ASUS ROG Swift PG278Q G-SYNC Monitor Review
by Chris Heinonen & Jarred Walton on February 13, 2015 10:00 AM ESTDisplay Uniformity
The ASUS ROG display is a bit dim at the top of the display. Overall light levels fall close to 20% compared to the center of the screen. The lower-right corner also has as issue here, as light output falls up to 16% compared to the center. The center of the display is very good overall for light output, just the top 20% and the lower-right corner are dim.
Thankfully the black uniformity shows the same issues here, with drops in black level in the same areas that white level falls. This will provide blacker-blacks here, but more importantly it keeps the contrast ratios similar across the screen. Blacker-blacks are always good, but it could lead to a bit of shadow crush if the backlight is too low for the gamma curve and black floor.
Contrast uniformity is very even across the display. The lowest contrast ratio is 777:1 and the maximum is 947:1 with a median value of 865:1. This is very close to the center measurement so while parts of the screen have an issue with the backlight not being bright enough, overall the uniformity between black and white is good.
The biggest issue is with color uniformity. Since the dE2000 reading takes into account the luminance level of the color, this light fall-off causes the error levels to rise around the screen. The center of the screen is very good, but the top and lower-right cause the median dE2000 error to rise up to 1.65 with an overall average error of 2.15. This certainly isn’t up to the levels of a professional display, but is in line with a gaming display right now. Again, fine for gaming but not for photos.
The ASUS ROG has some definite issues with backlight uniformity that manifest themselves through being too dim at the top and lower-right. This causes a rise in the dE2000 errors for colors as the luminance is too low. The center of the screen, where you’ll look most, is nice and uniform but overall the display is just fair here.
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cheinonen - Friday, February 13, 2015 - link
As this is my final review here at AnandTech, I just wanted to thank everyone that read them and commented on them over the past few years. I've always enjoyed my work and hope most of you enjoyed it as well, and I'm sure whoever handles displays next will continue to be excellent.kyuu - Friday, February 13, 2015 - link
Thanks for the great work Chris, and good luck with whatever has stolen you away from us!Essence_of_War - Friday, February 13, 2015 - link
It was a pleasure to read your reviews, I'll keep following your work at WC, best wishes going forward!wyewye - Saturday, February 14, 2015 - link
Good riddance noob. L2 measure response time and input lag without a CRT next time.cheinonen - Saturday, February 14, 2015 - link
I'm sure I can look forward to your reviews that address all the deficiencies in mine soon.SpeedyTheTurtle - Friday, February 13, 2015 - link
I set up monitor arrays and I have found it very difficult to find the right information on monitor bezels. Would it be possible to measure the distance from the outer most pixel to the edge of the monitor on future reviews? This information seams to be distorted or misleading from a lot of the manufacturers.ExarKun333 - Friday, February 13, 2015 - link
Seems like this would have been a good monitor 1-2 years ago. For this price, it just isn't worth-it with UWD and 4k panels in the same price range.ssddaydream - Friday, February 13, 2015 - link
People talk a lot of smack on this monitor it seems or try to justify why it doesn't suit their needs. I own one and a GTX 980 and I can tell you that it is far superior in terms of motion than any LCD I've seen and it is about on par in terms of motion with my retired Sony GDM-C520K. The Asus has a much higher refresh rate than the Sony, not to mention resolution and size.My unit hasn't had any QC issues, so I'm happy about that.
Hopefully the future will bring 4K or greater color-calibrated OLED desktop displays. Until then I'll wait it out to see if IPS becomes worth a damn for motion and in the meantime enjoy the next best thing to CRT.
shonferg - Friday, February 13, 2015 - link
I thought the main point of the GSync module was that, unlike standard monitors, it has an internal frame buffer to enable self-refresh. Am I remembering incorrectly?The reason I ask is that I would not think that a self-refresh capable monitor would need the video card to actually re-send the previous frame over HDMI or DisplayPort in do a refresh to keep the pixels lit up in low-framerate situations. I would think that, theoretically, even though the interconnect is limited to 60hz, if the panel itself were capable of 144hz then self-refreshes could still be done at that speed internally to the monitor.
Or perhaps the connection between G-Sync and the panel itself becomes the bottleneck at that point?
JarredWalton - Friday, February 13, 2015 - link
I don't think the G-SYNC module does a self-refresh like you're describing. I could be wrong, but if it decided to start a refresh just before a new frame got sent, there would be either more latency or tearing, and neither is desirable. Anyway, whatever is happening, I know at 30FPS (e.g. in certain cut scenes where the FPS is locked at 30), flicker is more evident to me on the Acer than on this one, but I think there's still flicker here so I don't believe the PG278Q is refreshing the display twice (e.g. at 90 Hz) when the frame rate is 45 FPS.