With its healthy price drop, this is the affordable 4K OLED gaming monitor I'd buy this Prime Day

(Image credit: MSI)

MSI MAG 321UP | 32-inch | 165 Hz | QD-OLED | $829.99 $759.99 at Amazon (save $70)
What a difference a letter makes... especially when it comes to gaming monitors. The code names given to monitors are often impenetrable, but the difference between this MAG 321UP and the MAG321UPX is that this one has a 165 Hz refresh instead of 240 Hz. That's the only difference between this and a more expensive OLED, otherwise, you're still getting a gorgeous 4K panel, with response times to die for, and pixel quality, I dunno, to live for? If you're not concerned about the refresh rate difference (and do you have the hardware to hit a matching 240 fps otherwise?) then this is where the smart OLED money is spent.

Price check: Newegg $759.99

MSI has been the brand pushing the hardest to get OLED gaming monitors down in price. Sure, it's got a top-end MPG 321URX which is over $1,200, and a MAG 321UPX which is around $900, but it's also released an $800 version with the exact same panel, just with a few bells turned off and whistles turned down.

And the even better news is that for the October Prime Day, inexplicably called Big Deal Days, you're getting arguably the best gaming monitor deal around. The MSI MAG 321UP is just $760 at Amazon today. One of the few issues with MSI's more affordable OLEDs is they go in and out of stock like energy drinks marketed at pre-teens. But thankfully you don't have to rely on Amazon's warehouses, because Newegg also has the screen for $760, too.

So, if you don't wish to feather Jeff's pockets any further then you have an alternative.

We're tracking all the October Prime Day PC gaming deals right here!

So, what are you missing out on with this cheaper model? The main difference between this and the other MSI 32-inch 4K OLEDs is that you're getting a 165 Hz refresh rate instead of 240 Hz. Honestly, at 4K, I don't think that's a huge compromise to make when you're still getting the exact same excellent QD-OLED panel.

I'd also suggest that making the most out of a 240 Hz refresh in-game is going to require some serious graphical hardware, too. If you can match the 165 Hz with your 4K frame rates you're doing well anyway.

Otherwise, it's just a difference in USB Type-C power delivery that marks out the different screens. The top-end has 90 W USB-C PD, the middle order one has 15 W USB-C PD, and this one just plain doesn't.

But do you really care if you're plumbing your gaming desktop into it anyway?

📺View the MSI MAG 321UP - $760 @ Amazon

Dave has been gaming since the days of Zaxxon and Lady Bug on the Colecovision, and code books for the Commodore Vic 20 (Death Race 2000!). He built his first gaming PC at the tender age of 16, and finally finished bug-fixing the Cyrix-based system around a year later. When he dropped it out of the window. He first started writing for Official PlayStation Magazine and Xbox World many decades ago, then moved onto PC Format full-time, then PC Gamer, TechRadar, and T3 among others. Now he's back, writing about the nightmarish graphics card market, CPUs with more cores than sense, gaming laptops hotter than the sun, and SSDs more capacious than a Cybertruck.