPI is higher and the image looks sharper. If you play a lot of dark atmospheric games and care about deep blacks, a VA panel at 144Hz will serve you better than this IPS at 240Hz. And if your GPU can comfortably push 1440p at high frame rates, spending a bit more on a 1440p 165Hz or 240Hz IPS panel is a smarter long-term investment. A 27-inch 1440p 165Hz IPS monitor in the mid-range bracket will give you noticeably better image quality and is worth the extra spend if your PC can handle it.

At this price point in the budget bracket, the GS27F2 earns a solid 7.5 out of 10. It does exactly what it promises for competitive gaming, doesn't embarrass itself on image quality, and the 240Hz IPS combination at this price is genuinely hard to beat. Just go in with realistic expectations about the HDR, the stand, and the pixel density, and you'll be happy with it.