Pg278Q release date: ASUS ROG Swift PG278Q Monitor Released in APAC/EU, North America Coming September

Asus ROG Swift PG278Q Monitor Review: A 27-inch G-Sync Display — Tom’s Hardware

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Ever since G-Sync Technology Preview: Quite Literally A Game Changer back in December of last year, gamers have been anxiously waiting for compatible monitors to appear. Nvidia satiated the impatient by releasing an upgrade kit a few months back that allowed adventurous owners of Asus’ VG248QE to modify the display themselves, enabling G-Sync functionality with an appropriate GeForce GTX graphics board.

Today we have the first G-Sync-enabled screen in our labs, Asus’ ROG Swift PG278Q. It’s a 27-inch TN-based monitor with 2560×1440 resolution, selectable refresh rates up to 144 Hz, and motion-blur reduction courtesy of a variable backlight strobe option. Asus also confers the elite Republic of Gamers branding, reserved for the company’s hardcore gaming products.

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Brand	Asus
Model	ROG Swift PG278Q
MSRP	$799
Panel Type	TN
Backlight	W-LED, edge array
Screen Size	27-inch
Max Resolution	2560×1440
Max Refresh Rate	144 Hz
Aspect Ratio	16:9
Native Color Depth	8-bit
Native Gamut	sRGB
Response Time (GTG)	1 ms
Brightness	350 cd/m2
Speakers	—
VGA	—
DVI	—
DisplayPort v1. 2	1
HDMI v1.4	—
Audio In	—
Headphone	—
USB	v3.0 — 1 up, 2 down
Media Card Reader	—
Panel DimensionsWxHxD w/base	24.6 x 14.4 x 9.4 in620 x 363 x 237 mm
Panel Thickness	2.6 in / 66 mm
Bezel Width	.3-.5 in / 8-12 mm
Weight	15.4 lbs / 7 kg
Warranty	Three years

Priced at $800, the Swift certainly isn’t cheap. Then again, it also doesn’t have any competition at present. Cutting-edge tech is packed into this new screen. The only thing that seems out of place is the TN panel it employs. This brand-new-for-2014 part comes from AU Optronics. It uses a white LED backlight and has a true 8-bit color depth.

We won’t go into a detailed explanation of G-Sync here. That was already covered thoroughly in the previously-linked preview. Simply, this is a new technology able to match the monitor’s refresh rate to the actual frame rate of the input signal.

Why is this important? To answer that, we need to look at how video signals originate. When you watch your television, the broadcast, streamed, or disc-based content is encoded at a specific frame rate. The output device sends it out at either its native rate or a modified one depending on the components in your signal chain. The point is the rate never changes. Therefore, it always matches the refresh rate of your display. Each frame is drawn from top to bottom at the beginning of each scan cycle.

In computer games, however, the frame rate is constantly changing. Because each image is rendered rather than simply displayed, processing overhead makes the draw time for each frame different. Of course your monitor doesn’t care about that. It just keeps drawing each frame from top to bottom 60 times per second (typically), regardless of when that frame actually arrives from the video card.

This means the display is usually in the middle of a refresh cycle when the frame arrives and therefore only draws part of it. The next frame arrives in the meantime and it’s just a little different, the image appears to tear horizontally. While higher refresh rates can mitigate the artifact, it can still show up even at 144 Hz.

G-Sync removes the monitor’s fixed-rate limitation and locks the input and output refresh rates to each other. Presto! No more screen tearing. No matter what the frame rate is at any given moment, all you see is perfectly smooth motion with no artifacts.

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Asus ROG Swift PG278Q G-Sync Monitor Review

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Christian Eberle is a Contributing Editor for Tom’s Hardware US. He’s a veteran reviewer of A/V equipment, specializing in monitors.

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Asus ROG Swift PG278Q Premium Gaming Monitor Specs, Prices and Availability

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Home » IO Devices » Asus ROG Swift PG278Q Premium Gaming Monitor Specs, Prices and Availability

March 5, 2021January 16, 2014 by Peter Paul

One of the most interesting 4K gaming monitor revealed in CES 2014 was the Asus ROG Swift PG278Q Premium Gaming Monitor. It is a 27-inch WQHD gaming monitor built with exclusive gaming features, eye popping design and NVIDIA’s G-SYNC technology. This monitor has what every gamers dreamed of having in a monitor. Check out its specifications, features, price and availability below.

UPDATE: The Asus ROG Swift is now officially released and available. Read full story here: ASUS ROG Swift PG278Q Gaming Monitor Unleashed – Features NVIDIA G-Sync and 144Hz Refresh Rate

Asus ROG Swift PG278Q Specifications

Display: 27-inch WQHD 2560 × 1440 (16:9)
Narrow 6mm bezel designed for multi-monitor setups
Pixel Pitch: 0.233mm
Brightness: 350cd/m²
Display Colors: 16.7M
Refresh Rate: Over 120 Hz
Response Time: 1ms (GTG)
Connectivity: 1 x DisplayPort 1.2, 2 x USB 3.0 ports
Stand Adjustments: tilt (+20° ~ -5°), swivel (+60° ~ -60°), pivot (90° clockwise), height adjustment (0 ~ 120mm)
VESA-wall mountable (100 × 100mm)
Special ASUS Features: GamePlus and 5-way joystick OSD navigation

The Asus ROG Swift PG278Q features a WQHD (2560 x 1440) resolution, fast 120+ Hz refresh rate, 1ms response time and a full range of ergonomic adjustments. It also features ASUS GamePlus and NVIDIA G-SYNC technologies that are designed to deliver the ultimate gaming experience.

Say goodbye to motion blur and lag with 120+ Hz refresh rate and 1ms response times for a competitive advantage in all your games, thanks to smoother gameplay and on-screen responsiveness. The ROG Swift PG278Q also features GamePlus, an exclusive ASUS feature.

GamePlus is an OSD overlay that enables crosshair and timer functions to be displayed on the monitor. Gamers can select from four different crosshair types to suit the gaming environment, while the timer function allows players to track elapsed time in real-time strategy games. These tools allow gamers to practice and improve their gaming skills.

The Asus ROG Swift PG278Q provides an array of options that include DisplayPort 1.2 for native WQHD output, dual USB 3.0 ports, VESA wall mount capability and a versatile stand with full tilt, swivel, pivot, and height adjustment for an ideal viewing position while playing the latest game titles.

The smart cable management feature rids your desktop of tangled wires, while the super narrow 6mm bezel ensures the ROG Swift PG278Q is an ideal choice for seamless multi-display gaming setups. Another nod to gamers and improving the user experience is a 5-way joystick that allows the user to easily navigate the OSD and make quick monitor adjustments.

The ROG Swift PG278Q is also the world’s first WQHD monitor powered by NVIDIA G-SYNC technology. NVIDIA G-SYNC, a breakthrough in display technology, synchronizes the display’s refresh rates to the GPU. The ROG Swift PG278Q eliminates screen tearing, minimizes stutter and input lag to deliver the smoothest gaming experience possible. With G-SYNC technology objects look sharper and more vibrant, while gameplay is more fluid and responsive.

Price and Availability

The Asus ROG Swift PG278Q comes with a hefty price tag starting at $799 USD. It is expected to be available in the following weeks to come or next month. I’ll update this post once it hits local shelves or it becomes available to order on popular online stores.

UPDATE: The Asus ROG Swift PG278Q 27-inch gaming monitor is now available. You can order here. Meanwhile for visitors from UK get it here.

Overview of the ASUS ROG SWIFT PG278Q

gaming monitor Unlike ordinary users who are interested in a high-quality picture in monitors and, mainly, high viewing angles (and who thus prefer monitors on an IPS matrix), avid gamers put forward other requirements, first of all — a short response time and a high refresh rate. Unfortunately, modern IPS monitors are unable to meet their needs, so manufacturers use TN matrices for gaming models (which, by the way, have recently grown noticeably in terms of image quality). One of these monitors is the new product from ASUS — ROG SWIFT PG278Q, which is one of the first to boast such parameters as WQHD resolution (2560×1440 pixels), 144 Hz and support for NVIDIA G-SYNC technology.

Zmist

1 Design
2 Menu
3 In operation
4 Results

Design

You can’t confuse it with an original stand with an office model.

The frame around the screen is thin — only 8 mm (on a diagonal of 27″ it is visually perceived much thinner than it actually is). However, in the on state, in the best traditions of «frameless» models, it turns out that the frame is actually a little wider — 1 cm (the image does not adjoin the frame «butt», but is separated from it by an additional 2 mm).

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The display stands on an impressive «leg» with the same solid platform — all joints are quite rigid, so the whole structure is very stable and «solid» — there is no laxity or swaying of the screen when you press the control buttons here and close.

The stand provides all the necessary degrees of freedom, allowing you to adjust the height of the screen above the table, rotate it around the vertical axis, tilt and switch to portrait mode. For some reason, markings were applied to the rotating disk at the base of the “leg” — with its help, apparently, you can measure the angle of rotation, but why this is needed in a gaming monitor is a little unclear (a similar system is used in a professional line of monitors from ASUS, but even there it looks more like a design tribute than a real instrument).

Of the video inputs, there is only one — DisplayPort; Neither HDMI nor even DVI is used in this model. In addition, next to the video input is a USB hub with two USB 3.0 ports. The monitor supports wall mounting (a VESA-compatible mount is hidden under the cover that attaches the stand to the display), all connectors are oriented downwards and do not interfere with this use of the monitor.

It seems to be a good tradition for monitor manufacturers to abandon traditional buttons (both hardware and touch) in favor of a joystick. Here, in this model, a 5-way joystick is used to navigate the menu — however, it was still not possible to do without buttons at all, so the power button, exit from the menu and calling a couple more functions are performed “the old fashioned way”. The buttons and joystick are located on the back, and symbols are applied on the front panel opposite them to facilitate their use.

It is worth noting the unusually fast turning on of the monitor — the image on the screen appears after just a couple of seconds after pressing the power button.

Additional buttons in ASUS PG278Q are a call to the GamePlus function (displays crosshairs on the screen, which is useful in games where it is absent for some reason — for example, «for realism» — is missing) and the «Turbo» button, which allows you to switch between refresh rates of 60, 120 and 144 Hz.

A click on the joystick brings up the main menu, which in the case of this monitor turns out to be quite concise (and is very different from the classic menu, which we have seen with minimal variations in almost all ASUS monitors). Visually, it is divided into 3 parts, in the far left there are only 3 main sections. The first, «Color», allows you to adjust the brightness, contrast and select a color mode — it means choosing one of three color temperature options — «normal», «warm» and «cold» or switching to a custom option, where adjustment of each of them becomes available. three primary colors separately. There are two options available in the Image section. The first is OD (overdrive, matrix overclocking), which can be “normal” or “extreme” (or off altogether). It is difficult to say why overclocking may be needed for a TN matrix with a response time of 1ms — however, tests should answer this question. And the second option in this section is ULMB (Ultra Low Motion Blur), which reduces motion blur by turning on backlight flicker (only available at a screen refresh rate of 85-100 Hz and is not compatible with the NVIDIA G-SYNC function).

And the last menu item is “SYSTEM Setup”, where settings are concentrated, such as choosing the menu language, changing its location on the screen, the degree of transparency, display time, turning on the backlight of the ring on the stand (“Light in motion” parameter) and resetting all parameters on factory settings. To put it bluntly, it’s sparse – but apparently, for gamers, this number of settings is enough.

In operation

ASUS PG278Q uses AU Optronics 27″ TN+Film sensor M270Q002 V0. The color depth of this matrix is honest 8 bits (without any tricks like Frame Rate Control), which is rare even among IPS panels, and for TN + Film it is even more rare. Its aspect ratio is 16:9, native resolution — 2560×1440 pixels, and this, in fact, is one of its advantages — this monitor is, firstly, the first model with TN + Film with a diagonal of 27 ″ and WQHD resolution, and secondly, the first model with this resolution and a screen refresh rate of 144 Hz.

This refresh rate significantly improves the smoothness of movement on the screen — this is noticeable not only in games, but even when working in Windows — the mouse cursor moves very smoothly, the feeling after transplanting from a conventional 60 Hz monitor is completely different and makes you remember «warm tube » CRT monitors. In dynamic games, the effect, of course, is much stronger — suffice it to say that on ordinary monitors, the user, in fact, sees performance in games no higher than 60 frames / sec — even if the computer is able to pull out 100 fps and higher, there will be no visual difference (about nuances of calculating physics, etc. will not be discussed here).

Just supporting 144Hz refresh rate isn’t the whole story though. In games, it is important not only how much the monitor can show, but also how much the video card is able to “give out” — and if its performance does not match the refresh rate of the monitor, then the user will observe the stratification of a dynamic picture, when parts of different game scene frames. Previously, the only way out was to enable the «vertical synchronization» (V-sync) parameter, which made the video card «wait» with the output of a new frame until the monitor started updating the frame. This removed the layering of the image, but significantly reduced performance and increased latency. The solution to this problem is called to be the G-SYNC technology, introduced by NVIDIA at the end of last year. She, figuratively speaking, puts everything upside down — instead of synchronizing the video card with the monitor, it does everything exactly the opposite — it makes the monitor work the way the video card needs. To do this, the monitor is equipped with a special module that makes it dynamically change the screen refresh rate and show a new frame synchronously with its «arrival» from the video card. This, firstly, eliminates the delay (the video card is not idle waiting for the monitor to start updating) and, secondly, it allows you to get exactly as many frames per second as the video card is capable of «giving out». System requirements (besides whether the monitor supports G-SYNC) are quite simple — a video card not lower than NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650Ti BOOST and drivers 331.58 or newer. After that, all that is required from the user is to switch the monitor operation mode to the highest possible screen refresh rate, and in the video card drivers make sure that this mode is activated in the Display — Set up G-SYNC settings, and vertical synchronization is set to G in the global settings. -SYNC (however, by default, these parameters are configured as such, and the user, if he did not change them manually, will not have to change anything). As a result, the screen refresh rate of the monitor will dynamically change depending on the current performance of the video card, and in games there will be smooth movement without stratification of the picture and with minimal input lag.

The screen coating is the usual matte, and the crystalline effect on the solid color areas of the image is quite noticeable (which is perfectly visible in the macro shot). So users for whom the presence of “sand” on the screen is critical should take this into account before buying.

The claimed response time of the monitor is 1 ms (GtG), with the overdrive turned off, there are slight trails behind moving objects. When overclocking is enabled in the “normal” mode, they are significantly shortened, when switching to the “extreme” mode, they disappear completely, however, in this case, overdrive artifacts appear — a distinct dark blue “shadow” appears behind moving light objects (it is almost imperceptible in test shots, because it matches the color of the background). As a result, we would recommend using the «normal» mode.

Response time test, worst/best frames (overdrive off):

Response time test, worst/best frames (overdrive normal):

Response time test, worst/best frames (overdrive extreme) :

In terms of viewing angles, we have a high-quality, but still TN-matrix. This means that the person sitting right in front of the monitor does not experience any particular inconvenience (unless you look closely, you understand that the bottom edge of the screen is slightly lighter than the top), however, when you change the viewing angle, the proprietary flaws of this type of panels begin to appear. So, with a deviation in the horizontal plane, the brightness decreases strongly and evenly, the image acquires a yellowish tint. When viewed from below (the most problematic «point of view» for TN + Film), the brightness drops very much, the colors are noticeably distorted, some of them go into others. When viewed from above, the contrast noticeably decreases, the brightness almost does not drop, the colors also do not receive any special distortions — in this sense, the matrix in this model looks noticeably better than in other TN monitors we have seen.

There is no backlight flickering in this model — PWM is not used here to adjust the brightness, this parameter is changed by changing the voltage. Thus, it can be noted that users with sensitive eyes during prolonged work at the monitor will not receive additional eye fatigue, which is caused by the use of PWM in other models.

Backlight leakage is weak, noticeably less than with IPS monitors — to get a clear frame where it becomes noticeable, the shutter speed had to be increased to 20 seconds (in the case of IPS panels, shooting is done at a 10-second shutter speed).

The glow effect is also very weak, and for the most part it is «levelled» by the peculiarities of the TN-matrix — namely, color reproduction distortions when looking at the screen at a large angle.

The minimum brightness was 45 cd/m² — this is a fairly good result, with such a brightness it is quite possible to work behind this monitor even in low ambient light conditions. The maximum brightness (average value when measured at 35 points) was at the level of 353 cd / m² — the difference between the brightest zone (center of the screen) and the least bright (lower right corner) was almost 100 cd / m², which is quite a lot.

This model does not have pre-installed image modes, you can adjust, by and large, only brightness, contrast (by default it is set to 50%, and this is the optimal value) and color temperature. We would recommend setting the last parameter to the value “normal” (according to the results of tests — 6000K) or “cold” (~6700K), since “warm” gives a frankly warm picture — the temperature is at the level of 5500K (the same value for the user mode on default settings). The gamma value is noticeably underestimated — to the level of 1.9(with the standard 2.2), this gives a somewhat faded picture, but it works out the details in halftones. The color gamut was 94.3% sRGB, color accuracy was surprisingly high even without calibration — except for colors close to black, the deltaE value did not exceed 3.

After calibration, the color gamut was 98.6% sRGB, and color accuracy was also noticeably improved.

Results

ASUS ROG SWIFT PG278Q is a very interesting model, because in it we were able to see «live» the work of NVIDIA G-SYNC technology, known so far only from press releases (and I must say that we were satisfied with what we saw — for the inveterate gamer, the difference between this monitor and a regular non-gaming model will be striking). In addition, this is the first gaming monitor with a diagonal of 27 ″, a resolution of 2560×1440 pixels and a screen refresh rate of 144 Hz, so it simply has no competitors in this regard. The image quality in this particular case plays a rather secondary role, however, it is worth noting that, as for a TN + Film panel, there are quite good viewing angles, and the image quality itself is more than acceptable for a typical home user. You can find fault here, by and large, only to a frankly laconic menu (in which, in particular, there are no preset image modes) and to the presence of only one video input — DisplayPort.

Pros:
144Hz refresh rate, low lag, 2560×1440 resolution, NVIDIA G-SYNC support

Cons:
Only one video input, minimum adjustments in the menu

Output:
Gaming model with excellent performance, support for adaptive screen refresh rate technology and very good image quality for the used matrix

Specifications

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A processor from AMD from the Phenom II X3 lineup with a processor number: 710 . The presented processor uses the Heka Core, the CPU is built according to the 45 nm process technology. The number of cores in this processor is 3, and the clock frequency is 2600MHz. This AMD brand CPU uses a socket (connector) to connect to the AM3 (motherboard) motherboard. The level 3 cache memory is 6144 KB, while the level 2 cache memory is 1536 KB. Information about max. memory bandwidth: 21 Gb/s. The manufacturer, AMD, presents this processor as a computing processor for systems of the level: Desktop PCs. Found information about the start date of production (or release) of the processor: 09.02.2009.

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with part number 770 . This processor uses the Dothan Core , and the processor itself is made according to the 90 nm manufacturing process. The number of cores in it is 1 , and the total clock frequency of this processor is 2133MHz . This Intel product is connected to the computer motherboard using the S479 connector (socket). The memory of the third level is — , and the memory size is of the second level is equal to 2048 KB . Maximum memory bandwidth found on the manufacturer’s website: — . This processor is presented by the company as a CPU for systems: Mobile PCs . Start date of production (release) of this processor: — .

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