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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shonferg - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
I found the article here on AndandTech that gave me the impression that G-sync can do self-refresh:http://www.anandtech.com/show/7582/nvidia-gsync-re...
"You can only do so much with VBLANK manipulation though. In present implementations the longest NVIDIA can hold a single frame is 33.3ms (30Hz). If the next frame isn’t ready by then, the G-Sync module will tell the display to redraw the last frame."
"Game/hardware/settings combinations that result in frame rates below 30 fps will exhibit stuttering since the G-Sync display will be forced to repeat frames"
Of course, that article was about first gen, pre-release hardware, and I don't know if things have changed since that initial article.
But if that's still the way it works, it sounds like it will only kick in if the frame rate is below 30 fps, and even then it's kind of dumb in that it waits the full 33 ms before re-showing the previous frame. So if the next frame is ready moments later, it will have to wait for the next refresh, causing a stutter.
Unfortunately, it sounds like it wasn't doing anything smart like noticing frame rate is falling lower than a certain threshold and then doubling the frame rate to prevent the possibility of flicker and stutter. Seems like it needs the ability for the GPU to send a "redraw the last frame now" command for situations like that so that frame refresh can be doubled without doubling bandwidth requirements.
GameLifter - Friday, February 13, 2015 - link
I got this monitor at launch and I'm still loving it. G-Sync is incredible, ULMB is incredible, the higher refresh rate makes a noticeable difference, and the color quality is very good for a TN panel. Heck, better than any TN panel I've seen.However, I did notice a dead pixel towards the top of the screen recently. It's not bad but I hope more don't start to show up. Back light uniformity is sub par but it's not very noticeable to me unless I have my lights off and the screen is black or a darker color.
Overall I'm very pleased with this monitor and hopefully higher refresh rate panels and VRR technology become the norm.
pandemonium - Saturday, February 14, 2015 - link
May as well remove the Input Lag from the reviews until you can produce some results for that. Every time I see that I get disappointed because that's a key metric for me.cheinonen - Saturday, February 14, 2015 - link
It's only missing on monitors that are DisplayPort only, which has only been the G-Sync models to this point. If we left the section out without the explanation, it would cause far more comments.wyewye - Saturday, February 14, 2015 - link
Why are you reviewing an year old stuff?What do you have to add compared to the other gazillion reviews of ROG Swift out there?
Apparently nothing.
Nothing about latency or input lag on a gaming monitor review.
Really pathetic.
Whats going on with you AnandTech? Severe budget cuts?
cheinonen - Saturday, February 14, 2015 - link
Input lag was addressed in the piece. Since the ROG Swift runs at a resolution beyond a CRT, and has no HDMI input for a lag tester, there is no way to generate a reliable number for lag. I've seen numbers for it that indicate under 5ms when using SMTT, but SMTT stopped issuing licenses and ours expired, so I cannot use it to test anymore. If you have a way to measure the input lag that is reliable and accurate and works with DisplayPort, we'd love to know.Slowking - Saturday, February 14, 2015 - link
"Why are you reviewing an year old stuff?"I clicked on the article half hoping it contained more information on a forthcoming cheaper version of the Swift.
Achaios - Saturday, February 14, 2015 - link
Honestly, I cannot see a difference between 60 Hz and 144 Hz, which leads me to assume that: 1. Either my eyes are defective or 2. Those who claim to see a difference between 60Hz and 144 Hz are lying.snuuggles - Saturday, February 14, 2015 - link
It's not your eyes, it's your brain. I guess it could be like being colorblind or something. In a way, it's an advantage to you because you'll never need to bother spending money on something like this :)Murloc - Saturday, February 14, 2015 - link
it's like being an audio peasant, you spare lots of money if you're content with desktop speakers.I've never tried a 144Hz monitor so the jury is still out for me.