Cooler Master Tempest GP2711 Gaming Monitor Review - 1440p at 160Hz for $449

Cooler Master has released the Tempest GP2711, providing gamers with a wide color gamut, high refresh rate, true HDR 1000, and local dimming. But is it worth the $449?

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Tempest GP2711 is aimed at gamers looking to take advantage of HDR and enjoy Mini-LED local dimming without breaking the bank. Cooler Master has plugged all necessary hardware inside the Tempest GP2711 to achieve an affordable HDR gaming experience. Throughout this review, we are going through the company's offering through its paces in an attempt to determine all of the positives/negatives and, ultimately, what type of gamer would get the most enjoyment out of the Tempest GP2711.

The gaming monitor market is currently seeing an influx of OLED displays, but Cooler Master has opted for a traditional VA Mini-LED panel with brightness levels of more than 1,000 nits and 576 dimming zones. The idea behind this is to reduce costs, increase the brightness of the panel, and provide an extremely colorful HDR 1000 gaming experience.

Specifications

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Close-up

Design & Panel Breakdown

The physical design of the GP2711 is quite basic, with the entire monitor shell being made of hard plastic and the back of the monitor featuring no flare of aesthetic. Cooler Master has seemingly gone with the basic aesthetic look for the GP2711, and for the price of $449, I can see that the majority of the manufacturing cost has been put into the hardware inside the display rather than on the way it looks. The only bit of color present on the GP2711 is the Cooler Master logo, with a purple ascent located on the front.

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Despite the lack of aesthetic appeal, the GP2711 feels very sturdy and well-built in the hand, and judging from experience testing various gaming monitors, I don't believe there are any breaking points worth mentioning. Cooler Master has also equipped the GP2711 with a stand whose cutout feet are shaped like the company logo. Quite a nice physical design touch, as I can imagine many users would use this vacant space on the stand as a place to put their smartphone while gaming.

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Overall, the physical design of the GP2711 is adequate, achieving what it's intended to do, but what is annoying is the decision to use an HDMI 2.0 port instead of an HDMI 2.1 port, which would have enabled users to take full advantage of the 165Hz refresh rate instead of being capped at 144Hz. However, I would have liked to see some flare from Cooler Master, as the GP2711's aesthetics are simply as basic as it can get.

Panel Breakdown

The panel selected for the GP2711 is VA, meaning it has strong native contrast for nice color coverage, hitting 99% sRGB and 95% DCI-P3 of the color spectrum. Additionally, the GP2711 supports HDR 1000 with Mini-LED technology and a brightness level that can reach more than 1,000 nits. More specifically, Cooler Master has equipped the GP2711 with 576 zones of local dimming and Quantum Dot film, which provides an acceptable image quality, especially when the "Max Brightness" setting is turned on in the OSD, and HDR is enabled.

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The idea behind the GP2711 is to attract gamers after an incredible color experience in-game, especially gamers who care about the accuracy of their displayed colors. Paired with the 165Hz refresh rate and 2560 x 1440p resolution, the picture quality is impressive for the monitor's price, especially after some small tweaking in the OSD. However, there is a cost of putting all of your eggs in the color basket, as the GP2711 suffers majorly from speed problems with a lengthy 4ms response time, something most competitive FPS gamers would consider a dealbreaker, especially considering other gaming monitor options on the market for a similar price.

Performance

So, how did the GP2711 hold up throughout my testing? As with all of my gaming monitor reviews, I test the display in a variety of different games to attempt to find the type of gamer who would best suit the gaming monitor I'm reviewing. I ran the GP2711 through several games, such as DOOM Eternal, Overwatch 2, Apex Legends, Elden Ring, Age of Empires IV, Cyberpunk 2077, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, and The Witcher 3.

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Throughout my testing, I quickly realized that the GP2711 was suffering majorly in terms of being as responsive as I would like it to be for a competitive gaming display. I felt like the monitor was slightly lagging behind each of my decisions in Apex Legends, Overwatch 2, and DOOM Eternal. After testing monitors with a 0.03ms response time, moving to a 4ms response time really felt like someone had thrown heavy weights on my back, and I was gaming with a self-prescribed handicap. In other slow-paced titles such as Cyberpunk 2077, Age of Empires IV, and The Witcher 3, this problem didn't really present itself.

In RPG titles, the GP2711 really shined, but unfortunately, it could have hit the lights a little bit more as I found that when local dimming was enabled with HDR, the blacks in some were just too dark for me to see everything. This testing was done with the Max Brightness setting on, and unfortunately, it resulted in me completely turning off the local dimming as it was just providing an unplayable gaming experience.

With the brightness turned up to a maximum, local dimming turned off, and HDR turned on, the GP2711 showed incredible color accuracy in-game, with colors noticeably popping and looking vibrant. This was particularly noticeable in titles such as Cyberpunk 2077, DOOM Eternal, and Elden Ring.

Other performance testing worth mentioning is office workflows such as text reading/writing. I had zero problems reading/writing on the GP2711 for sometimes up to 12 hours.

Final Thoughts

So, is the GP2711 worth the $449 price tag? Firstly, let's establish what time of gamer would get the most out of the GP2711. Judging from my testing, I would say a gamer who is looking to get the most color they can out of their games would enjoy the GP2711, especially if the games they are playing are HDR-enabled, are vibrant/rich in colors, lack darkness, and aren't fast-paced.

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The GP2711 is equipped with a 4ms (GtG) response time, which I believe is too slow for serious competitive gaming, which rules out a recommendation from me for any gamer that predominantly plays fast-paced first-person-shooter titles. This leaves us with the slower games, the RPGs, where players take their time and look around the world they are in. These gamers would likely enjoy the GP2711 the most.

Unfortunately, the aforementioned reasons are why I can't widely recommend the GP2711 to all gamers, and with other gaming monitors on the market around the same price there are certainly better jack-of-all-trades options. However, purchasing a monitor really comes down to a few questions: what games do you play the most and can your PC take full advantage of the specs of the monitor.

So, if you know that color is very important to you, don't mind the bland aesthetic, and aren't playing fast-paced games, the GP2711 could be a viable option worth considering.