ASUS ROG Swift PG278Q G-SYNC Monitor Review
by Chris Heinonen & Jarred Walton on February 13, 2015 10:00 AM ESTsRGB Data and Bench Tests
Before calibration, the ASUS ROG monitor displays a blue tint to the grayscale but it keeps the overall grayscale errors below the visible error level of 3.0 dE2000. The gamma tracks low, at closer to 2.0 than 2.2, which will give the image a bit more of a washed-out look than the proper gamma will. The larger errors exist in the color gamut, where there is an oversaturation to reds, yellows, oranges, and especially blues. Blue has both a tint and saturation issues, and the errors there grow steadily as the saturation ramps from 0% to 100%. Unfortunately, since the ASUS ROG has no internal LUT, like most displays, these color errors probably cannot be fixed.
For calibration, we use SpectraCal CalMAN 5.3.5 with our own custom workflow. We target 200 cd/m2 of light output with a gamma of 2.2 and the sRGB color gamut, which corresponds to a general real-world use case. The meters used are an i1Pro2 provided by X-Rite and a SpectraCal C6. All measurements use APL 50% patterns except for uniformity testing, which uses full field.
| Pre-Calibration | Post-Calibration, 200 cd/m2 |
Post-Calibration, 80 cd/m2 |
|
| White Level ( cd/m2) | 198.7 | 200.9 | 81.8 |
| Black Level ( cd/m2) | 0.2253 | 0.2246 | 0.0952 |
| Contrast Ratio | 882:1 | 895:1 | 859:1 |
| Gamma (Average) | 2.02 | 1.97 | 2.07 |
| Color Temperature | 6659K | 6515K | 6557K |
| Grayscale dE2000 | 2.48 | 2.47 | 0.76 |
| Color Checker dE2000 | 3.64 | 2.16 | 2.74 |
| Saturations dE2000 | 2.85 |
Post-calibration the gamma and RGB balance are almost perfect. The average grayscale dE2000 falls to below 0.6 which is invisible to the naked eye. The only issue is the contrast ratio, but I believe that is a bad reading at 0% since it is coming out much higher than our black reading at maximum backlight earlier. The contrast ratio should be closer to 850:1 based on the amount of fixing needed for the RGB balance. The 80 cd/m2 measurements will back this up, so this number is just a bad read.
Colors are better, because the luminance values have improved, but the overall errors are still high due to over-saturation of certain colors. Blue continues to be the worst, followed by yellow, with all skin tones on the color checker showing errors close to 3.0. On photos of people they look a bit sunburnt, as the saturation of reds and oranges is too high, compared to a proper display. It isn’t awful, but it isn’t a monitor I would use for photo editing either. Since ASUS positions the ROG for gamers I don’t think this is a big deal as the numbers are close enough. The pre-calibration numbers are really more important here, and those indicate a bit more of this red push than after calibration.
Changing our targets to 80 cd/m2 and the sRGB gamma curve, we see similar results on another calibration. The contrast ratio here is 859:1, indicating there was a bad read earlier on the 200 cd/m2 data. The RGB balance is again perfect though the gamma curve not as much. sRGB is harder to get right, and it is dimmer providing less room for adjustment, so this isn’t surprising.
Colors show the exact same issues as with 200 cd/m2 since adjusting the backlight level doesn’t affect the saturation of the colors. People look like they have gotten a bit too much sun compared to what they should look like. For gaming, where the colors are just imaginary to begin with, I don’t think this is a big problem but it just means it can’t serve double-duty as a display for editing photos or other things. Movies will also look a bit off on it, but no worse than a regular TV will before a calibration.
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tanooki - Friday, February 13, 2015 - link
Unfortunately you're misinterpreting refresh rate for response time.The ASUS monitor has 1ms response time while the
Acer: "one of the world’s first IPS monitors with a response time of only 4ms G-to-G"
DiHydro - Friday, February 13, 2015 - link
If it is 4 ms Gray to Gray, that means it should be able to achieve 144 Hz if the screen is refreshing at that. Required response time for 144 Hz is 6.944... ms. 4 ms on the dot would get you 240 Hz, and of course 1 ms should equal 1000 Hz.That does not mean these displays will not have input lag, another issue for FPS and fast paced games, or terrible picture quality, an issue for everyone and movies especially.
doggghouse - Tuesday, February 17, 2015 - link
If they advertise "4ms GtG," it is most likely closer to a 6ms average transition time. If you read the reviews on TFT Central, when they measure actual pixel response times, they are often about 2-3ms higher than the reported value. For example, the Swift is a supposed "1ms GtG" panel, but in practice the average transition time was about 3ms.In reality, the ghosting effect of slow pixel response times could be a minor problem for an IPS running at 120+ Hz, however... I'd take an IPS running at 120Hz over one at 60Hz any day... the blur caused by ghosting is minimal compared to the blur caused by 60Hz persistence compared to 120Hz persistence.
The one thing that incredibly fast pixel response times allow for is strobing, which makes LCD behave practically like a CRT display, meaning practically 0 motion blur. For now, IPS doesn't look like it can transition fast enough for a clean strobe.
yefi - Friday, February 13, 2015 - link
Sorry, I misread low for lower. TN is still the quickest to be sure, though as DiHydro points out, IPS should now cleanly manage transitions at 120 and 144Hz.theunwarshed - Saturday, February 14, 2015 - link
that's advertised, the true response time is closer to 3ms on "normal" OD settings for the Swift per: http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/asus_rog_swift...theunwarshed - Saturday, February 14, 2015 - link
if we're talking total input lag (signal processing+response time) than BenQ's XL2720Z is actually a little faster. it's a TN 144hz, 3d vision w/o g-sync @ $450. a better deal imo than the Swift.mackanz72 - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
27" @ 1080p? And i thought 24" @ 1200p was bad.How in the world is that a better deal?
I'm not saying the Swift is a good deal, since it is really a crappy piece of junk seeing all the quality issues it has. Online shops are stockpiling refurbished units from Asus that few wants to touch with a ten foot pole.
But 27" and only 1080p in 2015? No way.
FlushedBubblyJock - Sunday, February 15, 2015 - link
One hopes that AMD can finally deliver it's freesync vaporware, but no one should hold their breath.I think Asus and their ROG is hoopla is half the tax.
Next we'll get a $300 over normal price 1nf1n1ty gamerz gsync so all the drooling ad controlled robotic braggers can forum it up.
Well at least it's not quite as bad as apple fans.
D. Lister - Thursday, March 12, 2015 - link
AMD will indeed deliver FreeSync. They've got a bunch of monitor manufacturers onboard for this (who admittedly would just need to add a few extra lines of code to their firmware for this, but still), so they can't just back out now.<speculation > The problem is with the way FS works. When the framerate is reasonably consistent, it would work fine, but if the framerate is jumping around, there would probably be some stuttering. Ultimately I suppose, as per AMD's MO of late, it would be another compromise between price and quality.</speculation>
Raphash - Wednesday, February 18, 2015 - link
I paid the nVidia tax... I was one of the lucky folks that got this monitor when it first came out. Boy was that an adventure!!! Constantly trying to find someone that had a stock of it. Anyways, I was also fortunate enough to get a great display in terms of backlight bleed etc. I have had ZERO issues with mine. Now that I have seen G-Sync in motion... I would have gladly paid $1,000 for this monitor. Fortunately, I got mine for $800. This monitor is truly the best gaming monitor I have ever owned!!! For me, it even beats out my old trusty Sony GDM-500 display and that's saying something!!