ASUS RoG Swift PG278Q - G-Sync, 144hz, 1440p Monitor
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2015-05-07
·
1,926 words · ~9 min read
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in the market for a 2560x1440 high refresh rate monitor that
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doesn't need to be overclocked and also happens to feature g-sync ultra low
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motion blur and 3D Vision welcome to my
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review of the only choice for someone who wants all of that stuff the ASUS Rog
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Swift pg278
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Q Cooler Master V series semi modular
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power supplies feature 80 plus gold efficiency and their gold guarantee
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5-year warranty click now to learn more ASUS was wise to go with an Rog inspired
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design for this monitor physically and ergonomically it hits all the right
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notes for a top-of-the-line monitor for me right now the stand has the full
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gamut of adjustments 12 CM of height adjust 60° of swivel 25 de of tilt and
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90° pivot with a vas am mount in the back just in case none of that is enough
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for you the styling is also spoton with aggressive rear vents a cable management
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hole in the stand a disable red LED ring
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around the base and that's it no goofy
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stuff around the screen itself no touch of color or whatever that nonsense just
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a super thin matte black bezel that ensures that all of your attention is
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devoted to the screen where it's supposed to be even the menu buttons are
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actually really good something I wasn't expecting given how much I disliked the
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ones on the pb287q this is the fastest
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to navigate onscreen display that I've ever used I still don't like the rear
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shortcut keys because I can't tell which is which when I can't see them from the
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front but the joystick combined with the super Snappy responsive menu is a dream
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to use mind you unlike other high-end monitors the Swifts menu doesn't have a
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bunch of options in it like volume adjust picture in picture and like a
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whack ton of inputs to choose from and when we flip the monitor over at the
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back that reveals the reason in the back you'll find a DC power jack for the
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included power brick a DisplayPort 1.2
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input and a dual USB 3 Port Hub that I
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really wish was on the base and that's it because of the g-sync module which
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only supports one input this monitor doesn't have an extra HDMI input for
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your game console it doesn't have weak sauce built-in speakers it expects you
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to game on a PC with a proper pair of headphones or speakers the way that gay
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Ben intended so far if the product wasn't even good I got to say I like its
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attitude but but does it suck is it not good no no it doesn't suck I find that
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27in displays with a 2560 X 1440 resolution hit that perfect pixel
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density sweet spot where the image looks sharp but screen elements aren't too
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small to be usable forcing you to use Windows's still terrible built-in
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scaling that causes blurry text in many applications that combined with the
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solid contrast and acceptable color reproduction makes the monitor good
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enough for me to legit use as a daily driver something that I haven't been
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able to say about any of the 4K TN monitors that I've used so far due to
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their lackluster contrast and need for scaling or Ben Q's highend XL series
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monitors due to their 1920 x 1080 resolution now to be perfectly clear it
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is not Flawless switching from the PA 279 Q monitor that I use at home to this
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was very noticeable contrast and colors are not as good and viewing angles while
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good for TN are still TN with horizontal
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color shift being difficult to notice in day-to-day use but vertical color shift
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being very noticeable especially on white backgrounds with my head
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stationary the top of the screen has a slight green cast and the bottom does go
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a little bit pink but yeah nothing is perfect and the tradeoffs that you have
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to do with this monitor are just part of life and at least you're getting a lot
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to like about the display in return the maximum 144 HZ refresh rate and 1
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millisecond rated response time makes more of a difference to the perceived
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responsiveness of your PC than you'd imagine both inside and outside of games
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and along with the headline g-sync feature you get stereoscopic 3D Vision
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support and ulmb or ultra low motion
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blur support along with other nice touches like the built-in Crosshair
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overlay although you're basically a butthead if you use that for competitive
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play and the near instant power on with
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no splash screen ASUS I wanted to take a
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moment to let you know I noticed and appreciated the emission of this
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entirely unnecessary delay between pressing the power button and using my
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PC thank you all right on to the gaming experience let's start with a quick
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refresh of what gsync is for those of you who haven't seen my original
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coverage of it here and that was a pun by the way normally Gamers have two
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options number one is running without vsync which causes visual anomalies
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called tears whenever a new frame is output by the graphics card while the
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monitor is in the middle of a refresh almost all games do it but in some it is
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especially annoying number two is to enable V where tearing is eliminated
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because the graphics card is forced to wait until the next fixed interval when
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the monitor will refresh to Output a frame this causes stuttering during FPS
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dips and for me an intolerable amount of latency between when I execute an action
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and when I see it on screen I never game with vsync on gsync eliminates the
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issues associated with both of these options by letting the graphics card
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tell the monitor when to refresh that means a more responsive gaming
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experience with without visual artifacts this is next level stuff guys and the
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experience is truly awesome you just turn it on in the driver to override
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other vsync options and it's Off to the Races if you're a gamer and you want the
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best monitor on the market today to play your games this is it period I did most
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of my testing in Tomb Raider 2013 since I happen to be playing that game right
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now and even though this monitor wouldn't be all that suitable for
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professional color work using it recreationally I really didn't feel like
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I was having the TN experience the way I normally do with high refresh rate
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monitors in every scene from vibrant outdoor jungle locations to darken tombs
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where monitors with poor contrast will make it difficult to make out details
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the Swift excelled I also need some time to fire up a bunch of other stuff for my
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steam Library just to try it out frame rate drops below 30fps are still very
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noticeable because even with g-sync on you will experience stutters when you
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dip that low but per the suggestion in the reviewer's guide I actually tried
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using GeForce experiences game settings Optimizer for the first time ever since
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it's designed to keep your FPS above 40 by default and honestly it actually
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worked pretty well it made smart decisions for me that were similar to
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what I would have input and while I'm still going to do it manually because
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I'm a control freak um it did work surprisingly well for a quick I don't
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feel like dialing in all my games right now solution so that's it I think this
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technology is great and basically everyone else agrees and over the next
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few years availability of g-sync and competing Solutions will improve Pro and
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prices will fall until it's ubiquitous because it's just pling better than the
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old way of doing things but that's all hypothetical future stuff this is the
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summer of 2014 and this is the ultimate gaming monitor if you don't want to wait
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another year at least for a gaming experience that is truly much better
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than what everyone else has right now but there's a catch I did most of my
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playing on a GTX Titan and I'd recommend at least a GTX 770 for medium settings
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on Modern games or at least one GTX 780
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for high in modern games if you want to take advantage of the high refresh ress
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of it at 1440p which combined with the Swift
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high- price tag makes this a very expensive upgrade one that's going to be
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hard to convince people to invest in you see gsync has to sell itself to Gamers
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based on the absence of annoying crap
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that we've all spent years getting used to and putting up with rather than by
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delivering some shiny new thing for us to drool over it reminds me of the
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upgrade to SSD as long as you're still using a hard drive it might seem
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extravagant and unnecessary to spend that kind of money on something with so
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little storage that doesn't increase FPS directly but then you eventually take
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the plunge and once you get used to it it drives you bananas whenever someone
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puts you in front of a system with a hard drive in it and that's exactly what
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g-sync is like looking at tearing just feels stupid to me now that this
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solution is available even the ultra low blur mode which is an official version
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of the low persistence backlight strobing Hack That folks have been using
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on light boost monitors just doesn't get my attention at all it's cool how much
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crisper moving images look you can actually read text while dragging it
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across the screen but in game it wasn't that noticeable to me and since you have
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to pick between that and g-sync I'll take g-sync every time it's a truly
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nextg experience and from what I've seen so far ASUS's first product to deliver
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this technology to the market is a slam dunk even aside from the fancy
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technology let's say you're running an AMD card and you're not looking to change graphics cards cards right now
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you should still be looking at this monitor versus the
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xl2720z from Ben Q for its higher resolution if you've got enough shiny
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pennies to afford it guys thanks for watching this video like it if you liked
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it dislike it if you disliked it leave a comment let me know are you shopping for
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a gaming monitor what's on your short list always with our videos guys there
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and I think that pretty much wraps it up thank you very much for watching again and as always don't forget to subscribe
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if you haven't already