Acer Predator XB321HK ?

I own one and here is my Amazon review of it. Had to go through 2 to get good one (first one had dead pixel and big light bleed in bottom right corner).

Overall this is quite stunning monitor, except for three annoyances:
- Speakers are simply unusable (I can't even understand speech while watching youtube through them).
- Same as with other 4Ks panels with this TCON (e.g. BenQ , XB271HK) sometimes half of display loses sync and very briefly flashes some 1/60 second artefact. This happens totaly random and rarely (a hour to a day) and easy to miss if you just blink, but kind of annoying for display at such price point.
- IPS glow is too pronounced. Requires to fiddle with display placement/angle, otherwise you will be getting glow from normal viewing position - because monitor is quite large (its same area as 35" UW - taller, but slightly narrower).

Normally I wouldn't buy Acer and won't keep display with annoyances such above - but currently there is the best for me, no alternative, and I have to live with downsides. Once I've got used to 32" 4K , I can never go back to anything lower.
 
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Thanks for the feedback guys! Speakers don't bother me at all, other than having to pay for something I don't need or want in a display. I have a dedicated desktop audio setup as well as headphones. I've never encounter a set of built-in monitor speakers that weren't utter crap. :D

The losing sync flicker that only happens occasionally I could probably live with, but I agree it shouldn't happen at all in a panel at this price point. Hopefully a future firmware upgrade or tweak in the manufacturing of the panel itself will resolve this issue.

Some light bleed is pretty much a given with all IPS panels... so long as it isn't overly pronounced, it also wouldn't bother me. Sounds like a bit of a lottery exercise, but hopefully they've tweaked this somewhat with manufacturing improvements since this display was first released.

I just wish fast 4K OLED gaming panels with gsync at the 32-34" size were available... perhaps by next year. For now, it looks like this is pretty much it as to high-end gsync capable gaming panels of this size/resolution. I'm upgrading from a Dell U3011 and while it has been a great display, I want to step up to a good 4K panel now and am look for something in the 32-34" range. 40" is just too big and the 4K TV's that are being repurposed by some as gaming monitors have too much lag and don't offer gsync. Cheers!
 
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Supercharged_Z06 said:
The losing sync flicker that only happens occasionally I could probably live with, but I agree it shouldn't happen at all in a panel at this price point. Hopefully a future firmware upgrade or tweak in the manufacturing of the panel itself will resolve this issue.
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I would be surprised if Acer or the panel manufacturer is even aware of this annoyance. The panel used is the AUO M320QAN01.0, and the manufacture is a Taiwanese company called AU Optronics. AFAIK, other monitors that have this panel are the QNIX UHD3216R, CrossOver 324K, HP Spectre 32 Studio, and BenQ BL3201PT. They all have this artifact glitch.

I paid $400 for my CrossOver 324K, I can live with it. But, if I paid $1300 for a Acer Predator, it definitely would not be acceptable.
 
xenolith said:
I would be surprised if Acer or the panel manufacturer is even aware of this annoyance. The panel used is the AUO M320QAN01.0, and the manufacture is a Taiwanese company called AU Optronics
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Heh, AU Optronics is Acer. Acer is just basically their "making-monitor" branch, while AUO is "making-panel" branch, but its all the same corporation.

They are probably aware to it to *some* extent, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was actually considered "acceptable enough" (like dead pixels), because they wanted a bite of 4K panel market and such small defect wouldn't stop them ;) But obviously they won't admit to it - and, actually, they won't admit that issue even exists. Some people tried to send monitors back to Acer for this glitch and they just (predictably) bounced them back with standard "we ran our tests and seen nothing wrong". Modern price to pay for cutting-edge tech - a lot of kinks still present.
 
RidingTheFlow said:
Heh, AU Optronics is Acer. Acer is just basically their "making-monitor" branch, while AUO is "making-panel" branch, but its all the same corporation.

They are probably aware to it to *some* extent, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was actually considered "acceptable enough" (like dead pixels), because they wanted a bite of 4K panel market and such small defect wouldn't stop them ;) But obviously they won't admit to it - and, actually, they won't admit that issue even exists. Some people tried to send monitors back to Acer for this glitch and they just (predictably) bounced them back with standard "we ran our tests and seen nothing wrong". Modern price to pay for cutting-edge tech - a lot of kinks still present.
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Yep, sucks to basically pay to beta test a product but that's the way things are these days. Very rarely are there perfect products as the cost of fixing every defect in the vast number of components due to the complexities is astronomical.

A lot of the times these are glitches with sub components and fixing them to involves changing manufacturing processes at other manufacturers. It's a nightmare that makes software development look like a cakewalk :(
 
4K is hard. Too many pixels, your TFT process should have nightmarishly low margin of error to ensure none of these 24 billion transistors goes bad.

And bandwidth to drive 4K is very high, hard to ensure that its 100% perfect all the time. E.g. in these average ~6 hours between glitch the signal path pushes through ~0.5 Terabytes of frame data - and one of these frame goes bad... And if you think "bah, 0.5Tb is not that bad - I can copy 10x times more over USB and didn't get single glitch" - unlike USB, Ethernet, etc, display connection is *non-retryable* - if glitch happens, it has to show it (no time or means to request this failed transmitted frame again).
 
JacobC1983 said:
What is the BenQ model that is G sync and 32 inches?
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My bad, the BENQ BL3201PH uses the same panel, but doesn't come with gsync baked in. It appears the Acer Predator is the only 32" 4K panel at the moment that has it right now. I went back and corrected my post.
 
Has anyone been able to get their Predator running at 10-bit color? Mine seems stuck at 8-bit on a GTX 1080 (I'm able to select 10-bit on my other 2560x1440 monitor without issue). Acer lists this as a 10-bit panel, so not sure what the issue is...
 
Do you expect 10-bit on desktop? Only Quadro cards with appropriate drivers allow that. Even than, its only for apps which are 10-bits aware (e.g. Photoshop), since Windows in general is still not 10-bit aware.

Otherwise (on consumer GPU) 10-bit available only in fullscreen and only select games make use of it.

10-bit per color support on NVIDIA Geforce GPUs | NVIDIA
gtx 1080 support for 10 bit display - EVGA Forums
madVR 10-bit Display Support Test - Doom9's Forum

Edit: just noticed that you've tested with another monitor and did some checking myself.

While panel is indeed 10-bit capable, I don't think G-Sync scaler supports 10-bit colour. Also 10-bit 4K @60Hz won't fit into DP 1.2 bandwidth. Monitor may do 10-bit gamma/colour correction internally (I bet this will be Acer's defence if you accuse them of false advertising), but for all intents and purposes of displayed content, its 8-bit monitor.
 
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The GTX 1080 supports 10-bit color selection via the NVIDIA Control Panel - I can select it on two other monitors (an HP Dreamcolor Z27X and an LG ultrawide 34UM95), but I can't select it on the Acer. With the XB321HK, there's no option for 10-bit color, only 8-bit - so you won't get 10-bit support in anything (yeah, applications do need to be 10-bit aware/fullsceeen/standard-Windows-limitations for it to actually engage, but you first need to select 10-bit color under NVIDIA Control Panel -- as referenced in the madVR link, this has been selectable since driver version 353.06). This is a huge bummer for future proofing, as it means the display is useless if NVIDIA ever decides to fully support 10-bit in the desktop, and it won't support any sort of HDR/greater bandwidth color reproduction in games. Not to mention false advertising on Acer's part, as at 8-bit, the display isn't supporting or displaying 1.07 billion colors.

This is really bizarre, as the bare panel itself is listed as full 10-bit/1.07 billion colors (see AUO M320QAN01.0 Overview - Panelook.com). I wonder if the GSYNC module is somehow preventing 10-bit support?
 
Haha, looks like we had the same thought re: the GSYNC module! I also thought about DP limitations, but as far as I can tell DP 1.2 should have the bandwidth to support 4K 60Hz with 10-bit color (the NEC PA322UHD, for example, supports 60Hz 4K at 10-bit color -- "Wide connectivity includes two DisplayPort with 10-bit support, four 10-bit HDMI..."). It may be the port on the XB321HK simply isn't up to spec. I've tried dropping the resolution or lowering the refresh rate to free up bandwidth, but that also doesn't seem to allow for 10-bit color - leading me to believe the XB321HK simply can't accept a 10-bit signal whatsoever, regardless of bandwidth. It's definitely not the GTX 1080's fault, as I can select 4K 60P @ 10 bit on my Samsung KS8000 over a DP to HDMI 2.0 converter (and 10 bit at lower resolutions on other monitors). I've contacted Acer to see what they say, but pretty disappointing if it can't actually do 10 bit color. Couple that with the lack of HDMI 2.0, and I'm struggling to justify the purchase price, particularly when you can get the exact same panel, sans GSYNC but with HDMI 2.0, in a QNIX for ~$415 USD.

FWIW, I did bit of googling, and can't seem to find anyone that can confirm functional 10-bit on a 4K GSYNC monitor of any size. Weirdly, I also can't find a single review actually confirming any of the ostensibly 10-bit GSYNC panels can actually select 10-bit color.
 
Zaccone said:
(snip...) I've contacted Acer to see what they say, but pretty disappointing if it can't actually do 10 bit color. Couple that with the lack of HDMI 2.0, and I'm struggling to justify the purchase price, particularly when you can get the exact same panel, sans GSYNC but with HDMI 2.0, in a QNIX for ~$415 USD.
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Let us know if you hear back from them!

After doing a bit more research, it seems other monitors using this same panel can be had in roughly the $500-800 range sans the baked in gsync support and fancy gamer motif packaging/stand.

So I'm wondering if gsync is really worth it or would it be better to grab the cheaper version of this panel and apply the savings toward a second Titan instead...
 
I'm really torn on keeping the display. On the one hand, it's absurdly overpriced considering you can get the exact same panel for significantly less, on the other hand, when GSYNC works, it's transformative - letting me flip on high AA settings @ 4K and still keep things smooth (Forza Horizon 3 at 4K Ultra Adaptive settings constantly fluctuates between low 40s and high 50s on my GTX 1080s but feels silky smooth with no tearing or stuttering - much much smoother than the locked 30fps on the Xbox One version). The XB321HK also apparently has much better input latency than the QNIX and especially Crossover. Sigh.
 
What's crazy is the QNIX UHD3216R ($419) is literally 1/3rd the price of the ACER XB321HK ($1289). That is a lot of extra dosh ($870) for gsync and a slightly improved input latency.

Throw in another $330 over the price of the ACER, and you end up with the QNIX and another Titan X Pascal card for SLI in my case.

I too am torn. Grab the ACER and stick with my single Titan X... or grab the QNIX and feed it SLI sauce. Definitely a 1st world problem. Heh!
 
It will be very difficult to get such video or picture. You will need a camcorder on continuous loop, and with support of framerate > 60fps (because flicker is 1/60 second long). I've tried my phone and its no good.
And its not like "acer now taking attention", they have already asked for video/photo proof months ago - and obviously nobody had such equipment so problem was swept under the rug...

But I wonder it proving the problem will even help. Can't help but being sceptical here - for example, XB271HU image split due to firmware bug was proven to Acer months ago (because its actually clearly visible), Acer confirmed it in this thread several times "yes, its a firmware bug, you need to send monitor in for firmware flash". Then people have sent their monitors to "service centers" - and they apparently don't even know about problem /and/or don't know how to fix it and just sent monitor back saying "its not defective" even when fault was clearly visible!
So when Acer says "we are looking at it at our HQ" it does not inspire me with confidence because their HQ appear to have no control over their regional service. Or they just use "regional service incompetence" as an excuse to not to replace expensive monitors and save money. They have fixed it for new monitors though (good for them), so the only reliable way to get XB271 without issue was to buy a new monitor.

Still, it would be interesting if Acer at least explains what is causing the problem. Though again, with above XB271HU bug they didn't even clearly explain what the problem was except vague "its a firmware bug but you must to send monitor to service to have it fixed".
 
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Oops, this is surprising! But very good that someone finally managed it. It looks like something I see, but for me it flickers *much* more briefly.

I can only speak from my experience, as problem was reported some months ago, and Acer asked for photo/video back then. I've tried to record via my phone (which actually supposed to have 60fps camera). But all it did record is slight "darkening" visible - it was no way representative of what I actually seen with my eyes and if you'd showed it to anybody they would just say "is *that* a big deal?". Since in these months nobody else recorded it (and problem not actually unique to Acer), I just assumed it difficult to record. I will try to give it a shot again with my iPad - issue is, for me it happened very rarely recently for some reason.

But as I mentioned above, proving the problem unfortunately is very short step with firm like Acer...

Edit: lol, I only had to try iPad Air instead of my "60Hz camera" phone and it did record it pretty well -
 
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it's awesome, and now that I have my titan x pascal, I can never go back. 4k max everything at 60 fps with gysnc, is stunning.

the flicker seems to happen less and less as time goes by, and now I barely register when it happens.
 
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Visited my local MicroCenter a couple days and snagged one. Figured I'd roll the dice on stuck pixels/back light bleed issues with them since they have a 15 day no questions asked exchange policy and actually had a few in stock. Seem I got lucky on my first try. Factory sealed box and it was pixel perfect with very minimal light bleed. Haven't noticed any issues at all. Coming from a U3011, the difference isn't all that huge, just slightly more display area (32" vs 30"), but the resolution increase going to 4K is quite nice. Had to pump up windows scaling though for text... my eyes aren't quite what they used to be. (Damn presbyopia! Just wait till you all hit 50, it sucks!) Settled on 125%.

The gsync with my Titan XP is quite nice - definitely helps smooth things out as to screen tearing. Still thinking this should really be a $900-1000 monitor though... $1299 + tax is a bit much for what it is, which is pretty much a gaming focused display with minimal frills/inputs, no 10 bit color support, and a clean bezel/stand design with minimal adjustment features. Still its the only game in town as to a 4K 32" panel with gsync.
 
Supercharged_Z06 said:
Visited my local MicroCenter a couple days and snagged one. Figured I'd roll the dice on stuck pixels/back light bleed issues with them since they have a 15 day no questions asked exchange policy and actually had a few in stock. Seem I got lucky on my first try. Factory sealed box and it was pixel perfect with very minimal light bleed. Haven't noticed any issues at all. Coming from a U3011, the difference isn't all that huge, just slightly more display area (32" vs 30"), but the resolution increase going to 4K is quite nice. Had to pump up windows scaling though for text... my eyes aren't quite what they used to be. (Damn presbyopia! Just wait till you all hit 50, it sucks!) Settled on 125%.

The gsync with my Titan XP is quite nice - definitely helps smooth things out as to screen tearing. Still thinking this should really be a $900-1000 monitor though... $1299 + tax is a bit much for what it is, which is pretty much a gaming focused display with minimal frills/inputs, no 10 bit color support, and a clean bezel/stand design with minimal adjustment features. Still its the only game in town as to a 4K 32" panel with gsync.
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Make sure to closely check black screen in dark room on max brightness for dead/stuck pixels - this is the best way to spot them (since they are very small on 4K).
Saves you trouble when you notice dead pixel after return window is over.
 
RidingTheFlow said:
Make sure to closely check black screen in dark room on max brightness for dead/stuck pixels - this is the best way to spot them (since they are very small on 4K).
Saves you trouble when you notice dead pixel after return window is over.
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Yup, very first thing I did. Set the brightness to max and scanned it up close in a dark room, going through a solid black screen and then solid Red, Blue, Green screens as well. BLB on my panel is acceptable to me - all IPS based panels have this, it's just when it's very pronounced or isn't uniform across the display that it becomes a real issue. Here's a shot of mine in a dark room with the screen set to maximum brightness displaying a black image. (Note the camera senor also really accentuates this - it looks much more uniform to the eye - and turning down the brightness to 50% tones it down quite a bit):
Predator_BLB.jpg


This one's a keeper!

PC.jpg
 
Does the half screen artifacting problem happen on both HDMI input and DisplayPort? Seems like some people either don't have it or don't notice it. If running DP fixes it I'd be a lot more tempted by this display.
 
G-Sync only works on the Displayport, so IMO the HDMI port is rather worthless and only useful to plug in a blur-ray player or something.
 
TroubleMagnet said:
Does the half screen artifacting problem happen on both HDMI input and DisplayPort? Seems like some people either don't have it or don't notice it. If running DP fixes it I'd be a lot more tempted by this display.
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HDMI is rather worthless on this display, since it only supports HDMI 1.x - either 4K@30Hz or 1920p@60hz.
But artefact does happen on both, because its the panel problem. I initially thought its something to do with G-sync, so I switched running screen for a while in 1920x1080@60Hz HDMI - but the artefact still happened in a day or so.
 
Subbing to this thread as an owner who suffers from the half-screen flicker. Other than that, awesome monitor. Shame about the ridiculous garish chassis though, given there are no alternatives with the same specs.
 
[C/P from another topic as it seems it might be more useful here.]

I got my slightly used Acer XB321HK off Ebay and had the same occasional flicker (where either left or right half of the screen would flicker some green lines occasionally), but never any blackouts. I read about these flickers beforehand so I was expecting them and wasn't really bothered at all.

Unfortunately, after a while it also developed some other flicker which was full screen and after a week or two the flicker became a permanent fixture with horizontal lines showing across the screen (darker on the left side and becoming lighter towards the right side). They would go away if the monitor was switched off for a day or so, but would come back within 10 minutes of it being back on.

My local official Acer service took the monitor and diagnosed a faulty panel, but Acer refused to send them a new panel and insisted it's sent to the country where it was purchased from (Germany) which is funny since the monitor was imported to EU by Acer Italy.

It's pretty much impossible to contact Acer Europe directly for any information and they don't seem to offer any international warranty (not even within EU in this case), so that's the last Acer monitor I purchased, for sure.

Sent it back to the place it was purchased from at an extra cost and they just shipped it to the Acer importer/service center/whatever so will see what happens. Hope I get a new one, but I don't know if I'll risk the Acer warranty again (which I suppose won't get extended) - might sell it off and wait for some 37,5" 1600p 144Hz or 32" 4K 144Hz models which should come about eventually (not made by Acer, of course).
 
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