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When Acer and Asus announced their first 4K 144Hz monitors at CES 2017, many gamers were skeptical that these displays would be affordable for years. Well, here in 2019, every 4K 144Hz gaming display on the market at the start of the year still ran you $1,200, minimum—at least, until the Acer Nitro XV3 came along. At $899.99, it breaks a price barrier of sorts that has kept 4K 144Hz monitors out of the hands of your average gamer. But in the process, it sacrifices in several areas. While the monitor performs as it should, our sample had light-bleed issues and a laggy onscreen display (OSD). And its lack of support for core features such as HDR and G-Sync when running at 4K resolution and 144Hz keep this 27-inch monitor from breaking away in all the ways we hoped it would.
What Gamers Want
One peep at the cabinet, and you know that the Acer Nitro XV3 (also known as model XV273K) is purpose-built for gaming. You won’t find productivity-centric features such as the option to turn the display vertically, so it may not be the right choice for any programmers or writers out there who moonlight as gamers.
Indeed, the display itself carries many of the same aesthetic details that you’ll find on Acer’s Predator gamer-brand monitors. These include brushed-plastic molding, a curved matte-black casing, and an aggressively styled stand that rises to a maximum of 21 inches from the top of the screen to the desk surface.
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Acer has included glare guards with the Nitro XV3 that you can install using a standard screwdriver if you want to keep any excess shine off your screen. I didn’t find, however, that excess light in our labs was too much of a problem, even with the guards pulled off.
The bezels are small enough on this panel, but they don’t leave room for speakers. The panel does have a set, though. If they have no other options available, gamers can use the two onboard 4-watt speakers that vent behind the monitor. I recommend going this route only if every pair of your headphones is AWOL and you don’t mind enduring an all-treble, no-bass listening experience.
One important note for gamers: The Nitro XV3, like all Acer gaming monitors, maintains a very important feature, in my book: a wide swivel range for your keyboard under the display’s base. When I play first-person shooter (FPS) games, like many pro gamers (not that I’d call myself one!), I keep my keyboard rotated within a 45-to-60-degree angle on the desk relative to the plane of the screen. This makes it easier to access all vital parts of the keyboard (the WASD cluster, along with the Shift, Control, and spacebar keys) without straining my hand.
Why does that matter? The Nitro XV3’s angled, open base lets you slide your keyboard into a snug spot underneath the monitor at an angle you like, without forcing you to increase the distance between your eyes and the display. Bonus points here to Acer. The company clearly knows how gamers play and has built a display base to accommodate that.
Ode to Joy(stick)
As a gaming monitor, the Acer Nitro XV3 comes with a goodly number of ports, including two DisplayPort 1.4b inputs. You also get one HDMI 2.0 input, a mini DisplayPort, one USB 3.0 upstream port, two USB 3.0 downstream ports, and two USB ports with BC1.2 charging capability.
Despite my appreciation for that fact that Acer includes a joystick on the back of the Nitro XV3 to navigate its onscreen display (seriously, monitor makers, wise up; this is the only way to go), the menu itself was sluggish during general operation. Settings would take a second or two to apply, switching between inputs was poky, and overall, the experience could have been a bit smoother to deal with.
That said, the configurable options are extensive in number and depth. You can tweak or customize pretty much every aspect of the display to your personal preference, including display-level RGB settings, the RGB hue, and around a dozen configurables that change everything from the refresh rate to the aspect ratio of the display.
The Nitro XV3 also includes some staple gaming features, such as the option to add a hardware-based crosshair (three styles to choose from) on the screen. This feature is perfect for hardcore FPS multiplayer modes that take your crosshair away as part of the challenge.
Other gaming options include the response-time Overdrive feature, which reduces the pixel-response time; visual response boost (VRB) technology, which syncs up your backlight strobe with the refresh rate to reduce motion blur; and the option to keep the display’s current refresh rate stickied to the top right of the screen.
Solid Color, But a Leaky Backlight
Acer doesn’t flog the Nitro XV273K as a pro-level display, but rather one that can help “gamers play in highly accurate color.” So we’re not going to fault this in-plane switching (IPS) panel for some of the bumps it hit during our color testing.
First, the good news: The panel’s sRGB results are nearly off the chart out of the box, scoring at 99.9 percent accuracy. Acer advertises rates of 130 percent (wherein the sRGB color space is purposely oversaturated for greater accuracy in rendering and editing tasks), but we don’t have a meter or software that can measure color to that extreme.
Acer also points out the Nitro XV3’s high levels of DCI-P3 color accuracy, which is more important for movies and TV shows than games. The Nitro XV3 also impressed on this front. In this test, PC Labs records a result of 90.8 percent coverage, which is great for a 4K display at this price. Plus, given Acer’s own advertisement of 90 percent DCI-P3 capability, it is nice to see the monitor nail that number square.
Finally, PC Labs records AdobeRGB coverage results of 85.7 percent, which aren’t great and should steer away anyone who wants to use this display as his or her main driver for photo or video work.
The luminance numbers, meanwhile, are well above what we expect for a panel that supports DisplayHDR 400, achieving 363 nits in SDR mode, and 478.5 nits when switched over to HDR mode.
You’ll need that brightness, alas, because you’ll only want to play on this monitor in a well-lit room. As an IPS LED display, some light bleed is to be expected, but it was a serious problem on the Nitro XV3. All four corners of the image on the display show yellow light leakage, fed in from the backlight of the display. This is not just an issue with our unit, as many other owners and reviewers online have noted the same issue, and the pattern of the bleed almost always remains the same: left side of the screen more washed out than the right.
Gamers can decide for themselves how much light bleed they’re willing to tolerate based on the image above. And, granted: The problem surfaced only while I was playing in total darkness in games that had a lot of dark scenes. But that’s one bloody backlight if I’ve ever seen one.
Some Key Sacrifices Explained…
During PC Labs’ testing of the HP Omen X Emperium 65 BFGD, we found that running at 4K and 144Hz with HDR and G-Sync active at the same time was not only possible, but it could all be done over a single DisplayPort 1.4 cable. So why, in the case of the Acer Nitro XV3, does running at 4K and 144Hz only work with two DisplayPort 1.4 cables? And even then, why does the monitor lose its HDR and G-Sync capabilities?
After speaking with a representative at Acer, I learned it all comes down to the horsepower behind the display. Because the Nitro XV3 is technically a “budget” option for 4K/144Hz play (it’s all relative, after all), any onboard chips dedicated to decoding the signal for the monitor just aren’t as capable as what we found on the $4,999 HP Omen X Emperium 65.
For one thing: a dedicated G-Sync chip. While Acer’s specs say the Nitro XV3 is capable of decoding a FreeSync signal, it also looks to be one of the monitors that was grandfathered into the G-Sync program when Nvidia announced the initiative earlier this year.
As such, you have to make a compromise with this screen: either run it at a maximum of 120Hz in 4K with G-Sync turned on, or crank it up to 4K/144Hz and lose access to G-Sync and HDR in the process. Do you want the full gamut (no pun intended) of features, sans 24Hz of refresh rate? Or are those extra milliseconds of refresh more important than the benefits you would gain in a multiplayer arena from G-Sync? Your call.
Unlike the Acer Predator X27, the aforementioned Omen X Emperium 65, and the Asus ROG Swift PG27UQ(Opens in a new window), the Acer Nitro XV3 is the only 4K 144Hz HDR display that asks you to make this kind of compromise.
The Cost of Compromise
Acer had an admirable goal with the release of its Nitro XV3 4K/144Hz display: to bring the price of these luxury panels—which, as of this writing, didn’t go lower than $1,199 in any other like model—into the realm of affordability for more gamers.
In doing so, though, Acer did some corner-cutting, leading to some serious backlight-bleed issues as well as the lack of HDR and G-Sync/FreeSync support at 144Hz. Both of these hurt what would otherwise be a great gaming experience with a PC rocking an appropriate graphics card. (See our guide to the best graphics cards for 4K gaming.)
If you’re not planning on playing in complete darkness and don’t mind making some moderate refresh-rate sacrifices at the higher end of the scale during 4K play, shelling out $899.99 just might be worth it. But if not, we recommend saving up just a bit longer and looking into the company’s $1,199 Predator XB3(Opens in a new window) monitor instead.
3.5
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Despite its strong color results and moderate price for a 4K, 144Hz-capable panel, Acer’s Nitro XV3 has some shortfalls that keep it just shy of gaming-monitor glory.
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Source link : https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/acer-nitro-xv3-xv273k