sRGB Test Bench

All calibration measurements are done using SpectraCal’s CalMAN 5.3 software with a custom workflow. Measurements are done using a C6 colorimeter that is first profiled against an i1Pro spectrometer to ensure accurate results. There are two sets of targets we use. Pre-Calibration and our first calibration aim for 200 cd/m^2 with an sRGB gamut and a gamma of 2.2. This is a common real-world setting for a display. The final target changes the white level to 80 cd/m^2 and the gamma curve to the tougher AdobeRGB standard.

 

Pre-Calibration

Post-Calibration,
200 cd/m^2
Post-Calibration,
80 cd/m^2
White Level (cd/m^2) 204.1 201.0 84.3
Black Level (cd/m^2) 0.275 0.281 0.131
Contrast Ratio 742:1 716:1 644:1
Gamma (Average) 1.90 2.17 2.45
Color Temperature 6702K 6629K 6506K
Grayscale dE2000 2.74 0.44 0.81
Color Checker dE2000 3.37 1.53 1.65
Saturations dE2000 2.41 1.42 1.50

For this review I’ve switched from taking 21 measurement points to taking 256 levels for grayscale. It provides a much better level of detail than before. Color measurements can’t be measured at the same level of detail, but I do measure them as much as possible.

Using the "Warmish" color temperature setting, we see a good RGB balance before calibration. What isn’t as good is the gamma point, which starts out at 1.6, rises up to 2.0 and then falls down quickly at the top end. This causes crushing of highlights, where values from 90%-100% will look almost identical, and causes shadows to be washed out as well. Colors also have errors with colors on the Green-Yellow-Red side of the CIEuv chart being over-saturated. This also causes the skin tones to be exaggerated.

Post-calibration at 200 cd/m2 the RGB balance is improved but more importantly the gamma is far improved. The gamma is so far off the 2.2 target above 90% that we can’t fully correct it here, but calibration does a good job of fixing it overall. The dE2000 errors fall and are all below 2.0 now with an average of 0.44 that is very good. Color errors improve but there is still a lot of over-saturation in oranges, yellows, greens, and reds that cause visible issues. The lower half of the color gamut is much more accurate.

When we target 80 cd/m2 we see more issues with the gamma, as the lower light output provides us less range to fix the gamma through the hardware LUTs. The grayscale dE2000 is higher as a result but still below 2.0 everywhere. Colors have the same issues, as the green line is hidden behind the yellow line on the saturations chart, but it is otherwise almost the same as it is with 200 cd/m2.

The pre-calibration numbers are okay for the QNIX, but the main thing that holds it back is the gamma preset it utilizes. It makes it hard to hit the gamma target of 2.2 that we look for and means you can see some highlight clipping, even after calibration.

Brightness and Contrast Display Uniformity
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  • anandtechbug - Friday, April 18, 2014 - link

    I was willing to pay for a good monitor around $700 but I found that Qnix DVI-D is equal or better than those monitors. Was really looking forward to purchasing this model. Pls suggest a good one for photo editing.
  • cubebomb - Sunday, April 20, 2014 - link

    I have two of these i bought 6 months ago.

    They are amazing. I have them OCed at 96hz which makes everything smoother than 60hz.

    Only one of the panels can go to 120Hz without problems. The other one will just give weird red lines so the sweetspot was a 96hz for me. Games running at 96FPS or 120 FPS is hard for me to tell that much of a difference. I love these badboys.

    The resolution is amazing and i have no problems with colors. I am not doing photography or webdesign. I am playing video games and they look no different than my old 1080p panel.

    I am playing 96fps at 1440p ! amazing
  • Z15CAM - Sunday, April 27, 2014 - link

    You have reviewed the WRONG QNIX. The popular one is the over-clockable QNIX QX2710 Evolution II PLS LED Display with a single DVI-D interface that cost approx $300 from South Korea.
  • aithos - Friday, July 25, 2014 - link

    Clarification of Overclocking on QNIX:

    The reason you were unable to overclock without dropping frames is because you have the wrong version of this monitor. Only the base models (single dual-dvi input) of the QNIX QX2710 and XSTAR 2710 and Yamasaki Catleap 2B that are able to overclock. None of the multi-input models are able to overclock, the only reason the base models are able to overclock is because of the bypass board (and lack of a scaler). As a side effect, you cannot hook up console gaming systems because they will not be able to output a supported resolution due to the lack of a scaler on the monitor.

    I have seen countless posts on this topic, seen countless screenshots of the proof they don't frame skip and I personally own the XSTAR version (same monitor, different reseller) and have it overclocked to 110 without any frame dropping. I was able to get to 120hz but I start getting artifacts in some games (Skyrim) at that framerate and so I chose to drop down for ease of use.
  • Phreedom1 - Wednesday, August 13, 2014 - link

    Yes..they know that now. It's been brought up many times over the last several months in this thread.

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