Today’s review will be another review that covers a topic that I don’t normally cover – or at least, not one that I devote much attention to anymore. Many of you who are familiar with my history may know that I’ve been involved in giving feedback to monitor companies like Nixeus, LG, Viotek, Sceptre and others for quite some time – especially in regards to 21:9 Ultrawide aspect ratio monitors. For a couple of years posted basic monitor reviews on places like (the now defunct) AdoredTV website, a 4K Monitors review website, Reddit, and other places on the internet.
When LG released the 45GR95QE, I had mixed feelings about the monitor which I expressed to LG’s marketing team at CES and with further follow-ups. While I personally found the gaming experience absolutely immersive on such a large ultrawide monitor especially after watching the game demos they had running on their displays, I indicated to them that the text clarity of the monitor would be a major drawback to many enthusiasts by asking them if I could open notepad on the demo unit. After all, no matter how you do the math 3440×1440 spread across 45″ is a rather low PPI. It was still great for gaming, but it took tweaking of the monitor and lowering my normal standards to use for office work and etc.
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5K2K 165hz – an unmatched gaming beast of a monitor
We’re looking at the follow-up and successor to that monitor, LG’s 45GX950 5K2K HDR True Black OLED 165hz monitor. It is an improvement over the original 21:9 behemoth in almost every way. I don’t think I need to tell you that the True Black HDR OLED has essentially perfect response times, extremely low input lag, and is great for gaming.
Take a look at the review that Tim Schiesser from TechSpot/HardwareUnboxed posted for more of the technical performance information. That said, if you’ve read the initial reviews of this monitor I should ask that you consider a few things. Firstly, at launch of this monitor there were quite a few issues reported – especially in regards to black screens and HDR problems. LG took these reports seriously, and investigated the issue – and it was determined that the common factor behind these issues was typically the use of an Nvidia RTX 5000 series GPU. Since that time, Nvidia has released driver updates which has resolved those lingering problems.
Unrelated to driver related issues, LG also has released firmware updates for the monitor since its release which have improved brightness levels and color balance in some situations based on user feedback. I would explore this in detail, but I don’t have the proper tools to measure these changes – hopefully another, more experienced display review will investigate this in a future review.
What’s in the box
Doubles as a “Cinema-style” TV – perfect for movies
One thing that’s great about this large 5K display is that you can use it for more than just playing video games or doing office work – it is large enough that you can actually use the display as a “small” Cinema display of sorts and enjoy a shared experience with friends and family.
Anti-Glare, Curved, and Matte
As you can see in the image above, I like to use my monitors near a window with light coming through it. While I appreciate the advantages that glossy displays can bring, they usually end up having too much of a glare or reflection from light in my humble opinion.
The display’s curve is about the same as the previous generation 45GR95QE, here’s both monitors aligned next to each other to show the curves of both.
The combination of a curved display and a matte coating makes this monitor very good for people who like using displays in places where light shines in and aren’t vampires living in a dark basement. The matte and curved combination is most effective when viewed at a “normal” angle.
At extreme viewing angles you might see some glare from a light source. In most scenarios, however, the anti-reflective properties are excellent!
What I wish was changed about this monitor
I don’t have any major complaints about this monitor, but there are a few particular things that annoy me.
No remote control
One thing I liked about the previous generation LG 45GR95QE was the inclusion of a remote control. LG did not include a remote with the 45GX950A. While I feel the OSD is simple enough to control without a remote, because I like to be able to easily change the settings without being in touching distance of the display.
Some have suggested to use the LG Switch App, shown below. This app offers an easy way to change monitor settings on the fly!
In additional to typical monitor settings, you can also use the software to setup a KVM and share a mouse and keyboard between devices!
But I’ve encountered one problem with this method – when I connect the monitor via USB-C, Microsoft Windows thinks I have two LG 45GX950A monitors connected! This causes problems as some apps show on the “first” monitor, and others on the “second” monitor – and I’m not sure how to fix this issue. So for now, if I feel the need to adjust the monitor’s settings I’ll be using the OSD.
I’ve included a video from LG demonstrating the advantages of their software solution below!
You must manually switch between speakers/headphones
Another minor complaint is that if you wish to connect headphones to the display, the audio doesn’t automatically switch to the headphones. You’ll have to engage the OSD and make the change manually. I feel like this shouldn’t happen on a monitor produced in the year 2025, and hope LG fixes this inconvenience in future firmware updates.
My last minor complaint is that I am unable to properly use some refresh rates with my Nvidia RTX 4070ti Super.
While 165hz, 100hz, and 60hz work flawlessly – any time a refresh rate with a star next to it (120hz, 75hz, etc.) is selected the image appeared stretched on the monitor, almost as if it was trying to render a 32:9 aspect ratio.
Built-in speakers that actually don’t suck
I wasn’t expecting the 5K2K monitor to have built-in speakers, but realized by accident that it had them when I forgot to plug in my Majority Audio bookshelf speakers one day after testing computer cases for Tom’s Hardware. The quality of these speakers was surprisingly good. Let’s be honest : while built-in speaker won’t ever satisfy most audiophiles or rap fiends, the sound quality was reasonable for most users in many scenarios. It isn’t the greatest, but it is definitely “good enough”. I enjoyed listening to Johnny Cash’s “Hurt” on YouTube without feeling the need for dedicated speakers, but your mileage and preferences may vary from mine.
Improvements and changes to the mounting and IO
Just like the 45GR95QE, LG’s 5K2K monitor supports VESA mounting for those who wish to use custom mounting.
The IO connections have been slightly changed, with an up and down insertion instead of connecting directly in the back of the monitor.
The included stand with the monitor has been improved, in my opinion, compared to the 45GR95QE. That version’s stand, pictured on the right in the image below, was a V-style stand and I didn’t like how the long “V” legs spread across.
The newer stand has a slightly higher maximum height and a centered base which doesn’t use up as much desk space.
High PPI means the 45GX950A is great for productivity and office work too!
The biggest downside of the previous-generation 45GR95QE was that it’s low pixel density of only 84 PPI (pixels per inch) combined with its subpixel layout resulted in an unideal scenario for traditional “office-style” text and productivity work. With the resolution upgraded to 5120×2160 and improvements to other parts of the display, the 125 pixels per inch offers almost a 50% increase in density – making for a crystal clear image for text work.
Backside photo showing cable management hole
More about Cinema and movie usage
Some of y’all might complain that “there are almost no movies filmed in 5120×2160, heck even most so-called 4K films are actually 3840×1600”. Well, that’s true – but we live in the age of the dawn of AI. Blurry scenes will still be blurry, but there are things we have the ability to improve with our modern computer hardware.
Using Nvidia RTX Video enhancements, one can upscale lower resolution sources to emulate a higher resolution video. If you are using a good “4k” video source, the quality of the upscaling will seem so perfect that you would have an extremely difficult time discerning it from a video with a native resolution of 5120×2160.
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Conclusion: The King
The price of this monitor might be luxurious, but right now there’s no alternative. LG’s 45GX950A is the only 45″ 5K2K OLED True Black HDR display on the market at this time, and the price reflects the superior quality of the display combined with its niche status and first to market status. It is an excellent display for gaming, movies, streaming, or even office and productivity work. I feel like the only thing that they could do to make this monitor better would be to also offer it in a smaller size – say, a 38-40″ version instead of 45″. That would make it more suitable to offices, but one advantage of this larger 45″ size is that it easily doubles as a “TV” that can be used for shared media experiences with friends and family.
