14 DAY TRIAL // At the Republic of Gamers Unleashed event in San Francisco, ASUS announced two new gaming monitors. Both are 27" WLED + IPS panels. Although similar in form factor, they are very much different in maximum resolution, refresh rate and color depth.
The "smallest" of the two, the PG279Q is a 27" monitor with a WQHD 2560x1440 resolution IPS panel, that sports a very convincing refresh rate of 144Hz and 4ms response time.
It's mostly aimed at players who play first-person shooters where a high refresh rate is desired for a better image accuracy. Usually, displays equipped with 144Hz refresh rates don't arrive with UHD or 4K resolutions and this screen is no different.
Being an IPS screen, the monitor has a wide viewing angle of 178 degrees and a 17.7 million (8bit) color depth. The PG279Q also enjoys an NVIDIA G-Sync and an NVIDIA Ultra Low Motion Blur, being perfect for high-intensity gaming.
The Ultra Low Motion Blur is a technology which uses a strobe backlight to reduce motion blur. It's worth noting that NVIDIA G-Sync and ULMB are mutually exclusive, so you have to close one to activate the other.
ASUS brings one monitor for the competitive gamers, and the other for the rest
The other screen, the ASUS PG27AQ is the "bigger brother" of the two. It has a UHD resolution screen of 3840x2160 in the same 27" form factor, but because of the high resolution, the refresh rate is limited at 60Hz while also having a 4ms response time. It boasts the same 170 degrees viewing angle but does not sport the same color depth as the PG279Q, having a lower 1.07 billion (10bit).
However, being an IPS screen as well, it does have the same excellent 1000:1 contrast ratio. Just like the PG279Q, it features NVIDIA's trademark adaptive framerate feature, the NVIDIA G-Sync.
ASUS has announced that the PG279Q will be available in November and it will sell for $799 (€703) in the United States, while the pricing for the PG27AQ is currently unknown, but it is very likely to be similar with the PG279Q.
