MSI PS341WU Prestige 5K 2K Monitor Review

System – continued

Vent holes, vent holes everywhere and not a space un-drilled. If you’ll pardon the purloining of some Coleridge. Then again with a Z390, i9-9900K and RTX 2080 Ti to keep frosty we understand the lengths MSI have had to go to to keep it all cool. How they’ve ventilated it so well without compromising the looks is an impressive feat. Maybe this is a glimpse into the future of consoles, given it’s proportions and power. We all know how much Windows sucks performance, imagine this setup on a bespoke OS. Tasty. As if the P100 wasn’t already tasty enough.

  

Just think, as soon as you peel the protective plastic off this you’ll be the first person to give the Prestige badge the shine it deserves. We like how, despite such a lofty title, it’s hidden round the back. Many companies would have placed it front and centre in a gaudy manner.

  

We’ve never been happier to see a massive cut-out on the back of our GPU plate. Despite the incredible efforts to which MSI have gone to ensure the P100 is well ventilated, every little helps when you’re taming the beast that is the Turing GPU.

  

Only around the back does the patina detract from the overall aesthetic of the MSI Prestige P100, but as you never show it off it doesn’t really matter. You have a full selection of connection options, or at least as full as you can realistically hope in such a diminutive design.

  

With two drives in RAID0, as well as an M2 offering for the OS, the Prestige P100 isn’t just about providing you with gobs of calculative power at the expense of anything else. Anyone who has done a little bit of creating will know how quickly filesizes can increase, particularly when you’re rendering at the high resolutions demanded by today’s fidelity hungry audience.

  

It’s frankly ridiculous the contortions that MSI have gone to in order to fit what is basically a top end gaming system into a chassis that you could slip into your carry on luggage. A place for everything, and everything in its place. It’s the computing equivalent of an Orient Express bathroom. Exactly as much room as is necessary and no more. If you despair at the size of modern computer cases then the P100 definitely shows us another path.

  

If you ever think that you’ve squeezed as much into your tower as is humanly possible, then perhaps the P100 internals will give you a moments pause. Or perhaps give you a challenge to meet.

  

Conclusion

When wrapping up products such as this we always feel like we’re preaching to the choir. If you’re the type of user who looks at the MSI PS341WU Prestige on the first page of this review and can’t understand why anyone would want such a big screen, then you probably haven’t reached this point. On the flip side, if you already feel your workspace is cramped and desire a bigger panel, you probably already know you want this. For the naysayers, and those who just want to know if the MSI is worth adding to your wish-list, we can at least convince both of you with the same summation.

Firstly, the looks of any monitor are low on the list of priorities but it’s worth mentioning how sexy the PS341WU is. The bezel is practically nonexistent, and with the white finish and rose-gold accents it’s a classy looking item from any angle. The cover for the cables and tubular stand only enhance this pleasing aesthetic. Even the use of a custom MSI Dragon badge is a lovely touch and shows that MSI didn’t just reach into the parts bin to complete the look.

Speaking of the stand, the days in which you had to buy one as a matter of course are thankfully behind us. The PS341WU Prestige comes with a very adjustable stand with plenty of height and tilt so you can be assured of getting a comfortable position. Given how many hours of our lives are spent staring at our screen, whether for work or pleasure, then having an ergonomic position is vital to save your back in later years. Despite being a massive screen the stand gives lots of flexibility.

Flexibility is almost the watchword of the MSI PS341WU Prestige. It is by no means the first ultra-wide screen that can be split, but we love the huge amount of options with which you’re provided and the ease of getting up and running. Anyone who has been using monitors for a long time will weep with joy at the software based control setup rather than having to endure a hardware OSD, and you can fine tune everything from the brightness, through the DCI-P3 98% colour gamut, all the way up to how many separate windows there are and where they are positioned. It’s an absolute joy to use and revolutionises how quickly you can be up and running, whilst also vastly improving your workflow. If you thought a 4K panel offered you a lot of space then the additional room of this 5K2K panel is mind-blowing. Once you think of it as four full size 1080P displays AND enough room for Twitch chat or whatever then it starts to sink in.

The panel itself is up to the high standards one would expect from a monitor with a Prestige tag line and premium price point. IPS panels are consistently gorgeous and the one installed on the PS341WU is especially good, with the aforementioned wide colour gamut sitting alongside HDR600 and wide viewing angles for showing off your gaming exploits to the surrounding crowd. If you can stretch your budget to it it’s absolutely worth the investment. About the only minor flaw we found wasn’t a fault of the display at all, but a fair few games in our Steam library didn’t support an ultra-wide resolution in full-screen, so you either have to get used to the insanity of black bars on a 4K game, or running in a window. To be honest if you don’t run it in a window with Skype, a walkthrough or similar open alongside it then you’re not taking full advantage of all it has to offer.

The system is a surprise package. Surprising in that we knew the specifications before it arrived and never expected the packaging to be so tight. Sure it’s not going to break any world records in terms of lowest temperatures, but you’d be stunned at how good it actually is. The design team have gone all out on getting the maximum horsepower into a small package, and one that perfectly apes the aesthetic theme of the monitor it sits alongside. The days of an HTPC-sized chassis struggling to run Freecell are behind us, n’est-ce pas.

The MSI PS341WU Prestige is a display which looks gorgeous when off, hits the sweet spot between customisation and user-friendliness, all wrapped around spectacular image quality.

  

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