Asus PG279Q ROG Swift 27-inch 165Hz Gaming Monitor Review
Brightness And Contrast
To read about our monitor tests in-depth, please check out Display Testing Explained: How We Test Monitors and TVs. Brightness and Contrast testing is covered on page two.
Uncalibrated – Maximum Backlight Level
We've reviewed so many adaptive-refresh monitors over the past 18 months that it was difficult to decide which ones to include in the comparison group. Since the PG279Q is a premium product, that's the direction we went. All the screens here are 27-inch QHD panels with either G-Sync or FreeSync, representing IPS and TN technology. From last year we have the previous ROG Swift PG278Q plus Asus' two FreeSync displays, the MG278Q and MG279Q. Completing the round-up are Acer's XG270HU and XB270HU gaming displays. All are priced at the high end but FreeSync will save you around $200 at the same size and resolution.
There's no shortage of light output from any of the monitors but you can see what a difference the backlight strobing of ULMB makes. This is a 67 percent reduction and that's with both Brightness and Pulse Width at their maximums. Dropping the PW for greater blur-reduction makes the picture even darker.
The reduction in black level is about the same in ULMB mode, which means that contrast isn't affected too greatly. Compared to the rest, the PG279Q comes in mid-pack for blacks. It's a decent panel but the MG279Q and XB270HU are a little better.
Max contrast just cracks the 1000:1 level we look for. One caveat though—this is at the Contrast slider's default setting, which clips detail and reduces gamma accuracy. We'll see how calibration affects the final outcome below.
Uncalibrated – Minimum Backlight Level
Turning Brightness down to zero yields a 61.2828cd/m2 white level. It isn't quite at our preferred 50cd/m2 point but it's close enough for good image quality and gameplay in a completely dark room. The MG278Q and XB270HU are pretty much unusable at their minimum settings.
The PG279Q's minimum black level is consistent with the results we've recorded so far. The only way to do any better is with an AMVA display like the BenQ XR3501, but that means giving up both vertical resolution and adaptive refresh.
This represents very consistent contrast performance through the entire range of the backlight. But as we said above, there are bright-level detail issues associated with an incorrectly set contrast slider. We'll see how the fix affects the results now.
After Calibration to 200cd/m2
After calibration, the PG279Q retains its third-place standing in the black level test. The adjustment doesn't seem to affect the quality of low-end image detail.
We thought reducing the Contrast slider eight steps would kill the contrast ratio but it has only come down a small amount to our great relief. The drop is a mere seven percent, which is not much at all. What is obvious is the huge improvement in highlight detail and mid-range color saturation. The best IPS gaming monitors are based on the part shared by the MG279Q and XB270HU but the PG279Q isn't too far behind. So you aren't giving up any image quality to go with G-Sync and a super-high refresh rate.
ANSI Contrast Ratio
ANSI contrast is affected by a panel's uniformity, hence the lower result here. We could see slight hotspots at the upper-left and lower-right portions of our PG279Q sample. It doesn't impact most content but in very dark material, those corners look a bit washed-out.
It's interesting to note that this monitor is actually more demanding than a 4k 60hz monitor. Even though this is only a 2k monitor, it actually has nearly 3x the Hz compared to it's 4k counterparts, making it not supprising that you need at least dual GTX 980tis/Titan Xes to run everything at good settings.
Now add the PG279Q's fast IPS performance and better contrast to the mix and it seems like an intriguing proposition...
The reviewer is spot on.
So you need to spend over 2K to really enjoy the product? That's insane to be honest. If you are a regular person out there and all you are willing to spend is $200 on the card (most common option that people chose) that means you will be able to buy that card and fully maxout this monitor oh in about 7 years or so, that's how long it will take for a GTX960 equivalent to be as powerful as 2 980ti's.
G sync will help with that.
Plus, like the reviewer said, this monitor is has future proofing in mind. It's designed for future cards that can handle this kind of product.
This is totally wrong, don't mislead people researching things. I have the Acer XB270HU and run everything at max settings on single GTX 970. IT is not more demanding than a 4k monitor in anyway. As someone with Techy in their name I would imagine you had a clue about this.
What games do you play?
No, he is wrong, a single GTX 970 will handle this just fine at 1440p and 144hz ( Assuming you have a decent i5 or i7 cpu or amd equivalent ). The refresh rate itself doesn't add to system performance degradation, but scaling the resolution would. Hence why you need 2 high end cards to run anything at max settings on ''4k'', and even that isn't enough most of the time.
Been playing a lot of CoD Black Ops 3 lately, Guild Wars 2, Diablo 3, Shadows or mordor when really bored.
IPS is too slow.
The objective of 165hz isn't for you to reach that many frames per seconds(would be great if you could, but not realistic) . It allows for more refreshes in-between frames as well. That with the addition of G-Sync allow for the "smooth as glass" type images you see from people using these monitors. 2560x1440 is only 3.686 million pixels, 3840*2160 is 8.294 million pixels. HUGE difference when it comes to processing power on your GPU. If you get 60 fps on 1440p, you'll get less than 30 fps on 4k.
http://www.amazon.com/SWIFT-PG279Q-Screen-LED-Lit-Monitor/dp/B017EVR2VM/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1456168896&sr=1-1&keywords=Asus+PG279Q
Oh ok. Cause for me, when I want to buy a monitor, I want to get the fully blown 165fps out of it. Not being able to max out the refresh rate on a monitor your buying that expensive is dumb in my opinion.
You either pay for the performance once with the G-sync monitor or you keep buying a multi-card setup to push framerates higher to reduce perceivable tearing (even though it's still there).
Understood. Yeah sorry, I'm typically an FPS dude. I really don't like the latency that comes from not being at the maximum/equal refresh rate.
I also forgot that the monitor included G sync. My bad.
The two primary reasons I have not gone for a G-Sync monitor in the past were because of price and them being TN panels. Sure, TN panels these days are much better than in years past and when calibrated with a decent tool like from X-Rite or Datacolor, can be real close to IPS quality. But a TN's viewing angle still falls short of IPS.
Optimally I'd like to run 100-120FPS in games at the full capability of my GPU power. G-Sync would fit that bill, but at the price point even though it's AHVA-IPS, I'm still not feeling the love at $800(US). For $600, then I'll seriously consider it even though I've tried two different ASUS PB278Q 1440p monitors and had to return them both due to poor quality (too many dead pixels on one, severe light bleed on the other)...the reason I gave up and went Dell.
I'm sorry to inform, but this monitor has been riddled with unacceptable QC problems. A quick google and you will find countless comments of people RMA'ing upto 5-6 panels before they got a good one.
I strongly encourage anyone interested in buying one of these to check this video where they compared a big pool of the monitor, and around half and over were terrible with bleed.
https://goo.gl/arzccq
Add to that Asus not saying anything officially should inform you about what you're getting into.
If you get a good sample, awesome. Be prepared to spend a lot of waiting around and stress though if you luck out (high chance of this). Pretty unacceptable for such a pricey product.
Did reviewers not know about this?
My immediate conclusion to the monitors are:
1) The response times on the PG279Q wasn't noticeable (they were demonstrating a racing game). Actually the only time I really notice blurring was when I switched from PG278Q and BL3201PT to compare the IQ of the two, but the blurring largely disappears after several minutes. So, IMHO, the response time difference between the monitors are mostly on paper. Some people may notice it more.
2) IPS Glow: XB271HU completely blows PG279Q out of the water on this one. The Acer stand allowed me to see a fully black screen, and my immediate reaction was that XB271HU's glow is comparable to that of PG278Q, but PG279Q was woeful. I concentrated on a black patch of a webpage (the Asus stand won't let me change the picture), and it was placed right next to a white background, which should make IPS glow less noticeable (due to perceived contrast), but it was actually MORE noticeable in that configuration than Acer's completely black screen. So for all intents and purposes, I struck off PG279Q as a possible purchase. I was completely unwilling to sacrifice black levels for viewing angles.
3) Price: PG279Q and XB271HU costs the same here, but cost is somewhat irrelevant to me at the price range (sub $1000), I was more than willing to spend extra on a better monitor.
In the end, I settled on BL3201PT. XB271HU might have swayed me if I was looking into replacing my PG278Q, but I wasn't, though if I was doing it all over again, Acer would be my first pick, followed by PG278Q, THEN PG279Q. YMMV as I have a greater tolerance towards TN and far less tolerance towards IPS glow.