ASUS ROG Swift PG27UQ Monitor Review: Glorious 4K HDR, 144Hz G-SYNC Gaming

Name: ASUS ROG Swift PG27UQ
Brand: ASUS

by Paul Lilly — Friday, July 13, 2018, 10:49 AM EDT

ASUS ROG Swift PG27UQ Final Analysis

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We were really looking forward to putting the ASUS ROG Swift PG27UQ through our tests and evaluations, and for the most part it did not disappoint. This is a monitor that is obviously aimed at gamers with an edgy design, fancy lighting effects, and of course G-Sync support, but it handles photo and video image fidelity for professional grade work equally well. In all reality, professional content creators are the ones who will likely most appreciate its accurate color reproduction and ultra wide gamut coverage.

For gamers, the pre-calibration and wide color gamut are simply bonuses on top of this panel's 4K resolution, 144Hz refresh rate, and NVIDIA G-Sync adaptive refresh technology. HDR game content looks fantastic on this monitor, especially titles set in outdoor scenes with lots of varied lighting. And going from 60Hz to 144Hz makes a noticeable difference, even for everyday tasks, like navigating the desktop in Windows. We've known this for a long time, it's just never been accessible in a 4K display until now.

Find The ASUS ROG Swift PG27UQ @ Amazon

To the point, the ASUS ROG Swift PG27UQ delivers everything we have been waiting for in a monitor. In doing so, it addresses the shortcomings and compromises that come with owning a 4K display, namely having to settle for a lower refresh rate. You don't have to do that here, whether you choose to run at the monitor's overclocked 144Hz refresh rate or native 120Hz setting. Either way, it's a big upgrade over most other 4K displays.

Naturally there are caveats when traversing to the bleeding edge where this monitor resides. The biggest one with the ROG Swift PG27UQ is its price. At a $1,999.99 MSRP, this monitor costs more than most people's entire PC. Then again, if you think about it, your monitor is probably on the list of top three or four components that affect your entire computing and gaming experience the most. On top of that, you really need a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti to take advantage of what this monitor can do, and even then you're not going to be pushing 144 frames per second all the time, or even most of the time. Chalk it up to the cost of progress.

We're not overly critical of the performance requirements—the hardware will eventually catch up, potentially with NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 11 series. On top of that, you don't need to run at 144Hz for games to look great on this monitor. But it's there if and when you're able to take advantage of it.

In the meantime, there is not a better monitor for gaming on the market right now, in terms of image quality, features and capabilities. If you have the money and a beefy PC, the ROG Swift PG27UQ will simply blow away whatever monitor you're currently using.


HDR content looks fantastic Peak brightness of 1,000 nits Fast refresh rate (144Hz overclocked, 120Hz native) G-Sync support Accurate color reproduction Factory calibrated	It's expensive You need a top-tier graphics card to power this panel fully