Dell S2417DG colour banding - any solutions?

[Cakefish]

I'm a sucker for punishment...

 

Tried out two AOC AG271QG monitors... both with obvious backlight bleed (one with bonus bright pixels in the centre of the display too). Returned both.

 

Now I have the Dell S2417DG. Minimal backlight bleed (not even in the same league as the AOC monitors) and no dead/bright pixels. However, it has the worst colour banding I've ever seen. To the point where the budget 6 bit TN panel in my work laptop has better IQ despite lower contrast, worse colours and poorer viewing angles - the banding artifacts on this Dell monitor are just that bad.

 

I've tried messing around in the NVIDIA control panel with vibrancy/gamma/dynamic range, using various ICC profiles, tweaking the OSD options, reinstalling the monitor driver... it alleviates the banding very slightly but it's still very apparent.

 

Anyone know of any fixes? I feel I've tried them all after lots of frantic searching online. I intend to return it to the PC store after work tomorrow and have ordered a 3rd(!) AOC AG271QG for collection there tomorrow and plan to do a good ol' swaparoo with the cashier (they'll think I'm a reeal weirdo but oh well).

 

I will cancel the order of the 3rd AOC monitor and keep the Dell if anyone can give me a known fix for the colour banding. I haven't got much hope left in me at this point though. Sick to my stomach of the poor QC among gaming monitors.

 

Thanks in advance.