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AOC AGON AG324UX review (2022)

Our indepth review of the latest high-performance AGON offering from AOC

Updated: Oct 19, 2023 1:07 pm
AOC AG324UX 27

Today we welcome AOC’s latest 32″ 4K gaming monitor to the WePC testing studio – the AGON AG324UX. It will roll out as part of the Taiwanese brand’s ‘AGON Pro’ lineup – a display family that is reserved for its best performing gaming monitors.

As you can imagine, the AG324UX will boast high-end gaming features and reside in the higher echelons of the pricing spectrum – delivering excellent gaming performance thanks to specifications that include; a 144Hz refresh rate, 1ms GTG response time, and 4K screen resolution.

Users can also look forward to an impressive 32″ IPS panel that will offer up stunning color accuracy and excellent viewing angles. AOC state that the panel will also be factory-calibrated to an average DeltaE of <2 – offering up realistic reproduction of color across the board.

In this guide, we’ll be putting the AG324UX through a number of different performance tests to see how it stacks up against some of the market’s leading 4K 144Hz gaming monitor alternatives. We’ll be testing it for color accuracy, build quality, panel uniformity, response, and general gaming performance – concluding with our thoughts on overall value for money in today’s market.

So, is the AG324UX all it’s cracked up to be or is it more letdown than Legend? Let’s find out.

AOC AGON AG324UX
AOC AG324UX
Refresh Rate 144Hz
Response time 1ms GTG
Screen size 31.5"
Resolution 3840 x 2160

AOC AGON AG324UX monitor: Specifications

Tech Specs
Refresh Rate 144Hz
Response time 1ms GTG
Screen size 31.5"
Resolution 3840 x 2160
Aspect ratio 16:9
Panel type IPS
Brightness 400 cd/m2
Contrast ratio 1000:1
Color Depth 10 bits
Viewing angle 178°/178°
Color Gamut 121% sRGB, 99% DCI-P3
Backlight technology W-LED
Panel Coating Anti-Glare/Matte (3H)
Curvature Flat
VESA 100 x 100m

PROS
  • 4K screen resolution
  • 144Hz refresh rate
  • IPS viewing angles and color accuracy
  • HDMI 2.1 support
  • VRR and MBR features
CONS
  • Expensive
  • Build quality feels lacking
  • Peak brightness could be greater

What's in the box & assembly

The AG324UX comes in a large black box that showcases a tonne of marketing material on the exterior. Inside, the monitor comes unassembled inside two large pieces of protective styrofoam to ensure no damage occurs during transit.

Alongside the monitor, users will also find an accessories box that includes power cables (and brick), display cables, user manual, and startup disk.

Construction of the AG324UX is relatively straight forward thanks to the clip-n-go system it utilizes. The base of the stand screws together via a simple thumbscrew on the underside of the base piece, with additional tightening recommended via the use of a screwdriver.

AOC AG324UX 28

Below is a full list of everything that comes in the AG324UX box:

  • AOC AGON AG324UX
  • Power cable and brick
  • HDMI cable
  • DisplayPort cable
  • USB to USB-C cable
  • User manual
  • Warranty details
  • Startup disk

Design, build quality, & features

With specifications out the way, let’s take a closer look at the build quality, design, and mechanical features this monitor comes equipped with.

Aesthetics

The aesthetic design of the AG324UX definitely walks the line between ‘cool gamer’ and garish – riddled with RGB, striking colors, and a huge ‘V’ shaped stand that struggles to fit on the largest of desks.

AOC AG324UX 23

It features a large 31.5″ IPS screen that is characterized by thin bezels and a black-on-red color scheme. The AGON logo sits in the center of the bottom bezel in proud fashion, finished in red and enhanced by a thin bar of RGB underneath it. A simple LED light can be found on the right-hand side of the bottom bezel which indicates whether the panel is on or off.

AOC AG324UX 4

The large V-shaped stand is designed using metal and features an angular shape which is kind of cool. That said, its size sees the stand protrude past the face of the display itself, often leading to the disruption of your desk space. That said, you almost forget how chaotic your desk becomes thanks to a spicy little logo projector found underneath the enormous stand.

AOC AG324UX 9

Moving to the rear and there are plenty of aesthetic features to enjoy. The rear RGB is similar to other AGON panels in the ‘Legends’ lineup – featuring a ‘fish gill’ styling which turned out to be hit and miss amongst the office. Furthermore, the RGB doesn’t really get bright enough to create any true ambience, making many question its worth. A large AGON logo can be found nearing the top of the monitor, with the body of the stand featuring more loud coloring.

AOC AG324UX 14

Build Quality

The build quality for the AG324UX is a little hit and miss if truth be told. While general build materials feel solid, the stability of the monitor on its stand is far from ideal. The AG324UX displays a lot of wobble when adjusting its position – with some wobble experienced during gameplay (especially if you’re using the panel on a slightly unstable desk).

AOC AG324UX 33

That said, the feel of the monitor itself is decent. The stand is almost entirely metal and the rear of the panel utilizes a hardened plastic that offers very little in the ways of flex or bend. Stand adjustability feels smooth and all fittings and fixtures are nicely finished. The face of the monitor uses a hardened coating which, again, adds an additional layer of protection to this monitor.

Panel Coating

Like most modern IPS panels, the AG324UX features a strong anti-glare matte coating with a 3H hardness. Like always, this particular panel coating does a superb job of mitigating most natural and manmade light sources, delivering a great visual experience in both light and dark room situations.

AOC AG324UX 7

Of course, this panel coating is well-known for accumulating fingerprints and oils. Fortunately, a decent cleaning solution and microfiber cloth will see to that no problem.

Bezels

The bezels for the AG324UX certainly help to accentuate the feeling of immersion when playing games and watch TV & film. They measure in at 8mm (side and top) by 27mm (bottom).

AOC AG324UX 3

The bottom bezel features AGON’s branding so its size doesn’t come as a surprise. No VRR technology branding has been used on this particular gaming monitor – a factor which is often the case with gaming monitors.

Stand

As far as stand adjustments go, you can’t really knock the AGON AG324UX at all. It delivers height, tilt, swivel, and pivot functionality, allowing for complete control over the monitor’s positioning at all times. Furthermore, despite this monitor’s large 32″ size, you can easily flip it into portrait mode if you wish to – great for inserting cables.

AOC AG324UX 11

Below are the exact specifications of the stand:

  • Forward Tilt – 5 degrees
  • Backward Tilt – 23 degrees
  • Left Swivel – 20 degrees
  • Right Swivel – 20 degrees
  • Pivot – 90 degrees
  • Height – 130mm
AOC AGON AG324UX
AOC AG324UX
Refresh Rate 144Hz
Response time 1ms GTG
Screen size 31.5"
Resolution 3840 x 2160

Inputs

As you’d expect from a high-end monitor, the AG324UX comes with a tonne of inputs. Users can utilize three displays thanks to a single DisplayPort 1.4 or dual HDMI 2.1 inputs (capable of pushing console gaming at 4K @ 120Hz). Alongside this, users can utilize a bunch of USB inputs (one offering BC 1.2 charging at 2A), microphone in & audio out ports, and USB Type-C (90W DP Alt Mode).

Like always, all inputs are found at the rear of the monitor and require vertical insertion.

For a more in-depth look at the inputs, see below:

  • 2 x HDMI 2.1
  • 1 x DisplayPort 1.4
  • 4 x USB Type-A (one with BC 1.2 charging at 2A)
  • 1 x USB Type-B
  • 1 x USB Type-C (Gen 1; upstream; 90W; DP Alt Mode)
  • 1 x microphone in 
  • 1 x 3.5mm audio jack

OSD

The OSD, or on-screen display, for this monitor is operated by two methods – a joystick found at the rear or a circular controller which plugs into the rear of the panel. Either way, navigating the menus is relatively easy with a tonne of color, picture, response, and RGB options to choose from.

As far as functionality and versatility goes, there are plenty of options to choose from with this monitor – including key features such as Adaptive Sync, MBR (motion blur reduction), and overdrive too. While there are some limitations, we still feel this monitor features a very comprehensive OSD.

With a tonne of different OSD options to choose from, we’ve listed the best features below:

  • Adaptive Sync technology
  • AMD FreeSync technology
  • AOC Light FX
  • Black Stabilizer
  • DDC/CI
  • DDC2B
  • Flicker Free
  • Game Tone adjustments
  • KVM Switch
  • Low blue light mode
  • MBR
  • PBP
  • PIP

Color Accuracy & Picture Quality

Great colors and excellent picture quality are two of the main factors that help create immersion while you’re gaming. Despite the importance of good color, monitor manufacturers don’t always calibrate the color of their panels to what is deemed accurate within specific color spectrums – sRGB/Rec.709, DCI-P3 etc.

We like to test each monitor for color reproduction to see how they would perform in color-accurate scenarios.

Here are the results for the AOC AGON AG324UX:

Like always, we started off the color accuracy testing portion of this review by loading up our colorimeter and running a test right out of the box. Before we start, it’s worth mentioning that AOC state the AG324UX will be factory-calibrated to a average deltaE <2 for excellent out of the box color accuracy. Below are the results:

PresetWhite PointBlack DepthContrast RatioAverage ΔE*00GammaLuminance
IDEAL6500K0.00cd/m²Infinite0.002.2120cd/m^2
Out the box6401K0.1219 cd/m²983.8:11.712.18124.23cd/m²
sRGB 6486K0.1241 cd/m²995.3:10.562.2123.23cd/m²

As you can see from the chart above, the out of the box results for the AG324UX were extremely good. We recorded a 6401K white point, acceptable 0.121 cd/m2 black depth, and 983:1 contrast ratio. More impressive to us, however, was the 1.71 average deltaE, right out of the box. This meant that colors looked realistic and lifelike without any additional tweaking required. That said, it still wasn’t accurate enough to perform color-accurate work on this panel.

We wasted no time and fired up the sRGB emulation profile which, like always, blocked any and all luminance tweaking. That said, luminance for the sRGB emulation profile was 123 cd/m2 – ideal for daytime usage. The results for the sRGB emulation were pretty impressive to say the least. We saw a near-perfect white point, acceptable 0.124 cd/m2 black depth, and 995:1 contrast ratio. Better still, we recorded a 0.56 average deltaE which is a clear sign of pre calibration of this panel. Gamma read 2.19.

At this stage, we decided to run a more  in-depth color test on the sRGB emulation to see how it performed over a wider range of color tests. After that, we calibrated the monitor using the panel’s ‘USER’ profile – tweaking the OSD color values to the following:48/50/49.

Here are the results:

PresetWhite PointBlack DepthContrast RatioAverage ΔE*00Maximum ΔE*00Gamma
IDEAL6500K0.00cd/m²Infinite0.000.002.2
sRGB Indepth6487K0.1239 cd/m²994.8:10.662.042.19
Calibrated Profile6539K0.1301 cd/m²1015.1:10.21.042.2

As you can see from the results above, the sRGB in-depth color test resulted in a pretty similar outcome to that of the short test. We got almost identical figures for white point, black depth, and contrast ratio. Gamma, again, read 2.19 and average deltaE only increased to 0.66 – more than acceptable for light color-accurate editing scenarios.

After calibration, the results did improve, but not by a great deal. As you can see, slightly better white point, black depth, and contrast ratio were experienced when calibration had completed. Using the same extended color test, the calibrated profile saw an average deltaE of 0.2 – perfect for editing scenarios.

Panel Uniformity

Panel uniformity is a test we run to check how uniform the luminance and colors are across the entirety of the screen. During this test, the center square is used as the reference space. Every other square is then tested to see how far it differentiates from the reference.

In an ideal world, we want every square to be green, meaning it hasn’t broken the differential threshold – something we can set at the start of the test.

Panel Uniformity Traffic Light System

Note: results will differ from panel to panel.

AOC AG324UX Panel Uniformity

Like many of the IPS panels we test, the uniformity for the AG324UX scored fairly well. As you can see from the graph above, most of the quadrants in the test resulted in a green score – meeting the recommended tolerance set in the software. What this means for users is that viewing content that features large portions of the same color won’t be distorted in any way. If you receive a panel with poor uniformity, you’re likely to see differences in large patches of solid color.

Overall, the AG324UX scored highly in this department.

Viewing Angles

We ran a quick test on the AG324UX for general viewing angles. As you can imagine, as this is an IPS panel, viewing angles were incredibly strong across the board.

Below is a quick video showcasing the viewing angles of the panel:

AOC AGON AG324UX
AOC AG324UX
Refresh Rate 144Hz
Response time 1ms GTG
Screen size 31.5"
Resolution 3840 x 2160

Color Gamut

As part of the calibration process, the DisplayCal will give an accurate measurement of the color gamut the monitor can provide. Below are the results of the color gamut test:

AG324UX color gamut readings

As you can see from the chart above, the AG324UX performed to a high standard in the color gamut area. The total volume of the gamut provided by the monitor exceeded 127% of the sRGB color spectrum – covering 99.8% of the sRGB space. Alternatively, we found an 87.8% Adobe RGB and 90.3% DCI-P3 volume – not quite enough to display what is classified as ‘true HDR’.

We’ve linked the graphs to all three color gamut spaces above, allowing you to see exactly where the color gamut of the AG324UX falls short.

Maximum And Minimum Brightness

We ended the color accuracy and picture quality testing by checking the maximum brightness, minimum brightness, and 120 candelas points on this panel. The results are below:

BrightnessCandelas
100% Brightness330.59cd/m²
0% Brightness81.77cd/m²
30 Brightness120cd/m²

Calibrated Profile

For those who want to use our calibrated color profile, you will find a link below where you can download the zip file.

AOC AGON AG324UX : Gaming Performance & Response

With color accuracy out of the way, it’s time to put the AOC AGON AG324UX through a number of different gaming scenarios to see how it stacks up in pixel response, input lag, and overall responsiveness. Of course, with this monitor being a 4K 144Hz panel, we don’t expect it to excel in every scenario. 

Competitive gaming

We started off by loading a fast-paced shooter to see how the panel handled competitive titles and motion. We’ll discuss all the different settings used below, however, for us, the best settings for competitive play was adaptive sync ON and Overdrive set to around medium.

AOC AG324UX 31

We loaded up some deathmatch as it allows you to experience numerous fast-moving objects at the same time. The overall feeling during our time playing CS:GO was that, the AG324UX isn’t cut out for this type of gameplay. We experienced a decent amount of blurring when viewing models strafe from side to side, with general perceived blur also being quite poor when running around the map. Unlike using a 360Hz monitor, the AG324UX did fall victim to some fairly obvious smearing too – particularly noticeable when peaking a corner very quickly.

Despite these flaws, there were some positives to take from playing competitive games on this panel. The large 4K screen resolution did allow you to increase image fidelity and overall graphics looked fantastic. Furthermore, thanks to the excellent color accuracy right out of the box, the game just looked that little bit more lifelike. The thin bezels helped to create immersion when gaming and tampering with some of the various overdrive settings did allow you to reduce the on-screen smearing and ghosting issues. That said, they would often be replaced by wild amounts of overshoot – especially noticeable when using the Strong/Boost settings.

MBR was an interesting setting to use for competitive games as it did increase perceived blur exponentially. While the image were much clearer, they were subject to annoying ‘doubling’ – where a secondary image can be seen behind the first. Overall, this monitor isn’t tailored to this type of gameplay and its fairly clear to see the flaws when playing.

General gaming

We moved onto a few less-intensive titles next to see how the AG324UX performed in general gameplay and HDR scenarios. We loaded up Shadow of the Tomb and, visually, the game looked superb. The thin bezels, excellent colors, and 4K screen resolution meant that the game looked incredibly vibrant and lifelike. Furthermore, because images were moving around as quickly and there was less emphasis on the clarity of those images, smearing and ghosting was much less noticeable in this titles.

AOC AG324UX 32

We launched the HDR functionality of the monitor and, as you can expect from a VESA DisplayHDR 400 certified panel, the experience wasn’t overwhelming. We did see a slight boost in overall image quality when viewing extreme dark or light regions, but overall, the experience was only marginally better than SDR.

That said, we actually enjoyed using the AG324UX for lighter titles like Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Elden Ring, New World, and Halo. The general feeling of immersion was excellent and visually the panel looked very good. However, due to the downfalls in general response, it did leave a slightly sour taste in the mouth.

BlurBusters UFO motion blur test

Like always, we ran BlurBusters UFO test over all the various response time settings to see which was best for general motion blur.

Below are the results:

AOC AG324UX ADAPTIVE SYNC OFF MOTION BLUR AOC AG324UX ADAPTIVE SYNC ON MOTION BLUR

Final Thoughts

So, there you have it, our comprehensive review of the AOC AGON AG324UX – the brand’s latest 4K 144Hz gaming monitor. 

Overall, we enjoyed using the AOC AGON AG324UX in both gaming and productivity scenarios. However, the question regarding its value still remains unanswered. At the time of writing this, the AG324UX currently retails for around £900 (depending on what offers are available at the time) and for that price, you really are putting yourself in line with some of the market’s best gaming monitors. So, that leads us to another question – is this one of the best gaming monitors in the market? And the answer is, unfortunately, no.

AOC AG324UX 6

The AG324UX is a great large-screen gaming monitor that features a fast 144Hz refresh rate, excellent IPS panel, 4K screen resolution, and comprehensive stand. On the surface, it seems to meet  all the everyday gamer requirements – and to a degree, it does. However, it falls short in many competitive games that feature fast-moving images thanks to its underwhelming pixel response time. We experienced decent amounts of smearing and ghosting when playing a number of different games, with pixel-enhancing features only resulting in annoying overshoot problems.

That being said, playing free world titles on this panel did result in an immersive and enjoyable experience. Colors popped, stutter was almost non-existent, and image quality was incredibly high. Once again though, some of the panels core features – including HDR – didn’t perform to the highest standard. While you might be able to forgive a $350 monitor for these downfalls, the same can’t be said when you’re forking out £900.

All being said, it’s not a terrible monitor, but it’s by no means the best either. If you’re looking for an all-round panel that can; handle some games, works great for productivity, and looks excellent in TV & film, the AG324UX could be worth considering. However, if you want something more geared towards competitive play, you’ll probably want to look elsewhere.

AOC AGON AG324UX
AOC AG324UX
Refresh Rate 144Hz
Response time 1ms GTG
Screen size 31.5"
Resolution 3840 x 2160

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