Alienware’s New Super Ultrawide OLED Gaming Monitor Might Just Earn Its (RGB) Stripes

Alienware has announced a new 39-inch, 5K OLED super ultrawide gaming monitor – the AW3926QW – that uses RGB stripe, a new display panel technology that the company says is brighter, with sharper text than your usual OLED, without sacrificing color accuracy or vividness.

This RGB stripe tandem OLED panel won’t be unique to Alienware’s new display; other companies like Asus and MSI have also announced displays that use it. RGB stripe’s whole thing is that its subpixels – the reds, greens, and blues that make up each pixel – are vertically-aligned, so should prevent some of the color fringing that an eagle-eyed sort might see on an OLED when they lean in close.

Apart from the new panel tech, the AW3926QW will offer up a 1500R-curved, 5,120×2,160 display with 1,300 nits of peak brightness and support for Dolby Vision and screen-tearing prevention features like Nvidia G-Sync, AMD FreeSync Premium Pro. Typical brightness will only be 300 nits, according to the display’s specs shared with IGN. For those who can apparently tell the difference (I’m proud of you. I sure can’t): it peaks at a 330Hz refresh rate at 1080p or 165Hz at full resolution. In other words, specs-wise, this display has a number of legs up over the MSI MPG 491CQPX QD-OLED, IGN’s favorite super ultrawide at the moment.

The AW3926QW will also have a built-in KVM switch for controlling multiple connected computers with a single mouse and keyboard pair. There will be a few ports on the back: one DisplayPort 2.1; two HDMI 2.1 (one with eARC support); a 10Gbps upstream USB-C port with 90W power output, along with a 5Gbps USB-B upstream port and a 5Gbps USB-A downstream port. Another 5Gbps USB-A port and 5Gbps USB-C port will sit on the underside, straddling a 3.5mm headphone jack.

In addition to its fancy new OLED ultrawide, Alienware also announced the AW3426DW, a 34-inch, 280Hz QD-OLED, 3,440×1,440 resolution gaming display. It’s the follow-up to the AW3425DW from last year (which is already IGN’s favorite curved gaming monitor), and it bumps up a number of specs. Peak brightness will be 1,300 instead of 1,000 nits; refresh rate hops to 280Hz from 240Hz; and its HDR TrueBlack rating is now 500 instead of 400. Its curve will also be tighter, at 1500R versus the current one’s 1800R. Alienware didn’t announce its pricing (the previous model was $800), but says the display will be available in July.

Alienware did share pricing for two other new displays: a $399.99 34-inch model (AW3426DWM) and a $299.99 32-inch one (AW3226DM). They’ll both offer a 240Hz refresh rate and VA panels, with a respective 3,440×1,440 resolutiion and 2,560×1,440 resolution. Both will be out in July, as well.

Wes is a freelance writer (Freelance Wes, they call him) who has covered technology, gaming, and entertainment steadily since 2020 at Gizmodo, Tom’s Hardware, Hardcore Gamer, and most recently, The Verge. Inside of him there are two wolves: one that thinks it wouldn’t be so bad to start collecting game consoles again, and the other who also thinks this, but more strongly.