Everything I've ever WANTED!! - ASUS PG329Q Monitor
ShortCircuit
·ShortCircuit
·2021-05-05
·
1,487 words · ~7 min read
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- In this video sponsored by ASUS, we're gonna be checking out and unboxing gaming,
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on the ROG Swift PG329.
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This thing takes a lot of boxes.
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It's 32 inches, 1440p, HDR600.
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It's got G-Sync. It runs at 175hz.
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Well, that's it, there's nothing else. But come on,
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do you really need more than that? No, I lied.
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So it's got an IPS technology display and quantum dots.
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So what I expect from this and I will accept nothing less is,
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absolutely zero compromises. Got some feet on here that are strong enough to kill a man.
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(banging metal) Look at that. You know how some viewers get upset
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about me abusing the hardware. Think of it this way. If I didn't abuse it,
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how would you know that it can stand up to abuse? Crazy how efficient monitors are getting.
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I mean, it used to be at a 32-inch monitor, you had this like,
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ginormous power brick. Mind you, this is a 150 Watt power brick, holy shakes.
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What are we gonna find in this box? Stickers, manual, cables.
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Dang, check out these nuts.
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You know, Ben, I remember going to the like university campus, computer store
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and seeing for the first time in my life, the original Apple 30 inch cinema display.
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You remember that thing David? - [David] Oh yeah. - And being like, "wow,
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"if only someday I could afford a display that beautiful."
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And now, the craziest thing about this thing, is not only is it a high, like 160% SRGB.
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So it's a wide gamut, high resolution,
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2560 by 1440. So that's a very similar density
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to that old Apple cinema display. Not only that,
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it only costs like 700 US dollars. And yes, 700 US dollars, a lot of money.
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That's a lot of money. But to put it in perspective, back around that time,
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I bought a Dell 2005 FPW, okay?
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That was around $700. It was a 24 inch.
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It was like this thick. (mumbles) as usual, they've got nipple joystick navigation back here
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along with a handful of shortcut buttons and power button.
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They've got RGB built into the logo. Back here we got a built-in USB hub,
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headphone jack, DisplayPort, dual HDMI but it should be noted,
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these are not HDMI 2.1.
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Although, because the panel is 1440p rather than 4K,
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that may not actually end up being an issue. You know we're gonna have to hook up an HDMI cable
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and see how high we can go on an HDMI 2.0 connection.
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Did I mention already, this thing is VESA 600HDR certified?
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Cool, well it is. Oh, it also has both G-Sync and ASUS's ELMB Sync.
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So that's their ultra low motion blur strobing
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Its got height. So that's good. Side to side.
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Yep, and tilt. But no swivel.
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All right. Fair enough ASUS. I get it something's got to give. Overclocking, on.
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That's my refresh rate, gonna turn that up to 175. Shadow boost is off.
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So if you're up all about bringing up the shadows and someone's crunching under a brand during CS:GO
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or whatever and they've got everything from level one to three to dynamic adjustment.
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One concern I have about this thing is I've always found the sweet spot
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for 1440 is around the 27 inch range.
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That's where you pretty much can't tell unless you're getting really close to it.
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Oh yeah, this is noticeable. It's not bad. It's not like, Ew, that's gross.
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Everything's blurry but if you're the kind of person
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who is ego like and really wants your texts to look as sharp as possible,
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then you probably wanna pay the extra for a 4K version.
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And then the extra for a GPU that can power the 4K version.
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And then think actually you know what, maybe if I'm an actual gamer
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and I don't spend all of my time on lttstore.com, maybe I'd be you okay with it exactly the way it is
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cause that's an awful lot of extra money to spend. Let's fire up to DOOM Eternal.
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Well, what, it's so much more expensive. I'm serious.
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Like this is 1440p, HDR600, 175hz.
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Like that's a lot of gaming for 700 bucks
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and it's all about trade-offs right? Like it's not like I'm gonna be looking okay.
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Well let's see, let's see. But I'm not expecting that I'm gonna be looking at an actual game going
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well, I can see the pixels. This game runs at 640 by 480 by default for some reason,
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let me get that fixed for you. And of course, because we're only running at 1440p
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crank this puppy, I've told you a nightmare. So then real talk David,
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at a reasonable distance. Do you see any pixels?
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- [David] Oh, certainly no pixels. - I can sort of make out a bit
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of stair-stepping around the helmet, sort of. It's not bad though.
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It's nothing a little bit of anti-aliasing can't fix. Like that's what's great For me about 1440.
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I mean, we did a whole video away a while back. This is not like this is a new stance on this issue for me.
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Uh, we did a whole video about how you're just better off having a 1440p display.
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And if it's not sharp enough, you can throw AA the problem. You can throw super sampling at the problem
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but at least you're running native resolution
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at a reasonable sort of GPU load.
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So we've got HDR enabled in this game as with all HDR400 and HDR600 displays.
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I would say the HDR experience is not
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especially game changing. You really wanna step up to something like one
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of ASUS HDR1000 tier monitors, if you want like a really mindblowing HDR experience.
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But I would still say that it adds more than it detracts for sure.
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Like you can see those, those are animal icons and stuff like that
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really do glow bright, same thing with explosions.
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It's not stunning or anything like that.
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In terms of smoothness, I continue to think that a hundred and mid Hertz
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is kinda what most people are gonna see
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the most benefit from. So this is a really good middle ground
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resolution, refresh rate and of course cost is a big factor
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in a product like this one. Like, do you notice any stair-stepping as I'm running around here, David?
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- [David] Oh definitely not. - Yeah, I just don't think 4K
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is necessary for gaming. It's cool and if I'm sitting this close to it, yeah,
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I can see it but it's not necessary.
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I'm not saying that better effects and lighting
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and higher refresh rate aren't necessary. I'm just saying, if I have a fixed amount of horsepower,
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I wanna invest it in other things rather than 4K that's all.
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Little bit of blue discoloration on the leading edge.
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Little bit of yellow discoloration on the trailing edge. So there's definitely a little bit of motion blur.
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Man it's not bad though. It took us a second and to get ELMB enabled
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because while you can have it on at the same time as HDR,
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you can't have it on at the same time as the variable backlight, local dimming nonsense.
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So that makes sense. For those not familiar, this technology actually strobes the backlight.
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You can't see it to your eye but the camera can probably see the strobing can it.
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Yeah, so what it's doing is it's strobing the backlight in between pixel refreshes.
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So you don't see that blurry in between phases
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but you just see those sharp finished stages
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at each refresh. It's cool that you can have it on at the same time as G-Sync on this model.
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Like if you track with your eyes, if you track the great, for example,
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those look clear. Are you trying it?
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Obviously I'm gonna wait for folks like blur busters or RTINGS to check it out
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and validate exactly how low motion blur this is but to a pled like meets the eye,
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dang it's looking pretty good. And if you guys wanna check it out,
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we're gonna have it links down in the video description. Make sure you're subscribed to ShortCircuit
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to see more videos like this. Thank you for watching and thank you ASUS again for sponsoring our first look
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here at the PG329, 1440p what a nice middle ground.