ASUS ROG SWIFT PG279Q G-SYNC Gaming Monitor: IPS At 165Hz
Subjective Analysis And Gaming
While the Lagom and Techmind tests on the previous page lay out a monitor's performance in black and white (and blue and green and red and...), we also take into consideration a subjective analysis. You're not purchasing a monitor to view test patterns for hours on end, or at least we don't think you are.
To see how the ASUS ROG SWIFT PG279Q performed in the real world, we also viewed a series of HD video clips and fired up a number of games. It's grueling work, we know, but hey, you guys are worth every minute of it...
To see how the ASUS ROG SWIFT PG279Q performed in the real world, we also viewed a series of HD video clips and fired up a number of games. It's grueling work, we know, but hey, you guys are worth every minute of it...
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Deadpool @ 1080P, Scaled To Full Screen
Watching movies and videos on the ASUS ROG SWIFT PG279Q was great. The screen offers bright whites, dark blacks and even without any fine-tuning, colors are rich and well saturated. The panel's high-refresh rate and relatively fast response time meant there was no easily noticeable ghosting with videos either. For media consumption and other multimedia related tasks, the ASUS ROG SWIFT PG279Q should more than please most users.
We also did quite a bit of gaming on the ASUS ROG SWIFT PG279Q, both with and without G-SYNC enabled. We played some older titles like Left 4 Dead 2 (which can run at very high frame rates on the latest hardware), and some newer titles like Crysis 3, Mortal Kombat X, GTA V, and Metro Last Light Redux.
When playing games that run at very high frame rates, with the monitor configured at 144Hz or 165Hz, you get the low-lag and smoothness benefits of the high-framerate, even without using any variable refresh rate technology. As nice as that is, the magic happens with G-SYNC enabled.
When playing more taxing games, that have framerates that may fluctuate above or below 60 FPS or so and fall within the 35 - 75Hz-ish frequency range where VRR is most useful, the effect G-SYNC has on the on-screen imagery and / or lag is excellent. Disabling V-Sync may eliminate lag, but tearing is evident. And enabling V-Sync may eliminate the tearing, but the lag detracts from the experience. With G-SYNC enabled though, the on-screen images don't suffer from visual artifacts or tearing. There can be some ever-so-slight ghosting visible, mostly when brightly lit objects are moving quickly across darker areas (basically, where there's a lot of contrast and quick motion), but it didn't detract from the gameplay in our opinion. And the display offers tunable options to somewhat mitigate the effects.
We wish there was an easy way to visually convey how variable refresh rate technologies like FreeSync affect on-screen animation, but there isn’t. We don’t have a means to capture DisplayPort feeds and shooting video of the screen and hosting it on-line doesn’t capture the full effect either. In lieu of a meaningful method to show the effects, you'll just have to take our word for it.
We should also mention that simply using a high 120Hz - 144Hz refresh rate on your desktop is also great. There is a noticeable improvement when mousing or even moving windows around the screen. If you're the type that gets headaches when looking at a 60Hz screen for too long, the higher refresh rates of a display like this one may help.
The ASUS ROG SWIFT PG279Q's viewing angles are also quite good. As you can see in the pictures above, when viewing the screen from relatively steep angles, from the sides, top, or bottom, the coloring of the images appears mostly uniform. This is due to the wider viewing angles of the IPS panel used in the monitor. Viewing a TN panel from steep angles like this will result in the screen washing out considerably.
When playing games that run at very high frame rates, with the monitor configured at 144Hz or 165Hz, you get the low-lag and smoothness benefits of the high-framerate, even without using any variable refresh rate technology. As nice as that is, the magic happens with G-SYNC enabled.
When playing more taxing games, that have framerates that may fluctuate above or below 60 FPS or so and fall within the 35 - 75Hz-ish frequency range where VRR is most useful, the effect G-SYNC has on the on-screen imagery and / or lag is excellent. Disabling V-Sync may eliminate lag, but tearing is evident. And enabling V-Sync may eliminate the tearing, but the lag detracts from the experience. With G-SYNC enabled though, the on-screen images don't suffer from visual artifacts or tearing. There can be some ever-so-slight ghosting visible, mostly when brightly lit objects are moving quickly across darker areas (basically, where there's a lot of contrast and quick motion), but it didn't detract from the gameplay in our opinion. And the display offers tunable options to somewhat mitigate the effects.
We wish there was an easy way to visually convey how variable refresh rate technologies like FreeSync affect on-screen animation, but there isn’t. We don’t have a means to capture DisplayPort feeds and shooting video of the screen and hosting it on-line doesn’t capture the full effect either. In lieu of a meaningful method to show the effects, you'll just have to take our word for it.
We should also mention that simply using a high 120Hz - 144Hz refresh rate on your desktop is also great. There is a noticeable improvement when mousing or even moving windows around the screen. If you're the type that gets headaches when looking at a 60Hz screen for too long, the higher refresh rates of a display like this one may help.
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The ASUS ROG SWIFT PG279Q's viewing angles are also quite good. As you can see in the pictures above, when viewing the screen from relatively steep angles, from the sides, top, or bottom, the coloring of the images appears mostly uniform. This is due to the wider viewing angles of the IPS panel used in the monitor. Viewing a TN panel from steep angles like this will result in the screen washing out considerably.
