The Asus ROG SWIFT PG278Q – a 27” 1400p 144Hz Monitor with G-SYNC

[whyscotty]

has anyone tried creating a custom 4k resolution then down sampling

4K downsampled @ 60hz with g-sync could make things very interesting

No joy I'm afraid

 

[InSync]

@1kiwi - Post 1979!

Thanks for the headsup, and I myself havent noticed even the slightest input lag with g-sync on and I really hate lag to, so this is perfect and in line what nVidia promised

Input lag can be noticed if games runs with to low fps, ex in Crysis 3 for me it can get laggy if not overcklock my gtx 780, then when I get over say 50fps I get no lag. Im sure thats what most people notice as input lag and belive it's g-sync fault, but it's not

 

[darth.mader]

lol g-sync been wonderful for me. What a brilliant monitor.

 

[InSync]

The OSD settings is overdrive and the higher its set the faster the pixels will change. TFTCentral recommends keeping it set to normal for best results as extreme adds pretty bad overhsoot which will lead to trails/ghosting. Also make sure you have set your refresh rate to 144hz in nvidia control panel (cant remember if it defaults to that). If you press the turbo button (above the power button) is should say turbo 144hz on screen. (I was under the impression that this button was supposed to switch between the different refresh rates but it doesnt for me, just lets me know which refresh rate i've got it set at in nvidia control panel).

My settings fully calibrated are:

Colour Temp: User Mode
Red: 95
Green: 95
Blue: 100
Brightness: 24
Contrast: 50

That gives me a white point of 6505k with a brightness of 120cd/m2 which is what I like best. Any brighter and I find it way to harsh. I'm coming from a 1440p IPS and the colours while not as deep/rich are still very good in my opinion. Much much better then my old benq 11t which was horrible.

Results

Quick question, what colorimeter did you use Jeps ?

 

[1kiwi]

Important point regarding ULMB.

The ULMB in GSYNC monitors have a much wider brightness adjustment range, and can go dimmer than LightBoost=10%. However, it uses voltage control, not strobe width. So you don't get less motion blur during lower brightness like you do with LightBoost. ULMB persistence is currently fixed at 2ms, similar to LightBoost=60% but at all brightness levels.

For some reason I thought the lower the ULMB percentage the greater the reduction in motion blur but that's not the case. I find around 30-50 is about right.

 

[InSync]

Important point regarding ULMB.



For some reason I thought the lower the ULMB percentage the greater the reduction in motion blur but that's not the case. I find around 30-50 is about right.

Hmm strange, I was under that impression to, so this was good to hear. Nice find mate

 

[PCM2]

Important point regarding ULMB...

That isn't true, it is only specific to the VG248QE with G-SYNC kit. You can clearly see from TFT Central's testing on the PG278Q that the strobe time ('on period') is altered by the 'Pulse Width' setting in the monitor's OSD. Reducing this reduces both brightness and persistence.

 

[1kiwi]

That isn't true, it is only specific to the VG248QE with G-SYNC kit. You can clearly see from TFT Central's testing on the PG278Q that the strobe time ('on period') is altered by the 'Pulse Width' setting in the monitor's OSD. Reducing this reduces both brightness and persistence.

Thanks for clearing that up. So lower is better from a motion blur perspective.

 

[Baddass]

Yes but only for a keen eye. Some people won't notice much real difference but it's there to play with

 

[InSync]

Hey guys!

Me and my rumbling about that Colorimeter, any sugestion what I should get if/when I get one would be nice

Is the Spyder4 Pro or maybe the X-Rite ColorMunki what I should get ?

As you guys said making a profile are little to no use for gaming as the game overides it annyway, I just want a colorimeter just for setting up the right values as Brightness and RGB for the absolute best setting I can for my screen and setup

 

[VEGACORTEZ]

Hey guys!

Me and my rumbling about that Colorimeter, any sugestion what I should get if/when I get one would be nice

Is the Spyder4 Pro or maybe the X-Rite ColorMunki what I should get ?

As you guys said making a profile are little to no use for gaming as the game overides it annyway, I just want a colorimeter just for setting up the right values as Brightness and RGB for the absolute best setting I can for my screen and setup

Don't like spyder at all. I have had two x-rite types that were better. At the moment i use the x-rite i1 display pro with the HCFR program and have MP4 AVSHD test patterns on the PC. Don't like using bundled software as that is for ICC profiles which i don't want or need. I think the colormunki is the same colorimeter that you get with the x-rite i have though plus it's cheaper.

 

[pmc25]

It would appear that ASUS US are now saying that when the monitor hits mid-late August in the US, it will be priced at $650.

If true, that has to be the most outrageous regional price gouging in the last 10 years in PC gaming. $650 is £300 less than OCUK's (albeit inflated) current price.

Beggars belief.

Edit: Importing one from the US (including delivery and VAT), would be £160-170 cheaper than buying in the UK at £690. That's totally bananas.

 

[mastering3d]

I don't have any other Display port cables only mini ones this is full size both ends , Not been on the PC all day today so went to play some BF4 ,And what a joke that turned out to be .


Was more like stutter lag fields monitor was showing RED light on so meaning G-SYNC enabled sli is on game setting i set to mid no AA getting 98 to 120 fps game was like a slidshow then i hit esc and the mouse cursor was stuttering when moving to exit the game so i really have no clue whats going on then i was back to desktop was moving smooth again , Had nothing but bad luck with this monitor just feel like taking it to a cliff and dropping it off .

I will be getting on the shop where i got it from ASAP Monday . Problem is if this is faulty and i want to get another one i don't think there will be any ,i may just get a refund for now ,if i can then hang it out .. I no a lot you guys are amazed by just how great this monitor is so there as to be some thing wrong with my one that's all i can think off ,

 

[InSync]

Don't like spyder at all. I have had two x-rite types that were better. At the moment i use the x-rite i1 display pro with the HCFR program and have MP4 AVSHD test patterns on the PC. Don't like using bundled software as that is for ICC profiles which i don't want or need. I think the colormunki is the same colorimeter that you get with the x-rite i have though plus it's cheaper.

Alright, good to know and by some googling people seems to like the x-rite better, so I guess I should get one of those then.

So I will have to use external program for it then as I also dont care about creating an ICC profil. Well I better get back to you later on when I get one. To be sure to get the right progs e.tc

Okey, then it seems the colormunki will do fine, so thanks a million for the tips mate

 

[Baddass]

I really think you will be wasting your money buying a colorimeter for that reason. You would get just as good a set up for free using the calibrated OSD settings from the tftcentral review. Use the RGB values from there and brightness can just be set to whatever value you find comfortable. The brightness control doesn't impact any other aspect of the calibration so use whatever you prefer for your ambient light, eyes and screen uses

 

[kasakka]

The stock calibration is really good on mine at least so I don't think most people need to calibrate it much further. Brightness is the only thing I changed.

 

[kasakka]

Two days with the Swift. Compared to my old Dell 3008WFP (2560x1600, 30", IPS):

• The 120/144 Hz modes have really spoiled me. Even with games where I don't come anywhere close to 120 FPS I've really liked using ULMB mode. The picture clarity and motion is so much better. Motion clarity and smoothness is the one thing that puts this in a class of its own.
• Brightness with ULMB has been perfectly fine both during the day and at night. It seems that if the pulse width setting is lower than 90 it gets darker. The lowest settings are close to unusable.
• Viewing angles are quite acceptable! This was my biggest worry and I'm glad it was an unnecessary one. Sideways there isn't too bad color shifting and vertically it's bad but when sitting normally I don't notice any shifts or big differences between top and bottom.
• Colors are really good out of the box, no real need to adjust anything but brightness. Colors surprisingly are not that different, I think the ASUS does tremendously well here and the stock calibration is really good. It's somewhat hard to compare since the Dell has a wider gamut so its colors are more saturated. I think the ASUS would be fine for non-color-critical image editing at SRGB.
• The "GamePlus" mode has the crappiest design. Crosshairs are rather ugly designs and you can't have both timer and crosshair at the same time. No easy way to disable either (apparently if you wait in the menu without selecting it disables the crosshair or timer). No custom timer available. I think this could've been a neat food timer if it was adjustable.
• I wish the USB ports were in a more convenient location. Now they're really only useful for peripherals that are connected all the time.
• AG coating isn't too noticeable. Then again I didn't mind the Dell's AG much either so those who are really anal about such things might be disappointed.
• Turbo button should've been just a menu option. It's not much faster to change between the different modes. Same for the GamePlus. They should've replaced those with something like ULMB/G-Sync toggle or something.
• Power light is extremely subtle.
• Menu joystick is very good! Good idea for adjusting settings. My Dell is downright awful to adjust in the rare case you need to do that.
• The box for this thing is massive. I don't remember my Dell coming in a box half this big despite being a bigger screen.
• The 3008WFP at 30" 16:10 is huge compared to the Swift. I seriously don't know what to do with this much desktop space, maybe would be nice for work (I'm a web developer) but most of the time not very useful. I'm not the type who runs everything all at once, just can't handle the information overload I get with that.
• Portrait mode is completely ridiculous on a display this size. Viewing angles become a much bigger issue and reading is difficult as you have to tilt your head constantly. Oh well, at least the cables were easy to hook up in this orientation.
• ASUS Swift works perfectly fine at 120/144 Hz with G-Sync or ULMB with the second display running at 60 Hz. No need to turn one display off or anything. Only distraction is that the second display isn't blanked during games, which can be a plus or minus depending on if you want to have info on the other display.
• Swift seems to have some issues with the Turbo button. I sometimes get a blank screen with "Out of range" message if I try switching refresh rate thru that. It also sometimes seems to set a 144 Hz 16-bit (instead of 32-bit) custom resolution which only supports 144 Hz. Might be something to do with the second display as I didn't have this issue yesterday. In any case it might be better to change refresh rate from the Nvidia control panel.

I don't know if firmware is in any way upgradable on this thing but I really wish ASUS would give us better options for the GamePlus stuff. It's not a bad idea, the execution is just the definition of half-assed. If ASUS won't do anything about it, hopefully someone figures how to replace the crosshair graphics.

I'm going to miss my Dell's scaler for gaming at lower res (though that shouldn't be too necessary with my GTX 770 SLI), Nvidia really should write a better GPU scaler, the Dell's scaler has so much better image quality at less than native resolution.

 

[InSync]

I really think you will be wasting your money buying a colorimeter for that reason. You would get just as good a set up for free using the calibrated OSD settings from the tftcentral review. Use the RGB values from there and brightness can just be set to whatever value you find comfortable. The brightness control doesn't impact any other aspect of the calibration so use whatever you prefer for your ambient light, eyes and screen uses

Alright, maybe I am wasting money but I dont know, I start getting obsessive about that colorimeter LOL.

But I will try to do as you say and think it's a waste getting one

One question tho, about those RGB values.
All your RGB values in that review seems to be at default 100, right ?

But I feel that having 100% on them seems to be very overbright/to much colour /gamma values as red and green is in my eyes just to much, atleast on my unit.

Thats why I want one colorimeter

Other then that using Warm, seems better, atleast as gamma/to strong colours are concerned.

Thanks again for your input

 

[scotsdragon]

How do you guys find vram usage at 1440p on MMO's and BF4 as such, im really considering this monitor but heard 1440p can be vram demanding?

 

[PCM2]

Alright, maybe I am wasting money but I dont know, I start getting obsessive about that colorimeter LOL.

But I will try to do as you say and think it's a waste getting one

One question tho, about those RGB values.
All your RGB values in that review seems to be at default 100, right ?

But I feel that having 100% on them seems to be very overbright/to much colour /gamma values as red and green is in my eyes just to much, atleast on my unit.

Thats why I want one colorimeter

Other then that using Warm, seems better, atleast as gamma/to strong colours are concerned.

Thanks again for your input

Adjusting colour channels slightly (or as much as the 'warm' setting does) won't significantly impact overall gamma and if you leave them at defaults you shouldn't really notice colours being too 'strong'. Each individual unit is different though, yours may be too strong in one particular channel. The overall intensity you perceive is also impacted by brightness, so what brightness setting are you using? I'd suggest working on that before fussing about anything else.