Iiyama GOB2701QSC-B1 Titan Falcon Review

The Iiyama G-Master GOB2701QSC-B1 Titan Falcon is a 27-inch QHD OLED gaming monitor refreshing at 280 Hz. It brings the infinite contrast and near-instant response of OLED to a specification aimed squarely at gamers rather than colourists.

After a long run of keenly specified IPS and VA gaming monitors, Iiyama has finally turned to OLED. The G-Master GOB2701QSC-B1, also badged Titan Falcon, is the manufacturer's first monitor built around an OLED panel — a significant step for a brand best known until now for keenly specified gaming screens.

The configuration chosen is one that is now well established: a 27-inch diagonal, a 16:9 format and a QHD resolution of 2560 x 1440 pixels. More specifically, the monitor uses a fourth-generation OLED panel quoted at a maximum refresh rate of 280 Hz. QHD is also less demanding on a graphics card than 4K, which makes that refresh rate far more attainable in practice.

All the brightness and colorimetry measurements quoted here were taken by a certified calibrator using a Calibrite Display Plus HL probe and CalMAN Ultimate software.

Iiyama has made a particular effort with the Titan Falcon's design. The brand has generally offered very sober black chassis, sometimes almost interchangeable from one model to the next. Here the rear of the monitor gets more sculpted detailing and an LED strip that adds a welcome touch of personalisation. The result stays relatively discreet, and plastic still dominates.

The stand is more conventional and does not convey the same sense of quality as the metal supports of some premium models. At least it takes up little desk space, with a depth of barely 21.3 cm.

The panel can be tilted, adjusted for height, swivelled horizontally and rotated into portrait mode in either direction, so it adapts easily to different positions and uses.

Connectivity is generous and comes with some genuinely useful extras. At the rear there are two HDMI 2.1 ports capable of carrying QHD at 280 Hz, one DisplayPort 1.4, two USB-A ports, a USB-B port, a headphone output and a USB-C 3.2 port. That last connection does more than carry a picture: it includes 65 W of Power Delivery, enough to charge a laptop or a smartphone while it is being used. A KVM switch is also provided, so a keyboard and mouse can be shared between two machines.

The Titan Falcon additionally includes two 5 W speakers. They will do at a pinch for watching a video, though a headset or dedicated speakers remain preferable for gaming. Menu navigation is handled by a joystick at the rear, which moves quickly between picture profiles, colour settings and gaming functions.

The move to OLED has paid off in image quality, since this type of panel delivers infinite contrast and deep blacks — a pleasure in games as well as video.

Calibration is less convincing. Out of the box, the average Delta E is fairly high at 4, with grey levels perfectly set and an average colour temperature of 6,580 K, but with colours drifting noticeably, particularly on blues and greens.

Switching to the monitor's sRGB mode — usually the best-calibrated preset — does bring colours far closer to reference, with a Delta E of 2. The average colour temperature drops to 5,780 K, however, and the image leans much more heavily towards warm tones, with 5% black, which should be deep and almost pure, coming out distinctly reddish. That behaviour looks like a bug, and it rules the monitor out for creative work in that mode. Whether every unit is affected or only the test sample is unclear, but the safest approach is to leave sRGB mode off and calibrate with a probe before using the screen for photo or video editing.

Average gamma otherwise lands at 2.2, exactly the reference value. Grey levels are therefore reproduced in a balanced way, without excessively darkening scenes or losing detail in bright areas.

Maximum SDR brightness was measured at 520 cd/m², an excellent result for an OLED monitor — a technology long penalised by lower luminance than LCD models.

The Titan Falcon's glossy coating handles reflections reasonably well, without matching the best matte panels, which can drop below 10%. Average reflectance here was measured at 18.5%, which is a very acceptable figure.

The Titan Falcon is certified DisplayHDR True Black 400 and supports HDR10. The manufacturer quotes neither HDR10+ nor Dolby Vision, two formats that remain the preserve of higher-end models. HDR also has to be enabled manually in the settings, which is not especially convenient day to day.

EOTF tracking is unfortunately far from perfect, with the curve sitting clearly above the reference, particularly around 50% grey. On a window covering 10% of the screen area, peak brightness was measured at 570 cd/m². That figure beats the 414 cd/m² of the IPS-based GB2791QSU-B1 and the 450 to 460 cd/m² recorded by several Asus OLED monitors, though it remains some way behind the best OLED and Mini-LED televisions.

Colour accuracy is fairly good once HDR is enabled, with an average Delta E of 2.1. Drift is therefore hard to see, and colour space coverage is very wide: 100% of Rec.709, 99% of DCI-P3 and 83% of Rec.2020.

With its QHD resolution and 280 Hz refresh rate, the GOB2701QSC-B1 should satisfy most gamers, including competitive ones. A powerful graphics card is obviously needed to approach 280 frames per second at 2560 x 1440 pixels, but that rate stays more attainable than on a 4K screen.

Display lag was measured at 14.7 ms in Full HD at 60 Hz. That stays under 16 ms, so no noticeable delay should be felt between a mouse or controller input and its effect on screen. At 120 Hz, input lag falls to 6.7 ms, an excellent result for playing on PC as well as console.

Thanks to OLED, persistence is considered virtually nil: pixels change state almost instantaneously and no ghost trail follows moving objects or characters. The monitor is also compatible with Nvidia G-Sync over a 48 to 280 Hz range via DisplayPort, so the panel's refresh rate can be synchronised with the frames produced by the graphics card to reduce tearing and micro-stutter.

With brightness set to 150 cd/m² and a standard test pattern, the Iiyama GOB2701QSC-B1 drew an average of 21 W. Related to its display area, that works out at 104.5 W/m². The result is reasonable for an OLED screen, a technology that often sits among the least frugal in this category: the Asus ROG Swift OLED PG27UCDM, by comparison, climbed to 170.5 W/m². An external power brick is unfortunately required.

The Iiyama GB2791QSU-B1 remains a relevant alternative, reaching 320 Hz with an adjustable stand, generous connectivity and lower consumption, though its IPS panel is a long way behind the Titan Falcon on contrast and persistence. The Asus ROG Swift OLED PG27UCDM plays in another category altogether, with a 27-inch QD-OLED panel at 4K, high-end equipment and an image far better calibrated for creative work. The Titan Falcon also takes on ultra-fast 27-inch QHD IPS screens such as the Asus TUF VG27AQML5A, which reaches 300 Hz and has excellent SDR calibration, but whose 895:1 contrast ratio and 7.5 ms persistence cannot compete with OLED.