ASUS ROG Strix OLED XG27AQDPG: OLED gaming monitor with 500Hz refresh rate

OLED panels are increasingly appearing in top-end gaming monitors, not only in large diagonals from 30 inches, but also in more popular form factors — for example, like our today's "guest", the 27-inch ASUS ROG Strix OLED XG27AQDPG with a resolution of 2560×1440 pixels.

Specifications of ASUS ROG Strix OLED XG27AQDPG

Design

ASUS ROG Strix OLED XG27AQDPG has a format typical of OLED monitors: a thin screen body at the edges and a rather massive block with electronics in the center. The design is typical of the Republic of Gamers line: a combination of dark gray matte plastic with metal, a large "leg" and branded patterns on the back panel.

Traditionally for this line, the monitor has RGB backlighting of the series logo on the back, the behavior of which is configurable in the menu.

The screen is made in the traditional "frameless" design, when it is framed only by a thin line of the side edge of the case. However, in this case, even when turned off, if you look closely, you can notice a blacker frame around the screen, hidden under the protective glass.

The stand has all the necessary degrees of freedom — screen height adjustment (110 mm travel), left-right rotation (+45° ~ -45°), forward-backward tilt (+20° ~ -5°), and switching to portrait mode in both directions. At the top, you can see a tripod socket — a very convenient thing for streamers.

If desired, the monitor can be mounted on another stand or wall: it has a VESA-compatible mount, and the kit includes a special adapter that is installed instead of the leg.

All connectors are located in a niche under the stand mount and are oriented downwards: these are DisplayPort 1.4 and two HDMI 2.1. You can also find a connector for wired headphones and a USB hub with 2 USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports. The power supply in the ASUS ROG Strix OLED XG27AQDPG is built-in.

There is a hole in the leg to organize the connected cables.

Menu

ASUS ROG Strix OLED XG27AQDPG is controlled using a 5-way joystick located on the back in the center, behind the ROG logo, and two buttons on either side of it: power on and menu exit. They are almost imperceptible to the touch, you can find them using the icons on the screen when the OSD is open, which are located directly opposite them.

The first item is the gaming section: here you can select a video mode in the Game Visual section, activate variable refresh rate, access gaming settings in GamePlus (for example, enable frame rate display and even a graph of its change over time), brighten shadows, and get a QR code to download the DisplayWidget Center utility.

The "Picture" menu contains traditional image settings - brightness, contrast, backlight blue light filter, "Solid Brightness", etc.

In the next menu, "Color", you can change the color temperature, gamma, color saturation, and choose one of three color space options — sRGB, DCI-P3, or "Wide Gamut" (the full color coverage of the panel).

The OLED Care section contains settings aimed at protecting the OLED panel from premature burnout, "Input selection" allows you to manually switch to a different video input, "Backlight effect" gives access to RGB backlight settings, and in MyFavorite you can change the functions of "hot keys" - moving the joystick in any direction.

And finally, the last section, "System Settings", contains system settings — language and behavior of the on-screen menu (Ukrainian localization is available), headphone volume level (the monitor does not have its own speakers), resetting all settings to factory settings, etc.

Separately, we note the presence of a new item in the system settings — "Power Settings". When first turned on or after resetting to factory settings, the ASUS ROG Strix OLED XG27AQDPG operates in power saving mode - it has reduced maximum brightness and locked most of the parameters. To access all monitor settings, you need to switch to "Performance" mode in this item.

Functionality

The ASUS ROG Strix OLED XG27AQDPG uses a 10-bit QD-OLED panel. It has a diagonal of 26.5 inches, a resolution of 2560×1440 pixels and a very high refresh rate of 50 0 Hz. The pixel density is almost 111 PPI, and the dot pitch is 0.2292 mm.

In our opinion, this combination of characteristics is the most versatile in terms of image quality and performance requirements of the gaming system. The physical dimensions of the screen are already large enough to create a basic "immersion effect" in the game, the dot size is relatively small and the image looks dense, while the 1440p resolution does not require a "supercomputer" to get a decent number of frames/sec.

It should be noted that at one time we had another OLED model from the same manufacturer with very similar characteristics — XG27AQDMG. It had the same diagonal and resolution, but a simpler panel - WOLED, with a refresh rate of "only" 240 Hz.

This model can get 500 Hz via both DisplayPort and HDMI. In addition, the ASUS ROG Strix OLED XG27AQDPG supports AMD FreeSync Premium Pro adaptive refresh rate technology and is compatible with NVIDIA G-Sync.

Like other ASUS gaming monitors, the XG27AQDPG supports the company's Extreme Low Motion Blur (ELMB) technology: it improves clarity in dynamic scenes by turning off the backlight "through the frame". This significantly reduces maximum brightness and adds a barely noticeable flicker, but if the gamer notices blurring of contrasting objects in dynamics, this technology will completely eliminate it. It should be noted that ELMB only works at frequencies up to 240 Hz and is not compatible with the adaptive frequency function.

In addition to the on-screen menu, you can control the monitor using the DisplayWidget Center utility. It duplicates most of the OSD settings, while offering much more convenient configuration, and also has additional functionality  for example, individual settings of video modes for different programs and even voice control (still in beta).

The monitor has a number of functions to protect the OLED panel from burn-in: dimming the screen during inactivity, periodic pixel cleaning, image shifting, detection of static elements such as program icons on the desktop or taskbar, etc. This model also has a user presence sensor behind the monitor, which can automatically turn it off when the user leaves for business.

Image quality of ASUS ROG Strix OLED XG27AQDPG

The screen is glossy, which makes blacks appear "blacker" than on matte displays when you play with the lights on. It also has an anti-glare coating that largely eliminates stray reflections of the environment on a dark background. It's not as effective as a matte coating - bright objects still "penetrate" through it a little, but it doesn't interfere with working on the monitor at all.

As mentioned, the ASUS ROG Strix OLED XG27AQDPG uses a QD-OLED panel — it has a denser subpixel structure compared to the previous model XG27AQDMG, which used a WOLED panel with an additional white subpixel. This results in a denser image and better display of fine text.

The response time is listed at 0.03 ms — traditionally, OLED panels have a significant advantage in this parameter even over fast gaming IPS panels, in which the response time is at best 1-2 ms. This, together with a refresh rate of 500 Hz, makes the ASUS ROG Strix OLED XG27AQDPG a great option for fast online shooters, where instant reaction to what is happening in the game is required.

Indirect proof of this, by the way, can be considered the lack of the overdrive function standard for gaming IPS or VA monitors: with such a response time, there is simply no need for additional "overclocking" of the panel. At the maximum refresh rate, the clarity of dynamic scenes is almost perfect, and it is impossible to see the blurring of objects moving quickly across the screen.

This, by the way, makes the ELMB function not very relevant even for connoisseurs of a perfectly clear "picture": its activation has a minimal effect that can only be seen if you specifically look for differences, and ELMB is incompatible with adaptive frequency technologies and works at frequencies no higher than 240 Hz.

Thanks to the OLED panel, this monitor displays a completely black color: the lack of additional screen glow is clearly felt in complete darkness, where it is simply impossible to see a turned-on screen with a black background in the room, and from any viewing angle: the glow of a dark background at an angle (the so-called glow effect), typical of other types of panels, is also absent here.

Of course, the viewing angles are maximum, in this regard the OLED monitor also significantly surpasses the highest quality IPS models: even when viewed "completely from the side", the brightness and color saturation remain at the same level.

As with other OLED monitors, the maximum brightness changes dynamically depending on how many bright objects are displayed on the screen. This can cause an unpleasant effect when working in Windows, where a completely white screen (for example, when using a light system theme and a full-screen text editor) will be noticeably dimmer than a small white window on a dark desktop wallpaper.

So, with a white rectangle on a black background measuring 10% of the total image, the maximum brightness is 525 cd/m². If it is increased to 50%, the maximum brightness drops to 362 cd/m², and with a completely white screen, it drops to 312 cd/m².

You can get rid of this effect using the Uniform Brightness function in the Image menu: it reduces the maximum brightness to ~ 310 cd/m² regardless of the amount of white on the screen. This significantly improves the workflow in Windows, but for movie and gaming sessions it is better to disable it, as it significantly reduces the peak brightness, which is important in such monitor usage scenarios.

As with other monitors from this manufacturer that we have reviewed recently, the ASUS ROG Strix OLED XG27AQDPG offers the ability to select one of three color spaces regardless of the current GameVisual video mode: the corresponding parameter is called "Display Color Space" and can be found in the "Color" section. It can take three values: sRGB, DCI-P3, and "Wide Gamut", in the latter case the panel will have the maximum color coverage.

Tests show that in "wide gamut" the color coverage of the panel fully covers the sRGB space, 95% Adobe RGB and 98% DCI-P3. In DCI-P3 mode, the coverage decreases slightly, mainly in the green zone: up to 88% Adobe RGB (97% DCI-P3). And finally, in sRGB mode, the coverage narrows to the dimensions of this space: 98% sRGB, 73% Adobe RGB, 75% DCI-P3.

The gamma value is significantly underestimated in all options offered by the manufacturer: the closest to the standard value of 2.2 is the maximum gamma in the monitor settings, "2.6".

The color temperature is slightly understated in all templates, at the standard value of 6500K the actual temperature is 6100K – this makes the image a little warmer, but the difference is quite weak and not at all critical for a gaming monitor.

The uniformity of color temperature across the entire screen area is very good (something that the previous model on the WOLED panel lacked so much): the maximum deviation ΔE is only 1.5 (the best match is in the center, the worst is on the right side of the screen).

The uniformity of the white field in the absence of additional backlighting is expectedly almost perfect: the maximum difference in brightness between different parts of the screen does not exceed 3%.

But with the accuracy of color reproduction, things are not so good here: the maximum value ΔE = 7, the average — 4.6. Recall that it is believed that the average user can see the difference between the reference color and what the monitor shows if this parameter exceeds 3.

Unfortunately, here we have the same situation as with the XG27AQDMG: unlike other monitors from this manufacturer, where the user receives high color accuracy in several video modes at once, including purely gaming ones, this model undergoes factory calibration in a single mode — sRGB CAL, which, as the name suggests, is calibrated to the sRGB color space.

In it, the gamma is set to 2.3, and the brightness is set to 32%, which is 110 cd/m². However, the user can adjust it in the range from 17 to 308 cd/m² - and, unfortunately, this is practically the only parameter that remains available for adjustment, all others are locked in sRGB CAL mode.

The accuracy of color reproduction is significantly improved: the average deviation ΔE is only slightly more than one, the maximum is 2.14 (the only color that stands out strongly from the overall picture is explained by the nuances of the test colorimeter). Recall that it is believed that the average user is unable to notice the difference between the reference color and how the monitor displays it, if this indicator does not exceed two or even three.

Other GameVisual video modes differ in basic settings for brightness, dynamic contrast, color saturation, gamma, etc. A little "aside" here is the MOBA mode, in which only green and red remain from the entire color gamut, and the Night Vision mode, in which the image in a night vision device is simulated.

You can visually compare the GameVisual modes in the following gallery.