ASUS Announces ROG SWIFT PG278Q Premium Gaming Monitor

I know you were probably just using the term "one frame" as a rule of thumb in regard to input lag, but to be precise - on a 120hz monitor fed abundant fps, one frame~screen update is 8.3ms. At 144hz it would be 6.9ms. Using gsync the matched fps and hz would vary.. 60hz~fps is 16.6ms per frame, 40hz~fps is 25ms, 30hz~fps is 33.2ms.

Higher hz+fps yields higher motion tracking, motion and animation definition. By comparison, lower fps is "freeze framed" through more world state slices. Seeing more recent and more frequent/defined world states and resultant greater number of opportunities to initiate actions per second must factor in along with input lag measurements. Zero blur vs fov blur movement of the entire viewport during continual movements,abilities, and mouse look pathing is another consideration in the full picture - both for your performance as a player vs a game/opponents but also aesthetically.
 
Any idea on how good the image quality is going to be? Its a TN! TN image quality SUCKS most of the time. At the same time, technologies do change, Panasonic's latest TV prototype that beats plasma black levels is actually an IPS panel, so you never know... I hate VG248QE color accuracy - its horrific!
 
It would be great if you could have it all in one monitor but even with the most recent advances in this and a few other high hz+strobing monitors, you still can't.
1st/3rd person games are about movement. You don't play a screenshot. You have to choose your tradeoffs.

Any monitor without true 120hz input is completely out of the running for modern gaming imo.

Zero blur (ulmb mode/backlight strobing) is considered essential by a lot of people too. Without it, you are not even at what can be defined as a solid grid resolution during your continual FoV movement blur of the entire viewport (again, you don't play a screenshot).

The g-sync option to eliminate screen abberations on more demanding games that fluctutate to lower fps ranges may end up being hard to live without in those insufficient gpu power vs overpowered graphics settings/demanding game situations as well.

That already knocks all tv's and all but a handful of monitors out. That's without even going into response time and ghosting, and input lag.

edit: That said, all TN's are not the same. My samsung A750 looks much better than most TNs I have had before. Still not comparable to my 2560x1440 ips but it will be interestering to see this asus 2560x1440 tn next to the ips for a more direct static image comparison at the same ppi. Motion will be even more of a no-contest than it is now with the ulmb mode (and g-sync option alternately).
 
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Waiting on this thing to come out is killing me. I need another monitor for my setup and cant really seeing paying full price for 1440p monitor that has been out for a while
 
I wonder if Nvidia put some sort of NDA on all g-sync displays - because we had literally nothing ever since Benq, Philips and Asus annouced theirs.
 
I think that if you look at previous gaming monitor releases by ASUS, the biggest complaint is the image quality. I think they are trying to get the right components in to make this monitor look like something worth looking at.. G-Sync is also out of stock for whatever reason.
 
Bluesun311 said:
Starting to wonder at the delay. Gonna reguess June before I have a look at it on my desk.
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looking here: http://pcdiy.asus.com/2014/01/pg278q-rog-swift-gaming-monitor-the-best-gaming-monitor/

JJ's comments from 3 days ago certainly imply they're making sure it's 100% developed before it's out of their factory. There's also random user comments springing up about a slight change in the screen (though I have no idea where that's coming from at all as JJ states nothing's changed).

Mid Q2 is May, so we can expect May - June at this point. They're taking a Blizzard (now Activision) approach to the monitor here. It'll be out Soon(tm).

Quite frankly if the monitor is delayed for even a few more months to get it right, that doesn't concern me too much. JJ already stated on the website above that running the most demanding games in ultra settings with 3x 780Ti's sli'ed together won't crank out 120 fps, or anywhere close to it. I really don't think these monitors will come up to their peak performance until we see the 800 or possibly even the 900 series cards from NVidia. Buying these monitors in advance prior to having a Maxwell card while still an upgrade, is a limited one. My opinion? As long as they're out before the Maxwell cards, I'm good. Anything after that and I'll start to get antsy!
 
There are some interesting comments from JJ on there about 'modifications', specifically to the screen coating:

"As of now our focus will be most likely trying to tune the current AG Polarizer to slightly less aggressive to have a closer to gloss appearance but while trying to maintain benefits of the matte / more aggressive AG Polarizer." (Posted 1 week ago)

"...we are currently continuing to collect feedback to either revise the current AG Polarizer and try to tweak it for slightly less aggressiveness or look at other options." (Posted 1 week ago)

Although in response to somebody assuming some changes to screen coating...

"There are currently no formal changes. The product is still under design and development as such we are tweaking and tuning to aspects that can still be changed at this stage to release the best product possible. Projected release time frame is still early to mid Q2. Stay tuned for more information. (Posted 3 days ago)"
 
K
crimsonyoshi said:
looking here: http://pcdiy.asus.com/2014/01/pg278q-rog-swift-gaming-monitor-the-best-gaming-monitor/
JJ already stated on the website above that running the most demanding games in ultra settings with 3x 780Ti's sli'ed together won't crank out 120 fps, or anywhere close to it. I really don't think these monitors will come up to their peak performance until we see the 800 or possibly even the 900 series cards from NVidia. Buying these monitors in advance prior to having a Maxwell card while still an upgrade, is a limited one. My opinion? As long as they're out before the Maxwell cards, I'm good. Anything after that and I'll start to get antsy!
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Depends on which game http://forums.evga.com/m/tm.aspx?m=2069079&p=
Several of those are +/- 120fps with 2card sli 780ti at 2560x. You could also turn off some of the most extreme settings on a few of the games to score appreciably higher.
Of course many isometric rpgsand isometric mobas (e.g. path of the exile) are less demanding, as are source games and some indie titles.

By the time the reviews are in on this monitor and I hopefully get my hands on one, it will be only a matter of months before 20nm arrives so I''ll work with my single 780ti until then and consider sli on 20nm.
 
elvn said:
K

Depends on which game http://forums.evga.com/m/tm.aspx?m=2069079&p=
Several of those are +/- 120fps with 2card sli 780ti at 2560x. You could also turn off some of the most extreme settings on a few of the games to score appreciably higher.
Of course many isometric rpgsand isometric mobas (e.g. path of the exile) are less demanding, as are source games and some indie titles.

By the time the reviews are in on this monitor and I hopefully get my hands on one, it will be only a matter of months before 20nm arrives so I''ll work with my single 780ti until then and consider sli on 20nm.
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True! Also, my apologies - my allergies are wreaking havoc on me today and apparently I can't think straight. I wrote my last comment with running 3 of these monitors from the same machine in mind. If I want g-sync on all of them, I'd need 3 cards anyways (with current tech). And following that thought, no sli, so I'd be running one monitor off of a single card three times over.

However, even looking at those benchmarks, the maximum for most of those at 3 way sli is 120+, but averages are anywhere between 66-120 at 2560x1600 and minimums are 47-108 (save for bioshock which comes in at 127). True, 1440 is slightly less pixels so add a few extra fps, and yes running 780 ti's in sli mode will for the most part be so close to 120 fps on average that you might as well call it that, but with Maxwell, it's another jump in technology such that the vast majority of averages should be above 120 (more so than at the line currently). Plus we should see the minimum fps's climb too.

Yes, 47 fps in the worst case scenario from the benchmarks will still be smooth but I'm always a fan of seeing those numbers go as high as they can. And yes, older games will perform all that much better. My comment in the previous post was more towards the minimum numbers as I personally can't stand at any point in time playing a game and having it drop to the point where I can't see smooth gameplay even for a split second. (That and I semi blindly echoed a comment from JJ).

I'm also sitting at a single 580 gtx currently (one of the rare 4GB models at that) - really I'm trying to convince myself that NVidia has to make a dual DP Maxwell card so we can get these in surround mode one day (wishful thinking at this point)! I know Kepler can't do that currently, so for me I can wait to see if Maxwell can and will. I think for me it's also wanting to go from Fermi straight to Maxwell on an upgrade cycle too. Sure Kepler would be a great upgrade performance wise, but I can wait the extra few months for Maxwell even if I grab some of these monitors and (ugh) leave them in their boxes for a couple of months :/.
 
Personally i think surround will bury fps in relation to 120hz. At least gsync addresses screen abberations at lower fps though. Im hoping dual 20nm cards will do well enough at high +setiings(for high fps with ulmb mode). 1440p is demanding enough. Triple monitor and 4k will always be even lower fps at ultra settings. With new gpu gens come higher graphics ceilings on subsequent games. Don't forget that the ultra/max graphics ceilings are arbitrarily set by devs any gpu gen. They could easily make games more complex and with more demanding eye candy. They purposefully limit those ceilings. Unless there were a huge leap in graphics power benevolently priced into the gpu hierarchy , extreme resolutions will have put the cart before the horse for quite awhile yet at 120hz~fps.
 
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Is there any chance that a monitor with similar features but bigger than 27" will ever be produced?
Everything about this monitor sounds good except I wouldn't want to get stuck at 27", I need something bigger.
Ultrawide with same specifications would be even better.
 
KashunatoR said:
Is there any chance that a monitor with similar features but bigger than 27" will ever be produced?
Everything about this monitor sounds good except I wouldn't want to get stuck at 27", I need something bigger.
Ultrawide with same specifications would be even better.
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You and me both. I can't even stand to use my Qnix even though it OC's to 120hz.

I prefer gaming on my 30 inch CCFL Dell 3007. And i'd prefer something much larger than that tbh.
 
KashunatoR said:
Is there any chance that a monitor with similar features but bigger than 27" will ever be produced?
Everything about this monitor sounds good except I wouldn't want to get stuck at 27", I need something bigger.
Ultrawide with same specifications would be even better.
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Marm0t said:
You and me both. I can't even stand to use my Qnix even though it OC's to 120hz.

I prefer gaming on my 30 inch CCFL Dell 3007. And i'd prefer something much larger than that tbh.
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I forget where exactly I saw it in these forums, but there's a whole thread dedicated to why monitors don't really exceed the 30 inch range before you start to get into TV's. Granted anything is possible in the future, but that thread boiled down to basically: Monitors above 30" with everything they bring to the table start to get really expensive really quickly versus TV's at the 32" level. You won't get super mega amazing picture with 1ms response (or 4-5 ms with IPS, whatever it is at best currently) with a TV, you won't get the lowest input latency with a TV, you won't get g-sync with a TV, and a few other things you won't get with a TV.

To the average consumer, if you want something bigger than (or even at) 30", price wise they will get a TV. Even if an amazing 40" monitor existed, its price vs. that of a TV would be hugely different, and while enthusiasts such as ourselves would jump all over that in a heartbeat, we're unfortunately a very small niche market for these massive corporations. It's not worth it for them to design and manufacture monitors for our small segment.

Now in regards to monitors and switching to my speculation hat, there's a great chance as time goes on and prices come down for newer technology that we will see TV's enter the gaming market - or more specifically we'll get TV's that actually are amazing for games as opposed to being pretty good today. Technology always improves and I'm sure we will see monitors > 30 inches, but that's not going to happen for a while yet.

Back to the realistic hat, JJ stated somewhere (I think the massive thread on pcdiy's site) they were busy collecting information for the second generation (I'm pretty sure he said generation and not 'round') of the swift monitor. We know Asus is more than likely going to be first out of the starting gate with these, but you can bet the other g-sync monitor companies are going to latch on to this monitor and attempt to outdo it. Competition spurs innovation. We might see a 30", not from Asus necessarily, but it could happen. Technology will get there, and if you can't wait that long, be like the guy who started goPro! He wasn't happy with the marketplace the way it was so he went out and made an amazing camera. It's selling fantastically. Get up enough of a drive, find people out there who know stuff about monitors (and various other aspects of computers), start your own company and make something amazing! You'd also need to have some pretty good power with NVidia or ATI to push innovation too, but that's a minor detail! :p.
 
I think 28.5-31.5" would be the sweetspot for this kind of monitor. The pixel density is high enough and you still don't go on TV realm. Think about the immersion such monitor would provide...
 
This 120hz asus should be great barring any snags. Utilize a monitor arm like an ergotron so that you can move it closer when gaming. Sit within 1.5' away and it will start reaching into your horizontal periphery. I'm not a fan of eye bending into the periphery on the central camera FoV personally so I wouldn't want larger. I'd love a large wide aspect monitor horizontally which would be like "bezel-less surround" aspect(if I had an unlimited gpu budget, which I don't), but that would be for extra FoV for immersion, not making the same 16:9 scene and the same scene elements JUMBO on a wall in front of my face.

Unless games allowed you to assign a virtual monitor space in the center , with all extents added FoV for immersion, I wouldn't want a very large monitor. 30" is ok but pushing it, depending on your distance. 37" was definitely way too large for at a desk when I had a 37" westinghouse.

In regard to 30" 2560x1600 vs 27", the much larger pixels and the view distances, I'll post this graphic I made again:
27in_vs_30in_2560x-width.jpg


Also this in regard to HoR+ virtual camera in most games, making 16:9 mode better even on a 16:10 30" imo.
HOR-plus_scenes-compared_1-sm.jpg


If you want a really huge "screen" experience, wait for the oculus rift. Unfortunately it will be so big of a screen that it will be in need of a very high resolution and high rez textures and long view distances. Higher resolution (than 1080p) prob won't show up until a later model after the initial ones. However the current prototype is 1080p oled, high hz, and uses backlight strobing or screen blanking of some sort for low persistence/blur elimination. FoV's and game design will really have to be developed or modded just for the oculus rift for it to really look best as a VR scene/world and not just be a jumbo version of a regular game camera though.
 
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At risk of slightly derailing the topic here, wouldn't it be great if the oculus was able to support g-sync! Next up, the holodeck!
 
@elvn I agree with everything you say and I was aware of that.
My viewing distance is 65 cm which is 2 and a bit feet and can't reduce it. Therefore 30" would be best for me right now. Of course I'll try Oculus Rift but that's still one year or so away...
 
Is there any news on this display? I'm waiting to decide between this, the VG248QE, and the upcoming BenQ XL2420G.
 
Terpfen said:
Is there any news on this display? I'm waiting to decide between this, the VG248QE, and the upcoming BenQ XL2420G.
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At this point to me it's clearly being delayed. Think JJ said something about mid Q2 but I'm not holding my breath. I ordered a X-star 1440pOC from dream-seller to see what all the fuss is about.
 
Bluesun311 said:
At this point to me it's clearly being delayed. Think JJ said something about mid Q2 but I'm not holding my breath. I ordered a X-star 1440pOC from dream-seller to see what all the fuss is about.
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I had one of the qnix, pretty much same as xstar. I didn't really like it. I had it oc to 120, but if ur game went down to like 80-90, it got kind of choppy, very similar to a low frame rate. When the fps stayed 100 or more it was so smooth. Awesome monitor if fps stays up. My benq 120hz doesn't do that, it pretty much stays smooth unless my fps drops to 40-50 or so
 
kregstrong said:
I had one of the qnix, pretty much same as xstar. I didn't really like it. I had it oc to 120, but if ur game went down to like 80-90, it got kind of choppy, very similar to a low frame rate. When the fps stayed 100 or more it was so smooth. Awesome monitor if fps stays up. My benq 120hz doesn't do that, it pretty much stays smooth unless my fps drops to 40-50 or so
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It is the same with VG248QE. You do not have to have a constant 150fps which I get to enjoy the smoothness.
 
This is obviously just a graphic trying to simulate what you would see, but if you consider that it is showing 3 vs 5 frames rather than 3 vs 6, it could be what a slightly less than 120fps rate would look like on a 120hz monitor, animation/motion definition wise. I guess 5/6 of 120hz's screen updates filled would be 100fps exactly.

120hz-vs-60hz-gaming.jpg
 
Bluesun311 said:
At this point to me it's clearly being delayed. Think JJ said something about mid Q2 but I'm not holding my breath. I ordered a X-star 1440pOC from dream-seller to see what all the fuss is about.
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Screw it, then. I'm not even really interested in 1440p, I'd rather bide my time until 4K becomes easier to run in a couple of GPU generations.

Looks like I'm getting the VG248QE and the G-Sync add-in kit.
 
The price is killing it for me! The auria I have is half the price...am I really missing out with the features this has? :(
 
Cube Rhino said:
The price is killing it for me! The auria I have is half the price...am I really missing out with the features this has? :(
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First gen G sync is pretty pricey, and this is an ROG branded monitor (more money for the aesthetics) It's the only 1440p solution afaik.

So what it really comes down to is how much you'd enjoy G-sync, a pretty monitor, and a wicked FAST monitor. This is supposed to be a high quality TN, but it's still a TN.

I think most would opt to pay $300, get an IPS or VA panel that OC's to 120 or 96hz without the Gsync.

It comes down to preference though, this is a website for enthusiasts, not for sensible spenders. (to an extent :)
 
Well it's pretty simple, if you care about motion resolution above all and you have the money to spend this or the Eizo FG2421 are essentially your picks, decided by whether you prefer & have the horsepower for 1440p and want 27" or prefer VA blacks and don't mind 24".

Is it worth the premium over a Korean panel? IMO yes because I think the motion resolution of those is overrated, the fact of the matter is that none of them can do 120hz properly in the first place, they don't good enough pixel response to render properly at 120hz, let alone have strobed backlighting. But if you aren't super picky about motion resolution, or a few hundred bucks extra is a very significant amount to you, then it's clearly not worth it. Honestly, if the price of this monitor is a major concern, you probably don't have enough invested GPU-wise either. It's not just the list price that makes this thing expensive, but also how hard it is to drive 1440p at very high frame rates.

And finally, we still have really no idea about when you'll be able to ACTUALLY BUY IT :p
 
What kind of horsepower do you think we will need to see framerates around 100fps on this 1440p monitor? I currently have SLI 770's but will probably move to a single card once the next gen comes out.
 
I can't imagine a single card being able to consistently average >100fps in the majority of games without turning down settings at 1440p. I would be looking at something like GTX 780 or 780ti SLI if I wanted to game on this monitor.... that will ensure that you can average >100fps in MOST games without having to turn settings substantially down. If you are willing to turn settings substantially down, turn off AA, etc, a single GTX 780ti or equivalent might work at least most of the time? Also if you mostly want to play older games.

Probably it's at least possible with whatever the top end Maxwell card will end up being, but again, you'll have to turn stuff down. You can run over benchmark results in any top-end GPU review(such as: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7492/the-geforce-gtx-780-ti-review ) to give you an idea of what's needed. I wouldn't expect Maxwell to be any more than a 30% improvement over the current top end... so that works out to be enough in many current gen games, but definitely doesn't give you much breathing room for next gen.
 
You also need to have cpu capable of doing 100+ fps - with how bad some games are coded today it might be impossible.
 
I'll link this again, showing one to four 780ti sc cards on various games at different resolutions (especially 1080p and 2560x).
http://forums.evga.com/tm.aspx?m=2069079

You can get 100fps+ on a lot of games with a higher end dual card sli setup, even if you have to customize your settings to "high+" instead of ultra on a few titles.

If your fps will fluctuate lower a lot on the more demanding games or graphics settings you choose on those games, g-sync mode might be a huge upgrade vs non-g-sync monitors.

Since this is the first 2560x1440 that fully supports 120hz, and has gsync/ulmb modes - it has no competition. G-sync module alone is probably a + $100 premium.
Don't forget that the first 27" 1080p 120hz monitors were $500 to almost $600 for quite awhile (other than a few brief sales).

I have a single 780ti sc, so if I end up with this monitor I will be using g-sync on some games. Others like source games (TF2, L4D2, etc), isometric rpgs, etc. will allow me to run very high fps and enable the ulmb/zero blur mode. I'm fine with that kind of performance for now. I can't see dumping money into another 780ti when 20nm will be out around 7 months after this monitor comes out. When 20nm comes out I'll probably do 20nm sli with two cards.

The cart (resolution+hz) is ahead of the horse(gpu power/price). 1080p is still the best performance resolution for enthusiast gpu budgets without going to extreme budgets. There will supposedly be a bunch of 1080p 120hz g-sync monitors out at some point too.

edit: fixed wrong link paste
 
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I thought the whole point of G-Sync was that, if your frames do dip, this tech will still provide smooth and fluid motion. :confused:

So, what is the point of trying to maintain 100+ FPS?

I mostly play MMO's, and am looking very much forward to playing MMO's with a G-Sync monitor. Reason being, I don't care what kind of hardware you have to throw at a MMO... many of the ones I play, Age of Conan, Tera Online, both of these titles have areas where frame rates are greatly reduced simply because there is too much network congestion. There are times when raiding in AoC, I see a significant drop in FPS. Sieging as well. The network coding just can't keep up with all the information which results in a big drop in FPS. My hopes is that, with G-Sync, even if my frames do drop down to 30 FPS, the game will still be moving smoothly on the screen.
 
Rohaus said:
I thought the whole point of G-Sync was that, if your frames do dip, this tech will still provide smooth and fluid motion. :confused:

So, what is the point of trying to maintain 100+ FPS?
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You are correct, G-Sync provides smooth visuals at all FPS above 30 (IIRC).

You can disable G-Sync and use ULMB at higher FPS/Hz, though.
 
Gsync eliminates judder and tearing, it does not provide the same motion definition and motion tracking smoothness as high fps does. Low fps basically "freeze-frames" through more screen updates. You will be losing a lot of motion definition and the ulmb backlight strobing zero blur. I will however be falling back on gsync mode until I do 20nm sli at year end, other than some source games abd isometric rpgs that will have very high fps (which I'll use ulnb mode on).

120hz and 120fps benefits http://www.web-cyb.org/hardware-info/120hz-fps-compared.htm
 
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