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We tested the PG43UQ in its default Racing picture mode. It allows adjustment of all image parameters except color saturation. To access that slider, select the User mode. Color gamut accuracy was good enough that we didn’t need that control.
Grayscale and Gamma Tracking
We describe our grayscale and gamma tests in detail here.
Given the enclosed calibration data sheet, we were a little surprised by the default grayscale measurement run. The Warm Color Temp is indeed a bit warm with red errors visible from 40 to 100% brightness. For a premium screen, we’d expect better out-of-box performance. The good news is the gamma trace is essentially perfect.
Calibration of the RGB sliders brought grayscale tracking to the reference level with an average error of just 0.39 Delta E (dE). That’s about as good as it gets for any display. Gamma remained solid with a value of 2.21.
The GameVisual menu contains an sRGB option that accurately covers the sRGB color gamut and locks out all image controls including brightness. Its grayscale tracking is also too warm with a chart that looks much the same as the one from Racing mode. Gamma is a bit light at the 10% step, but it tracks well otherwise. We opted for the larger gamut of Racing mode for SDR content and suspect most users will make the same choice.
Comparisons
Acer’s CG437K is the king of our out-of-box grayscale accuracy test. 0.37dE is as good as it gets. With scores of 4.21dE for sRGB and 4.50dE for DCI-P3, the PG43UQ is noticeably behind the other screens. Since its gamma and color gamut are very accurate, this isn’t a huge issue, but we suggest users try our RGB settings at a minimum. With a few changes, we achieved a professional-grade score of 0.39dE. In any case, gamma is without flaw. A 0.05 range of values and a 0.45% deviation is as close to perfect as any premium monitor can boast.
Color Gamut Accuracy on Asus ROG Swift PG43UQ
For details on our color gamut testing and volume calculations, click here.
The ROG Swift PG43UQ’s native color gamut is DCI-P3, and you can see that it covers a large part of the triangle and comes quite close to all our test targets. Red is slightly over-saturated, and other colors are on-point. Secondaries are slightly off in hue, but those errors are not visible to the naked eye. Our recommended settings (page 1) brought all points into the target boxes with only a slight under-saturation in the green primary.
sRGB mode follows the spec closely with a little over-saturation in red and slight hue errors in cyan, magenta and yellow, but these errors cannot be seen by anything other than our test equipment.
Comparisons
As shown in the first chart, all the monitors here provide excellent DCI-P3 accuracy. While we consider 1dE to be a measure of top performance, any score below 3dE means there are no visible color errors. The ROG Swift PG43UQ achieves that without calibration and our adjustments yielded just a slight improvement.
The PG43UQ has few equals when it comes to DCI-P3 coverage. Asus claims 90%, and our sample measured up. Mainstream users will be happy with anything over 80%, but at the 90% level and above, color becomes incredibly vivid. Given this number and the invisible errors we recorded, the PG43UQ is more than qualified for professional use in video post-production or high-end graphics. That it costs less than a true professional screen like the 27-inch CP7271K is notable.
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