In order to stay competitive, most gaming enthusiasts will outfit their PC’s with powerful graphics cards capable of insane frame rates. Cruising along at 60 frames per second (fps) is all well and good, but if your monitor can’t keep pace with your GPU, you may end up with motion artifacts that will degrade your picture. With the Asus ROG Swift PG278Q ($799), you can enjoy smooth, high-resolution gaming, courtesy of Nvidia’s G-Sync technology, which is built into the monitor. The PG278Q’s 27-inch Twisted Nematic (TN) panel has a maximum resolution of 2,560 by 1,440 (WQHD), a 144Hz refresh rate, and a 1-milliscond pixel response, all of which combine to deliver a sharp, blur-free gaming experience. This monitor is also 3D ready and offers such gaming features as crosshair aiming, LED lighting effects, and a turbo hotkey. Its solid performance and gamer-friendly features earn it our Editors’ Choice for big-screen gaming monitors.

A Word About G-Sync
G-Sync technology was developed by Nvidia to eliminate the screen tearing and stuttering artifacts that plague many of today’s graphics-intensive games. Tearing occurs when the monitor is not in sync with the GPU as it attempts to display multiple video frames in a single refresh cycle. It appears as a disjointed, skewed image and can usually be spotted in the center of the screen. Enabling Vertical Sync (V-Sync) in your graphics card’s control panel will help reduce or eliminate tearing, but it introduces other issues, including increased input lag (the time it takes for the screen to react to a controller command) and stuttering.

Stuttering occurs when the GPU, while waiting for the screen to refresh, sends the same frame multiple times, causing a noticeable delay. This also leads to input lag issues as the screen tries to play catch up. With G-Sync, the GPU takes control of screen refresh rates, instead of the monitor. A G-Sync-enabled monitor is equipped with a special module that communicates with the GPU, allowing the monitor to operate with a variable refresh rate in order to display frames quickly and in the correct order as they are rendered by the GPU. The result is a much smoother gaming experience, with decreased input lag. There are a few caveats, however; G-Sync only works with a DisplayPort 1.2 signal, and it requires an Nvidia GeForce GTX 650Ti BOOST or higher GeForce GTX graphics card.

Design and Features
The PG278Q($1,099.99 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) has an edgy look that lets you know it’s not your ordinary desktop monitor. Its 2.5-inch-thick, matte-black cabinet sports extremely thin (0.25-inch), matte-black bezels on the front and V-shaped air vents on the back. The cabinet is supported by a wedge-shaped base and a mounting arm with a sliding hinge that offers 4.7 inches of height adjustment, 37 degrees of tilt adjustment, and a 90-degree pivot range for viewing in Portrait mode. The mounting arm swivels 120 degrees at the base and is surrounded by a ring of LEDs that glow red when the Light In Motion feature is enabled in the onscreen menus system. You can remove the stand assembly completely and use the four mounting holes on the back of the cabinet to hang the monitor on a wall using an optional VESA mounting kit.

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As with the Philips Brilliance LCD Monitor with Nvidia G-Sync (272G5DYEB)( at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) and the Acer XB280HK( at Amazon)(Opens in a new window), the PG278Q only has one video input, the full-size DisplayPort 1.2 port needed to run G-Sync. Hopefully, future G-Sync models will include additional inputs for use with things like gaming consoles and laptops. Joining the DisplayPort connector at the back of the cabinet are three USB 3.0 ports (one upstream, two downstream). Behind the right-hand bezel are four buttons (including the Power button) and a small, five-position joystick button. One of the buttons is a Turbo hot key that lets you toggle between the three refresh speeds (60Hz, 120Hz, or 144Hz), and another is a Game Plus hotkey that lets you choose one of four crosshair overlays for more accurate aiming. It also allows you to set a game timer that is displayed on the left side of the screen.

The joystick button makes it easy to navigate the menu system and change settings. Adjustments are limited to Brightness, Contrast, Color Temperature, and Nvidia’s Ultra-Low Motion Blur (ULMB) feature which helps reduce motion blur when G-Sync is not enabled (this only works when the monitor’s refresh rate is set to 85, 100, or 120Hz in the graphics control panel). The PG278Q is 3D-Vision ready and works with Nvidia’s 3D Vision 1 and 2 kits.

Asus covers the PG278Q with a three-year warranty on parts, labor, and backlight. Included in the box are an USB upstream cable, a DisplayPort cable, a power cord, and a resource CD.

Performance
I tested the PG278Q’s G-Sync performance using Nvidia’s Frame Capture Analysis Tool (FCAT), which allows you to toggle between G-Sync, V-Sync-On, and V-Sync-off modes without having to exit whatever game you’re playing. I loaded up our Heaven and Valley gaming benchmark tests and set quality to Ultra and antialiasing to 4X. With V-Sync disabled, game play was slightly choppy in testing, but I did not detect any screen tearing. Enabling V-Sync reduced the chop and provided smooth motion, but when I enabled G-Sync, the action was a bit smoother than it was with V-Sync enabled, and game play was more fluid. The difference between V-Sync and G-Sync was more noticeable when I played Crysis 3, especially in scenes where the action is fast and there’s a lot of rendering going on. In this game, G-Sync provided much smoother game play than V-Sync and produced no stutter or chop. Ghosting and blurring is non-existent, thanks to the panel’s 1-millisecond (gray-to-gray) pixel response.

See How We Test Monitors

The TN panel suffers from the same viewing-angle issues that we saw with the Acer and Philips monitors; there is noticeable color shifting from extreme side, top, and bottom angles. The PG278Q could display every shade of gray on the DisplayMate 64-Step Gray-Scale test, but gray-scale performance was not as sharp as what you get from a good In-Plane Switching (IPS) monitor like the NEC MultiSync EA244UHD( at Amazon)(Opens in a new window).

Color accuracy is good, though not perfect. The chromaticity chart below shows that red and blue colors (represented by the colored dots) are relatively close to their ideal CIE coordinates (represented by the boxes), but green misses the box completely. However, the monitor doesn’t exhibit any signs of tinting. In fact, colors appear rich in tone and evenly saturated.

The PG278Q doesn’t offer any power-saving featuresk such as an Eco mode. It used 39 watts of power during testing, which is identical to the Lenovo ThinkVision Pro2840m and a bit more efficient than the Acer XB280HK (47 watts in Standard mode). However, the XB280HK has an ECO mode that drops power usage to 33 watts.

Conclusion
The Asus ROG Swift PG278Q is an excellent choice for gamers of all stripes. Armed with G-Sync smoothing technology, speedy refresh and pixel response rates, and a sharp WQHD panel, this monitor is the perfect companion to your high-end gaming rig, and its ergonomic stand lets you adjust the panel for the optimal viewing position. More importantly, it’s a strong performer. As with the other big-screen G-Sync monitors we’ve reviewed, such as the Philips Brilliance LCD Monitor with Nvidia G-Sync (272G5DYEB) and the Acer XB280HK, the PG278Q only has one video input, and its viewing angles could be wider, but unlike the aforementioned monitors it offers a handful of features designed to enhance your gaming experience. As such, the Asus ROG Swift PG278Q is our Editors’ Choice for big-screen gaming monitors.