WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.960 What's faster than a 500 Hertz display? Well, supposedly an ASUS display at 540, 00:00:04.960 --> 00:00:10.800 but that's not out yet. So for now, we've got the AW2524HF from Alienware. 00:00:10.920 --> 00:00:14.640 One thing I noticed is it's got this cute little whale 00:00:14.640 --> 00:00:19.360 on the handle. I've never noticed that once before. I own an Alienware display in case 00:00:19.360 --> 00:00:24.600 that wasn't already known by everyone. And it's not 500 Hertz though. 00:00:24.600 --> 00:00:27.760 And I'll tell you something, 500 Hertz is a dream. 00:00:28.760 --> 00:00:32.480 A dream come true. It's so fast. It looks like it's like you're looking through a window. 00:00:32.480 --> 00:00:37.000 Honestly, like I know that people say that basically every time. This feels like looking through a window 00:00:37.000 --> 00:00:41.760 into the real world. It's so smooth. This is the only time where it's like indistinguishable. 00:00:41.760 --> 00:00:46.120 We'll play Counter-Strike on it later and just show you guys how instant everything is. 00:00:47.240 --> 00:00:50.320 Got a stand here. This is only a 24 and a half inch monitor 00:00:50.320 --> 00:00:54.760 and it's only 1080p. But that's because, you know, you're trying to hit those max refresh rates 00:00:54.760 --> 00:00:58.600 for insane e-sports gaming. 00:00:58.600 --> 00:01:04.000 That's not necessarily what I'm interested in. I like a high refresh rate, but I don't know. 00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:09.720 Past 240, it's hard for me to tell the difference until you make another big jump, like from 240 to 500. 00:01:09.720 --> 00:01:13.480 Then you can actually feel it. In the box, probably should have told you guys 00:01:13.480 --> 00:01:18.120 as I pulled them out. We've got a USB-C to DisplayPort cable. 00:01:18.120 --> 00:01:22.560 We've also got a C13. We'll see later if this hooks up directly to the monitor 00:01:22.560 --> 00:01:27.320 or if there's a power brick. And then we've got a regular DisplayPort cable. 00:01:27.320 --> 00:01:30.680 This is what we're gonna be using today to actually hit 500 Hertz. 00:01:30.680 --> 00:01:35.800 If you're stuck with HDMI, it's not gonna hit there. It'll hit like 240, I think, at 1080p. 00:01:35.800 --> 00:01:39.040 We've also got our handy dandy USB B to A cable. 00:01:39.040 --> 00:01:43.880 This is actually really handy for stuff like, say, you wanna use the USB ports on the back of your monitor. 00:01:43.880 --> 00:01:47.120 You just hook up the B to A on your computer and it'll transfer all the signals. 00:01:47.120 --> 00:01:51.200 So for me, you know, I'm not sure how much latency it introduces, 00:01:51.200 --> 00:01:56.560 but I put the dongle from my mouse on my monitor just to save a USB port on my computer. 00:01:56.560 --> 00:01:58.080 We've got our stand. 00:01:59.840 --> 00:02:05.560 Little stand. Whoa, this one took a lot of effort to get out of the bag. 00:02:05.560 --> 00:02:11.800 We got the classic big old column into a big old twisty screw here at the bottom. 00:02:12.680 --> 00:02:15.720 Pretty universal design that most people seem to use. 00:02:15.720 --> 00:02:21.040 Not everybody, we've definitely unboxed a few monitors that don't use this system, but it's just so easy. 00:02:21.440 --> 00:02:26.200 We've also got this box. What's in the Alienware box? It's got a little alien head on it. 00:02:26.200 --> 00:02:30.200 I love Alienware's logo. Man, I remember when Alienware wasn't owned by Dell 00:02:30.200 --> 00:02:34.640 and it was actually like crazy. Them and like Voodoo. Oh, as for what's in here, 00:02:34.640 --> 00:02:40.480 it looks like it's just a safety and regulatory information as well as a little alien head sticker. 00:02:40.480 --> 00:02:44.040 If you wanna, you know, rep the brand a little bit. And then we've got the display in here. 00:02:44.040 --> 00:02:48.960 We're gonna do the old click, clack and pull it out. Click, clack, pull. 00:02:49.960 --> 00:02:53.560 Oh, and then we've got a little product guide here 00:02:53.560 --> 00:03:00.080 that tells me how to do all the things I just did. We've actually reviewed the previous iteration of this, 00:03:00.080 --> 00:03:04.600 the AW2524 non-HF on LTT. 00:03:04.600 --> 00:03:08.120 And let me tell you, it was beautiful then and right now it looks great 00:03:08.120 --> 00:03:12.080 except for some of these scuff marks. One moment, please. It's got a pretty sweet stand. 00:03:12.080 --> 00:03:15.080 It's not super big. And the nice thing is it's got these angles here. 00:03:15.080 --> 00:03:18.040 So if you're one of those really hardcore CSGO players 00:03:18.080 --> 00:03:23.720 who does the whole angled keyboard trick, you can have it lined up against your monitor there 00:03:23.720 --> 00:03:28.000 if it's really that close. But you know, when it's only 25 inches, 20.5, 00:03:28.000 --> 00:03:34.280 you gotta get in there. As for the stand's capabilities, it can swivel, yep. 00:03:34.520 --> 00:03:39.160 Oh, but it's on the stand, not the ARM. You know, I kinda like that. 00:03:39.160 --> 00:03:43.280 It feels a bit like sturdier when it's on the stand itself, not on the ARM. 00:03:43.280 --> 00:03:47.200 Oh, baby. It tells you to not try to pivot it 00:03:47.200 --> 00:03:51.160 when it's all the way lowered though in the little booklet we got. So I'm gonna put it back here 00:03:51.160 --> 00:03:54.280 and check out the, this is the max height. 00:03:54.280 --> 00:04:00.360 And then, oh, tilt too. You know, it's always welcome. But let's see how low this monitor can go. 00:04:01.520 --> 00:04:04.760 That's not bad. It's gonna fit just about any desk 00:04:04.760 --> 00:04:08.920 and it's gonna fit just about any height. Something else I just noticed is 00:04:10.120 --> 00:04:13.920 it's got a little headphone stand for you. So whenever you know you're done gaming, 00:04:13.920 --> 00:04:18.160 you just take it off, put it there. In terms of just design, you know, I like it. 00:04:18.160 --> 00:04:22.680 It's simple, it works. It's got the big 500 Hertz badge right here, 00:04:22.680 --> 00:04:26.720 big Alienware lettering on the front, which I'm not crazy about that much branding, 00:04:26.720 --> 00:04:31.080 but it's really not that bad. There's nothing on the stand down here, no Alienhead logo. 00:04:31.080 --> 00:04:34.200 Then if we look at the back, like most Alienware logos, 00:04:34.200 --> 00:04:37.360 it's got the first model number over here, 25. 00:04:37.360 --> 00:04:44.280 And then we've got the little Alienhead back here. Neat little fun fact. We had not this guy, but the previous iteration at LTX 00:04:44.560 --> 00:04:48.040 does FPS matter booth. And Bell ran it. 00:04:48.040 --> 00:04:52.120 He's pretty good at games. I've played against Dan with him and a couple of shooters is pretty good. 00:04:52.120 --> 00:04:55.920 And he said that the 500 Hertz did not really improve his gameplay 00:04:55.920 --> 00:05:00.400 or anyone's for that matter. Now, someone who is a dedicated professional 00:05:00.400 --> 00:05:04.560 eSports player, it'll probably make a difference for them. 00:05:04.560 --> 00:05:08.400 For the average person, probably not. Took it off the stand real quick 00:05:08.400 --> 00:05:11.520 to show you guys the IO. We've got our C13 power plug here 00:05:11.520 --> 00:05:14.680 for our internal power supply. If you really need a dedicated external brick, 00:05:14.680 --> 00:05:20.120 then this monitor probably isn't for you. We've got our USB B port, a couple of USB A ports, 00:05:20.120 --> 00:05:26.040 and then a couple more down here actually as well. So we've got four USB A 3.2, 00:05:26.040 --> 00:05:30.800 and then we've also got HDMI 2.1 and a couple of DisplayPort 1.4. 00:05:30.800 --> 00:05:38.040 Aside from that, we've got a navigation nipple down here. And then what looks like a power button, right there. 00:05:38.040 --> 00:05:41.680 We're gonna turn it on in just a minute and I'll tell you all about the panel that's in this bad boy, 00:05:41.760 --> 00:05:45.000 but not before word from our sponsor. All right, it's turned on. 00:05:45.000 --> 00:05:49.800 Let's see, it says 60 Hertz there and I believe it. This does not feel good at all. 00:05:49.800 --> 00:05:55.480 We're using DisplayPort because even though the HDMI connector is HDMI 2.1, 00:05:55.480 --> 00:05:59.960 it's not enough for 500 Hertz, 1080p, it ain't enough. 00:05:59.960 --> 00:06:05.960 So we're in 1080p, that's great. Advanced 60, garbage goes up to 480. 00:06:05.960 --> 00:06:09.400 Now, you gotta change a menu setting to hit 500, 00:06:09.400 --> 00:06:13.200 but oh man, even 480. Like we'll get that 20 extra Hertz, 00:06:13.200 --> 00:06:16.800 but it's really not much. 00:06:16.800 --> 00:06:21.400 Yeah, let's do it, let's do it. It says 480 in the corner, okay, great, it's working. 00:06:21.400 --> 00:06:26.000 Let's check out our OSD. It's the classic Alienware OSD with the navigation nipple. 00:06:26.000 --> 00:06:29.120 I'm pretty big on this, but that's mostly just because I've gotten really used to it 00:06:29.120 --> 00:06:33.320 because I have an Alienware monitor. We found SRGB to be the most color accurate 00:06:33.320 --> 00:06:37.960 with a Delta E average of only one and a max error of just 2.7. 00:06:37.960 --> 00:06:41.920 But it only does about 90% DCI-P3, which is still respectable, 00:06:41.920 --> 00:06:46.200 especially because this monitor is not about creation. 00:06:46.200 --> 00:06:50.160 This monitor is about gaming at the fastest speeds possible. 00:06:50.160 --> 00:06:53.640 So we've got a 4090, you know, we've got 1080p. 00:06:53.640 --> 00:06:57.440 It's gonna be probably CPU bottlenecked and we'll see how good it actually works. 00:06:57.440 --> 00:07:01.600 Overclock, 500 Hertz baby is doing it. 00:07:01.600 --> 00:07:06.080 It's trying, did I do it? I don't know, oh, it doesn't feel like it. It feels like it's back to 60. 00:07:06.080 --> 00:07:11.520 Maybe I have to enable it and then go in and change it back from 60 to 500. 00:07:11.520 --> 00:07:14.240 Don't get me wrong, this feels the exact same as 480 did to me. 00:07:15.280 --> 00:07:18.720 When you're going between 480 and 500, 00:07:18.720 --> 00:07:23.480 there's not a whole lot of difference. At 500 Hertz, that's a two millisecond frame time. 00:07:23.480 --> 00:07:28.800 Two milliseconds of frame time is very impressive. The problem is you start to see a lot of diminishing returns 00:07:28.800 --> 00:07:32.520 after about 120, 240 Hertz. 00:07:32.520 --> 00:07:35.920 At 60 Hertz, you're seeing about 16.67 milliseconds 00:07:35.920 --> 00:07:41.760 of frame time. And then once you jump up to 120, you have that. 00:07:41.920 --> 00:07:46.960 So it goes to about 8.3. And then you have it again at 240 to four 00:07:46.960 --> 00:07:51.800 and then you have it again at 480 to 2.2 or something 00:07:51.800 --> 00:07:55.600 and then the 500 gets you that flat even two milliseconds. 00:07:55.600 --> 00:08:00.560 That's great, but there's a huge difference between 16 and eight and even eight and four, 00:08:00.560 --> 00:08:07.120 but four to two, it's pretty minor. That being said, my main test for just checking 00:08:07.120 --> 00:08:11.520 what my refresh rate is probably running at is I just jiggle my mouse and I try to see 00:08:11.520 --> 00:08:14.800 how many cursors are on screen at once. Look at all those, that's science, 00:08:14.800 --> 00:08:18.720 that's scientific right there. Let's do a quick UFO test. 00:08:18.720 --> 00:08:23.120 Dang, 500 FPS refresh rate. So it looks pretty good, but I'm surprised 00:08:23.120 --> 00:08:27.220 by how much ghosting I'm seeing on the white and green frogs in particular. 00:08:27.220 --> 00:08:31.220 We've got v-sync off, but on it doesn't seem to make any difference with that ghosting either. 00:08:31.220 --> 00:08:34.660 So even at 500 Hertz, unless there's some setting 00:08:34.660 --> 00:08:37.660 that I'm completely unaware of, 00:08:37.660 --> 00:08:43.820 you're just not gonna fix that ghosting. Part of the problem is that while this is IPS 00:08:43.820 --> 00:08:47.940 and it looks beautiful in terms of color and even viewing angles aren't too bad, 00:08:47.940 --> 00:08:51.660 unfortunately it's just not gonna be quite as snappy 00:08:51.660 --> 00:08:55.500 as something like OLED or even just a TN panel. 00:08:55.500 --> 00:08:59.160 That stuff is light and quick, especially OLED, 00:08:59.160 --> 00:09:02.240 counts in literally like microseconds for pixel response time. 00:09:02.240 --> 00:09:08.500 So unfortunately we're gonna end up with a little bit of ghosting, at least on certain colors or shades like we're seeing here. 00:09:08.500 --> 00:09:13.960 We're gonna try some games though, because there is a massive difference between trying to play a game and notice a frame rate 00:09:13.960 --> 00:09:19.280 versus watching it on a test pattern. For me, I find ghosting is perceptible, 00:09:19.280 --> 00:09:24.280 but not like super perceptible, if that makes any sense. 00:09:24.320 --> 00:09:28.680 Like when you're gaming, you're kind of busy looking at everything all over the place, so it's not until you start to pixel peep 00:09:29.240 --> 00:09:33.120 and look for things specifically that you start to actually notice it, 00:09:33.120 --> 00:09:37.920 unless the panel's really bad. If the panel's really bad, you can tell pretty quickly. 00:09:37.920 --> 00:09:41.080 Now, 24 and a half inch or 24 to 25 00:09:41.080 --> 00:09:45.560 is pretty typical for eSports size monitors and it's also pretty typical for displays 00:09:45.560 --> 00:09:50.400 that are this fast. The problem with that, at least for people 00:09:50.400 --> 00:09:55.040 who are used to bigger displays is that it's really small. One of the first things that both Bell and I noticed 00:09:55.040 --> 00:09:59.280 was like, wow, we went to sit down in front of this and I'm like, I've got to like get right in front 00:09:59.280 --> 00:10:03.480 of this thing because it's tiny. And so it's going to be a price that you're gonna have to pay. 00:10:03.480 --> 00:10:07.880 You cannot get 500 Hertz refresh rate in a bigger monitor, 00:10:07.880 --> 00:10:11.320 at least not yet, maybe a few years from now, but definitely not yet. 00:10:11.320 --> 00:10:14.680 So, you know, we set our FPS max to 1,000 00:10:14.680 --> 00:10:19.640 just to make sure that this thing can breathe as much as it wants to and we are now getting, you know, 00:10:19.640 --> 00:10:22.760 600, 700, maybe 800 frames a second, 00:10:22.760 --> 00:10:29.200 depending on where you are. Yes, something doesn't feel right. Like it's hitting high FPS, but it's still, 00:10:30.200 --> 00:10:36.200 with how blurry it gets when I shake this much, it still doesn't feel like 500 Hertz 00:10:36.200 --> 00:10:39.880 because it's fast IPS and the moving picture response time 00:10:39.880 --> 00:10:44.360 isn't going to be as good as you might want it to be. It still doesn't feel perfect. 00:10:44.360 --> 00:10:50.440 We saw the ghosting on the frogs. We see when I shake the camera really quickly, 00:10:50.440 --> 00:10:54.440 it gets a little blurry and a little blendy. So I think that at the end of the day, 00:10:54.480 --> 00:10:59.920 refresh rate just isn't king. It's important and is this going to look amazing? 00:10:59.920 --> 00:11:03.480 Yeah, we'll fire up another game just to look at how good the colors are and all that. 00:11:03.480 --> 00:11:06.920 I think that when you're deciding on what monitor to buy, 00:11:06.920 --> 00:11:12.520 you really need to examine a lot more than just refresh rate and PPI. 00:11:12.520 --> 00:11:17.680 Let's fire up Doom. Let's see how Doom feels. So we've got HDR turned on now in Windows 00:11:17.680 --> 00:11:22.520 and in our sweet, sweet display here and in the game. 00:11:22.520 --> 00:11:27.040 I got to say, it looks okay. It's putting up some decent bright spots. 00:11:27.040 --> 00:11:32.040 We measured 333 nits, peak brightness and HDR, which is fine. 00:11:35.120 --> 00:11:38.600 The problem with this thing is it's not meant for stuff like this. 00:11:38.600 --> 00:11:43.360 It's not meant to look cinematic. It's meant to give you the fastest frame rate possible. 00:11:43.360 --> 00:11:48.400 This thing looks fine in game. I will admit, when you're watching content like this 00:11:48.400 --> 00:11:51.920 and you're not looking for individual issues, 00:11:51.920 --> 00:11:56.720 it looks okay. You're not gonna see a ton of bloom unless it's a very obvious example of, 00:11:56.720 --> 00:12:00.120 oh, here's a pin point here on a dark spot. 00:12:01.120 --> 00:12:04.760 The problem, oh, those bright flashes from the gun actually look terrible. 00:12:04.760 --> 00:12:09.040 It brightens up my whole screen, essentially, instead of just here. Okay, so that's a really good example of that 00:12:09.040 --> 00:12:13.160 looking real bad. It doesn't help that I'm also low health 00:12:13.160 --> 00:12:19.980 and so I've got some red filter on my screen. It's not as bad now that the film is gone, 00:12:19.980 --> 00:12:23.380 but it still brightens too much of my screen instead of a simple pin point 00:12:23.380 --> 00:12:27.700 right where my muzzle flash is. There's a reason that they're not even really promoting HDR, 00:12:27.700 --> 00:12:32.180 all that heavily for this version. The main difference between the HF and the H 00:12:32.180 --> 00:12:38.140 is that this does not have the G-Sync badge. It does not have a native G-Sync module on it. 00:12:38.140 --> 00:12:44.940 It's got FreeSync Premium, which is pretty sweet. I will admit, right now, this is not an awful experience 00:12:44.940 --> 00:12:49.040 and I'd be more than happy to play this. I'd probably play in HDR instead of SDR. 00:12:49.080 --> 00:12:55.720 This one, without the G-Sync module, the AW2524HF is $650 right now, 00:12:55.720 --> 00:12:58.920 which is kind of a lot for a 24 and a half inch, 00:12:58.920 --> 00:13:03.200 1080p display that doesn't even have a great HDR experience. 00:13:03.200 --> 00:13:07.120 However, there's really no competition at 500 Hertz 00:13:07.120 --> 00:13:10.640 or there's not much, especially not when you want fast IPS 00:13:10.640 --> 00:13:15.360 for better colors than a TN panel is gonna give you. What makes it even better is the NVIDIA one 00:13:15.360 --> 00:13:20.160 with G-Sync is $830. So if you wanna save like 200 bucks 00:13:20.160 --> 00:13:24.280 and you were already thinking of getting the non-F version, 00:13:24.280 --> 00:13:27.400 honestly, you've done yourself a favor by waiting 00:13:27.400 --> 00:13:30.880 because $200 less makes this a lot more affordable 00:13:30.880 --> 00:13:34.080 to a lot of people. I personally probably wouldn't buy this. 00:13:34.080 --> 00:13:37.420 I think that 500 Hertz, it's a little too much for most people. 00:13:37.420 --> 00:13:41.160 240 is still really good and still a huge jump, 00:13:41.160 --> 00:13:46.220 especially different panel technology like OLED where you have those lightning fast pixel response times. 00:13:46.220 --> 00:13:50.340 It's a fantastic experience. This is still really, really good 00:13:50.340 --> 00:13:55.580 and there are absolutely gamers out there who not only want this, but need it 00:13:55.580 --> 00:14:01.500 to get that edge over their opponent. So if that's you, the AW2524HF from Alienware 00:14:01.500 --> 00:14:05.540 might be worth checking out. This is ShortCircuit. If you wanna look at another video, 00:14:05.540 --> 00:14:08.820 check out the LG 27GR95QE. 00:14:08.820 --> 00:14:13.380 That's an OLED monitor, it does 240 Hertz. It's not 500, but it's still real fast.