Image: Willis Lai / Foundry
Samsung may be most well-known for selling gigantic ultrawide monitors, but it’s not the only one in the game. In fact, the competition is heating up, as evidenced by the presence of Gigabyte’s Aorus CO49DQ 49-inch gaming monitor at CES 2024.
First announced in December 2023, the CO49DQ is a double quad HD (DQHD) display boasting a 5120×1440 resolution—the equivalent of two 2560×1440 panels side-by-side. Gigabyte’s version is lightly curved and supports a 144Hz refresh rate. For now, the launch price is set at $1,299, though the company says the cost could drop lower by the time the monitor hits shelves. (Speaking of shelves, they’re going to need to be sturdy, as this 49-inch monitor weighs in at nearly 25 pounds.)
You can catch a closer view of the CO49DQ in our video embedded above, where PCWorld’s Adam Patrick Murray runs down the specs. Though sponsored by Gigabyte, the video also contains Adam’s thoughts on Gigabyte’s noteworthy products at CES 2024—like another Aorus-branded OLED monitor. This smaller 27-inch 1440p monitor features a 360Hz refresh rate and 0.03ms response time, as well as one particularly sleek design element: the slender monitor stand, which has the barest of footprints.
Gamers can also look forward to Gigabyte’s revamped Aorus X16 laptop, which is newly infused with 14th-gen Intel “Raptor Lake Refresh” Core CPUs, up to a Nvidia RTX 4090 laptop GPU, and AI capabilities that help manage the battery and performance boosting, and with content creation. Despite the revamp, though, this gaming notebook still sports a wide variety of ports along its sides (Ethernet, HDMI, micro-SD, USB-A, and USB-C)—and also packs in a nifty trick: A tiny projector at the back beams the Aorus logo onto whatever surface the laptop’s sitting on.
For those heavily involved in content creation, Gigabyte showcased a couple of powerful Threadripper builds at its booth, too: one running a Threadripper Pro 7960X, and the other a Threadripper Pro 7985X, with both systems crunching through punishing workloads.
Keep checking out PCWorld all week long for more fun, weird, and cool things from the CES 2024 show floor—like this tiny but killer motherboard feature, dual-screen laptops, and our own hands-on showdown between portable gaming PCs.
Author: Alaina Yee, Senior Editor
Alaina Yee is PCWorld’s resident bargain hunter—when she’s not covering software, PC building, and more, she’s scouring for the best tech deals. Previously her work has appeared in PC Gamer, IGN, Maximum PC, and Official Xbox Magazine. You can find her on Twitter at @morphingball.
