Some people may find this problematic if they are playing a lot of darker games or watching darker movies. cd/m 2 at this default brightness setting, giving us a solid (for an IPS-type panel) static contrast ratio of 1081:1. We carried out some initial response time measurements and visual tests in each of the overdrive settings, and at a range of refresh rates.

There is also an on screen timer, FPS counter, display alignment adjuster and “sniper” crosshair mode. The OSD settings were adjusted as shown in the table above, as guided during the calibration process and measurements. Unusually there are no USB ports on this screen, something quite rare from any monitor nowadays and missed a bit for these kind of general uses. Again, this is a gaming screen and so most people will want the brighter settings for gaming, especially if you want to use the strobing blur reduction backlight as well.

This is common for nearly all strobing blur reduction backlights in the market, as at lower refresh rates the flickering becomes more visible and distracting. We selected this refresh rate because it offered a slightly better balance of response times and overshoot than at 144Hz, and remained fast enough to keep up with the frame rate.

This is a different panel to other 1440p high refresh rate IPS screens we’ve seen to date, and actually not one of the typical panel parts. The screen is aimed largely at PC gaming, and you can take care of aspect ratio control via the graphics card menu anyway so it’s not a major deal. The response time element, part of the lag you can see, is split from the overall display lag and shown on the graph as the green bar. This is Asus’ added “Extreme Low Motion Blur” mode, which on this particular screen can also be used at the same time as FreeSync/G-sync, hence the “sync” in the name.

TUF Gaming VG27AQ is a 27-inch, QHD (2560x1440), HDR IPS display with an ultrafast 165Hz* designed for professional gamers and those seeking immersive gameplay. As with most strobing blur reduction backlights it did help improve eye tracking of moving objects across the screen, making them sharper and easier to follow.

There is also VESA 100mm mounting capabilities for those who want to arm or wall mount the screen instead. And you can clearly see this in our results as ASUS takes Best Gaming Monitor Brand with 26% of the votes, while Prism+ is much further behind at 15%. In fact most of the OSD settings remain accessible, with the notable exception of the Trace Free (response time) control. The model we have with us at the moment is their 27″ VG27AQ, featuring an IPS technology panel with a 2560 x 1440 resolution.TUF Gaming VG27AQ is a 27-inch, WQHD (2560x1440), HDR IPS display with an ultrafast 165Hz* designed for professional gamers and those seeking immersive gameplay.

We will discuss some of the considerations for using VRR in the following section when it comes to response time performance. ASUS Ultra-Low Blue Light technology reduces the amount of potentially harmful blue light emitted by the display. When comparing the default factory settings for each monitor it is important to take into account several measurement areas – gamma, white point and colour accuracy. It’s not as bad as the black smearing you see from most VA technology panels we should point out though. Photos should be taken in a darkened room at a shutter speed which captures what you see reliably and doesn’t over-expose the image.

The Asus lost between 14% and 18% of its brightness on the left-hand edge and up to 16% on the right-hand edge, with Delta Es that veered up beyond an average of 4. The screen is 16:9 natively so most external devices are going to be fine without needing scaling anyway which is good, but it would have been nice to see a mode to maintain the source aspect ratio whatever it might be, or maybe a 1:1 pixel mapping mode as well. These adjustments before profiling the screen would help preserve tonal values and limit banding issues.