MSI G274QPF-QD gaming monitor review

The 27-inch diagonal and 1440p resolution are still among the most popular features of gaming monitors – 4K gaming on large screens, although already a reality with new flagship graphics cards, requires a significant investment in a powerful system, and therefore 27″@QHD is still the optimal for a balanced gaming PC. It is in this category that our today’s “guest” falls – MSI G274QPF-QD.

MSI G274QPF-QD specifications

Design

MSI G274QPF-QD has a fairly typical design of a modern gaming monitor: the case made of practical matte plastic is not emphasized gaming and has a rather “calm” look; from the front it can be confused with a regular work model, and only a restrained pattern on the rear panel with small glossy inserts hints that this is still not quite a monitor for the office. The only non-black design detail is the bright red joystick on the back.

Around the screen there is a thin “invisible” frame that hides under the protective glass – along with the thin line of the side edge of the body, the image is surrounded by a frame 7.5 mm wide on the sides and top and 18 mm wide on the bottom.

The stand is fully functional, allowing you to adjust the height of the screen (0…130 mm), tilt it back and forth (-5°…20°), rotate it right and left (-45°…45°), and switch to portrait mode.

We should also note the compact dimensions of the quadrangular “base” – unlike other gaming models that stand on V-shaped “legs”, the MSI G274QPF-QD stand takes up quite a bit of space on the desktop.

All video connectors are located in a small niche under the stand mount: two HDMI 2.0b, one DisplayPort 1.4, and one USB-C; there is also a mini-jack for headphones next to them.

MSI G274QPF-QD has an external power supply.

Menu

The monitor is controlled by a 5-way joystick located in the lower right corner on the rear panel.

The first item in the main menu is Gaming: here you can choose one of the “gaming” video modes (which also includes Custom and Premium Color), activate Night Vision (illuminates shadows, has several degrees of intensity), enable overdrive and display the current refresh rate, activate adaptive frequency, and more.

The Professional section has its own selection of video modes, which is a bit unexpected for a gaming model: Eco, User, Ant-Blue, Movie, Office, sRGB, Adobe RGB, DisplayP3. There is also a function to reduce the proportion of blue in the backlight, “improve” the image and activate dynamic contrast.

The Image section contains traditional image settings: brightness, contrast, clarity, color temperature, screen proportions. InputSource allows you to manually switch to another video input, PIP/PBP activates the frame-by-frame mode, and NaviKey assigns one of the available functions to a shortcut by deflecting the joystick.

And finally, the last section of Setting is the system settings. Here you can select the interface language, OSD behavior, power button light, enable DisplayPort overclocking, and reset all parameters to factory settings.

Functionality

The MSI G274QPF-QD uses a 10-bit (8-bit + FRC) 27-inch panel made using Rapid IPS technology. This is a development of conventional IPS, which is characterized by a much shorter response time, and in this parameter is already approaching gaming TN panels – for example, for this model, the manufacturer indicates a response time of 1ms (GtG).

The panel resolution is 2560×1440 pixels, the pixel density is almost 109 PPI, and the dot size is 0.2335 mm. As we mentioned at the beginning, this ratio of diagonal to resolution is almost ideal for a gaming monitor: the pixel density is sufficient to ensure that no individual dots are visible in the image from a typical distance from the screen.

The maximum refresh rate is 170 Hz (via DisplayPort; if you use an HDMI connection, the maximum available frequency is 144 Hz). The MSI G274QPF-QD also supports both adaptive frequency technologies: this monitor is compatible with NVIDIA G-Sync and has AMD FreeSync Premium certification.

The monitor uses quantum dot backlighting (quantum dots – that’s what the QD in the model name indicates), which gives it a wide color gamut (almost full coverage of the DCI-P3 space). This fact, the presence of 10 bits and the declared peak brightness of 400 cd/m² allowed it to receive VESA DisplayHDR 400 certification. However, it’s worth noting that this is only the basic level, and the HDR effect of the MSI G274QPF-QD is quite modest.

The brightness of this monitor is adjustable by changing the current, and PWM is not used throughout the entire brightness range, so there is no screen flicker.

Devices can be connected to the monitor not only via HDMI and DisplayPort, but also via USB Type-C – this port also supports charging (15W), making it a convenient option for connecting smartphones.

MSI G274QPF-QD image quality

The screen has a semi-matte finish, which means that there are almost no spurious reflections on the dark background when viewed from a typical PC user’s position. When you move to the side, the screen gradually becomes more glossy, but this does not interfere with the work on it. At the same time, the so-called crystal effect is almost absent from the monitor; you can notice the presence of a reflection-diffusing layer only in a macro photo.

The monitor has an excellent response time at the maximum refresh rate: objects moving on the screen look sharp, blurring is minimal. The typical response time is slightly higher than the claimed one, but not by much – in this respect, the MSI G274QPF-QD is almost no different from fast TN gaming models and looks much better than most IPS monitors.

In the game section of the menu, you can adjust the overdrive – the Response Time item. This setting has three intensity levels – Normal, Fast and Fastest. Even at the first one, the image in dynamic scenes looks quite clear, with little blurring of moving objects – this is the picture you can see on “ordinary” gaming IPS monitors with a fairly strong overdrive. In Fast mode, blurring becomes minimal, but there are still no overclocking artifacts. They appear when switching to Fastest, and they are very significant at once – so although in this case the dynamic image becomes almost perfectly clear, we would still recommend using the middle option, Fast, as the optimal one in terms of “clarity/absence of artifacts”.

Normal/Fast/Fastest overdrive:

The black uniformity is mediocre, at least in the copy that came to us for review: in a dark room with the screen’s maximum brightness, lighter areas appear in the upper corners of the screen.

The glow effect is typical for IPS panels: when you look at the screen from the side and from above, a light glow with a warm tint appears near the black background.

As for the viewing angles, they are very good, again, traditionally for IPS technology. When viewed from the side, the brightness is slightly weaker, but there are no deviations in color reproduction, the appearance of a cold or, conversely, a warm shade.

Quantum Dot backlighting allows for very wide color gamut, with the MSI G274QPF-QD far exceeding the sRGB gamut and almost covering the Adobe RGB and DCI-P3 gamuts. In practice, this means bright and very saturated colors, which makes the image in games look much more pleasant than with standard color gamut.

The default video modes are Premium Color in the game menu and Eco in the professional menu. Let’s start with this combination, especially since it turns out to be the most versatile and offers all possible manual settings.

The color gamut in this version is maximum: over 100% sRGB, 95% Adobe RGB and 97% DCI-P3. The monitor has no gamma adjustment – it has a value of 2.1, and in all video modes. This is slightly lower than the standard 2.2, which results in a slightly less saturated image, but the difference is insignificant. The color temperature in Normal mode is overestimated compared to the standard (6500K) to 7700K, in Warm – on the contrary, it is underestimated to 5800K. If you are not satisfied with these settings, you can use manual adjustments in the Customization option.

The color temperature uniformity in different areas of the screen is quite typical for a gaming monitor: the maximum deviation ΔE for it is slightly above 4% (the most accurate correspondence is in the upper part of the screen, the least accurate is in the center). The same can be said about the uniformity of the white field: the largest difference in brightness, between the center and the lower left corner, is 21%.

The lowest brightness of 85 cd/m² is quite a lot, but it is quite expected from a monitor that does not use PWM to adjust the brightness. At this brightness, it will not be very comfortable to play or work in complete darkness – it is better to have some additional background lighting in the room, even if it is very weak. The maximum brightness in standard mode is 330 cd/m², which is slightly higher than the “passport” specifications. The static contrast value with all image enhancements turned off is not very high even by IPS standards and is noticeably lower than the declared value of 740:1. Peak brightness in HDR mode can reach 400 cd/m².

Apparently, the MSI G274QPF-QD is factory calibrated, although there is no corresponding report on its results in the box with the monitor. Thus, even in the default video mode, the maximum deviation ΔE is slightly more than one, the average is only 0.48 (remember, it is believed that an ordinary user is not able to notice errors in the color display if this parameter is below 2 or even 3).

In the Professional menu, you can find video modes that emulate different color spaces (apparently, in case the owner will also work with color on the gaming monitor). Their color accuracy is also very high – the maximum value of ΔE in all such modes does not exceed 1.7.

From left to right: maximum coverage, DCI-P3, Adobe RGB, sRGB:

They also block some manual settings, reduce the color coverage to the size of the corresponding spaces, and have different maximum brightness and contrast values – for example, they are the highest in Office mode (400 cd/m² and 800:1). The same can be said for gaming modes, which also have different gamma, dynamic contrast, and sharpness settings.

You can visually compare the video modes in this gallery. From left to right: Professional (Eco, User, Anti-Blue, Movie, Office, sRGB), Gaming (Premium Color, User, FPS, Racing, RTS, RPG):