“The MSI MPG 271QR QD-OLED X50 shouldn’t be confused with the MSI MAG 272QP QD-OLED X50, though the two are similar.”

I almost spit my morning Diet Pepsi across my keyboard when I read that in a (frankly great) PCWorld review. Of course people will confuse those monitors! The names feel designed to be mixed up and forgotten.

It’s not a new problem. Monitor names suck and they always have.

If anyone should be able to keep track of monitor names, it’s Tim from Monitors Unboxed. But if there was another person who should be able to keep track of monitor names, it’d be me. I not only manage PCWorld magazine after analyzing PC tech for over 15 years, I’m also a degenerate monitor freak. Seriously, at one point I had not one, not two, but four high-end displays swapped in and out based on the game I was playing.

Don’t judge me, but do judge monitor makers for their awful naming and branding. Even I can’t keep these straight.

I led the charge with my “best PC accessory” pick in our 2025 Full Nerd awards: a genre-shattering 4K 240Hz beast dubbed the “MSI MPG 272URX QD-OLED.” Yes, that’s right. I had to look it up before shooting the podcast. And no, it shouldn’t be confused with either the MSI MPG 271QR QD-OLED X50 or MSI MAG 272QP QD-OLED X50.

MSI isn’t the only offender. Virtually all monitor makers seemingly choose their model names by plucking random noodles out of alphabet soup. Check out these legendarily unforgettable names from our roundup of the best gaming monitors:

• MSI MPG 272URX
• LG UltraGear 45GX950A-B
• Gigabyte GS34WQC
• Asus ROG Strix XG27AQDMG
• LG UltraGear 27GN950
• Asus ROG Strix XG27AQDPG
• Asus ROG Strix OLED XG32UCWG

I can identify the size of each monitor in those, but that’s it. The jumbled mix of numbers and letters instantly dribble out of your brain after reading each name. It’s a mess! And these are the best of the best, monitors I all actively want and would trade a kidney for!

When a friend or reader asks me for buying advice, it’s pretty easy to recommend an “RTX 5070” graphics card or “Ryzen 5” CPU depending on what sort of performance they’re after. Meanwhile, thanks to inane branding, it’s utterly impossible to make recommendations for monitors—and you can’t even use the names to identify general monitor speeds or panel types. Only size! They’re pointless.

It doesn’t have to be like this. Monitors like the HP Omen Transcend 32, Asus ProArt Display 5K, and Acer Predator X34 X0 get their points across with names you can actually process and remember. Vendors may be creating a wide range of monitors with different speeds and feeds, but the branding needs to improve.

With the RAM crunch and hardware shortages blowing around, industry experts expect 2026 to be a big year for monitor upgrades while people cling tightly to their older PCs. If a company can create badass monitors and give them names that people can identify without a decoder ring, it could be poised to rake in some serious cash.

Either way, this has been a problem for too long. Monitor makers: do better. Because I’m always going to confuse the MSI MPG 271QR QD-OLED X50 and the MSI MAG 272QP QD-OLED X50—if I even remember them to begin with.

Author: Brad Chacos, Executive Editor, PCWorld