MSI Optix MEG381CQR Plus with 37.5″ IPS Panel with 144Hz and Integrated HMI technology

January 8, 2020 Simon Baker

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MSI have showcased this week at CES 2020 in Las Vegas their new Optix MEG381CQR display. This is a 37.5″ ultrawide screen with 3840 x 1600 resolution, a 2300R curvature and a 24:10 aspect ratio. It also has a 144Hz refresh rate which is supported by adaptive-sync for variable refresh rates from both AMD and NVIDIA systems. There is also VESA DisplayHDR 600 certification on this model with 600 cd/m2 peak brightness.

This new MSI screen is another alternative to similar size/spec models like the LG 38GL950G (175Hz with Native G-sync), LG 38GN950 (160Hz, adaptive-sync and HDR600), LG 38WN95C (144Hz, adaptive sync and HDR 600) and Acer Predator X38 P (175Hz with Native G-sync). None of these are properly available yet, although the 38GL950G is appearing now in some regions in small batches.

Given this MSI screen has HDR 600, that should mean there is some form of local dimming used for the backlight (edge lit). There should also be a wide colour gamut covering >90% DCI-P3 and a 10-bit colour depth. A 1ms G2G response time spec is (perhaps unsurprisingly nowadays) quoted as well. The panel is IPS technology by the way.

Of additional note is that this will be the first screen released to market with “human-machine interface” (HMI) which takes the form of a small OLED display and control wheel which are attached to the bottom left hand corner of the display. Hands on experience from other sites at CES confirmed that the little display can show information like monitor’s refresh rate, the CPU clock speed and even the weather. The dial allows easy control of the OSD menu and RGB lighting features too. There’s also a camera in the bottom bezel that uses facial recognition to load a user’s specific settings.