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Acer is finally woken up and is paying attention to the gaming monitor Market

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again they've dabbled in the past they had an at the time excellent 3D Vision

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monitor the gd235hz but since then they

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appear to have been sitting on their Collective thumbs until now welcome to

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my video about one of the in my mind only two g-sync monitors that really

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matters for high-end gaming the Acer xb280hk

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Corsair gaming RGB keyboards feature Precision cherrymx RGB key switches for

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16.8 million color per key backlighting for virtually unlimited customization

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click now to learn more we'll start with a physical overview around this massive

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28in 16x9 panel with the OSD controls

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embedded in the bottom right is an unfortunately thick and glossy bezel

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something I find particularly disappointing given how ahead of the curv aser was on

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the super thin bezel thing when they released the h236 HL about a year and a

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half ago the stand is a circular base affair with an orange accent it

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assembles toolless Le in about 30 seconds and gives the xb280hk Tilt

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swivel height adjust and pivot the quadfecta of ergonomic display

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adjustment options it serves its purpose very well but I didn't find its build

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quality particularly confidence in aspiring especially at this kind of a

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price point although given that we know a g-sync module adds about $200 to the

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cost of a monitor and Acer's offering is priced about $200 higher than otherwise

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similar 4K displays that also don't feature beautifully overbuilt stands I

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don't think Acer is cutting this corner any tighter than anyone else's on the

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top bottom and right of the monitor is a whole lot of nothing but on the left

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we're treated to two of the four usb3 ports that run off the monitor's

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internal Hub then on the bottom we find the telltale signs of a g-sync monitor

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aside from the usb3 Uplink the other two ports that go with it and an AC power

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input we've got a whole lot of not much going on down here just a DisplayPort

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1.2 input this is because NVIDIA's first

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generation g-sync module only supports a

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single DisplayPort input so then why would you want a g-sync module in your

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monitor lonus great question g-sync

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deliver smoother onscreen animations by eliminating screen tearing you know

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those ugly horizontal lines through the image where it seems like the top half

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of the screen has the last frame and the bottom half has a new one and leg which

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is caused by your GPU waiting for the monitor to be ready for a refresh when

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running with vsync on the way that we traditionally get rid of tearing but you

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can learn more about it in this video here just trust me it works and it's a

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pretty big deal but better perceived smoothness in gaming animation won't do

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us any good if it's not presented on a good quality panel so let's have a look

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shall we the xb280hk uses the same type

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of panel that we've already seen before in the other loish cost 4K monitors that

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we've covered here and here so there weren't really any surprises contrast is

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pretty good color reproduction is surprisingly good for a TN panel and

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pixel response times were good without excess ghosting and overdrive artifacts

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even on fast moving scen as long as you leave the overdrive

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setting at default within the onscreen display in fact I found most of the

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settings in the OSD were best left alone I adjusted color temp to normal and

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everything else especially the image profiles just made the screen look much

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much worse so I didn't find myself using them in front of the flicker-free DC

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controlled backlight we find a matte finished panel which is good if you hate

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glare and reflections with horizontal viewing angles that are good enough as

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long as you're sitting mostly centered in front of the screen the way most people use a computer the subtle green

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and thin pink color shift is unlikely to bother you much on the desktop and is

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pretty much impossible to pick up with a full screen game or movie running

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vertical viewing angles just like the other low cost 4ks are less impressive

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though with a noticeable gradient from warmer to cooler looking from bottom to

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top even with your head in a stationary

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position again this is something that's nearly impossible to pick up in games

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and many people won't notice it at all anyway but I look at a lot of monitors

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so particularly on uniform backgrounds like when reading emails or message

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boards I find it a little bit distracting but let's change gears a bit

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here and talk about the gaming experience I suspect if Acer could have

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timed the release of their xb280hk 28 in

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4k gsync gaming monitor any more

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perfectly the entire world would have imploded 2 weeks ago the GTX 980 and 970

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wouldn't have existed yet and graphics cards with enough horsepower to run

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modern games at 4K would have started at $500 plus doar rather than 330 and they

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would have been equipped with a mere 3 gigs of vram probably fine for now but

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not exactly futureproof had Acer waited oh I don't know another year to release

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this monitor we'd probably have better cards capable of running AAA titles

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pinned at 60 FPS so the need for variable refresh rate technology that

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masks stuttering when the frame rate DS drops would be reduced but as it is the

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timing is great and this Monitor and those graphics cards are a match made in

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heaven the way I benchmarked the xb280hk

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was a little bit different than normal because it's mostly about the subjective

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experience instead of firing up games and staring at my fraps counter then

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dialing in graphic settings until the number looks good I went the other way

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around I cranked everything to Max started turning things down until the

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game felt 60fps smooth then fired up

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fraps to see what frame rate I was actually running at even though I've

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evaluated g-sync monitors before I've never done it this way and I think the

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results May shock you I found that because of the pixel density of the

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display anti-aliasing was Superfluous Beyond 2xmsaa which gave me more

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Headroom to play with I candy options like tessellation and higher quality

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shadows and to my surprise I discovered

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that as long as my G wasn't falling below around 40 frames per second during

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demanding sequences it was running to my eyes about as smoothly as if I was

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running at 60 FPS constantly and this is

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coming from someone who has gained for years on high-end hardware and considers

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himself a bit of a frame rate Diva so

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while I feel that lower cost 1080p g-sync monitors have a hard time

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justifying that $200 or so premium compared to their non-gyn cousins

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especially when that money could be spent on a better graphics card to keep

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frame rates up or a higher resolution monitor to improve immersion and image

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quality when you've already got a highres monitor the addition of g-sync

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enables a smoother gaming experience with more details turned up than would

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have conventionally been possible potentially saving you some additional

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investment in more graphics cards this makes the xb280hk a very attractive

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option for highend GeForce Gamers but

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that doesn't mean that acers new beauty is the only horse on the track there are

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two highres g-sync monitors that each bring their own unique value proposition

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to the table this baby is the resolution

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king and the only option for someone who wants a 4K display with g-sync today

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while the Rog Swift from ASUS is an inch smaller diagonally and runs at a mere

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2560 X 1440 resolution but delivers

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thinner bezels slightly better colors and up to 144 Herz ref fresh rates so I

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guess this is what it boils down to if you're a sightseer and most of your

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gaming is done in third person or in casually competitive scenarios where

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Lightning Fast Response times are not critical the xb280hk gets the nod if

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you're looking for the best monitor on the Block for competitive play the Rog

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Swift gets my vote for sure guys thanks

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for watching like this video if you liked it dislike it if you disliked it leave a comment letting me know if your

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feelings are more complicated than this also check out the link in the video description where you can give us a

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us out a lot thanks again for watching and as always don't forget to subscribe