ASUS ROG SWIFT PG248Q
180Hz gaming has arrived, but do we really want it?
So good it hertz. That’s the thinking behind the new 180Hz-capable ASUS RoG Swift PG248Q. The step up from a standard 60Hz LCD monitor to something capable of 100Hz and beyond is pretty sweet. Nearly everything is smoother and slicker. Obviously, games benefit more than just about any other application from a higher refresh. But even bumping application windows around the desktop is more pleasant. Once you’ve tried high refresh, you won’t want to go back.
However, it doesn’t automatically follow that chucking ever higher refresh rates at the problem of gaming smoothness makes sense. Eventually, you get to a point where human perception can no longer distinguish the increase. In our experience, the returns fall off beyond 120Hz. Put it this way, it’s easy to pick a 120Hz monitor from a 60Hz screen with the naked eye, but if you had two otherwise identical screens running side by side at 120Hz and 180Hz...? Even if you can see the difference, do you have a graphics card that can generate frames fast enough to benefit from the full 180Hz?
Those are the questions the PG248Q needs to answer, because at $649, it costs a pretty penny for what, in many regards, is a modestly specced monitor. It’s just 24 inches, delivers 1,920 by 1,080 pixels, and is powered by a TN panel. It’s also priced perilously close to a couple of ASUS’s own RoG Swift monitors with larger 27-inch panels, and 2,560 by 1,440 pixel grids. One of them, the ROG Swift MG279Q, even offers an IPS panel.
This 24-inch model’s value proposition only looks weaker when you fire it up. TN technology has come a long way of late, in terms of colours and contrast, but this thing is old-school TN in all the wrong ways. It’s fundamentally lacking in visual pop and contrast. The viewing angles are modest, too, in typical TN style. Meanwhile, our test images reveal noticeable compression in white tones, along with a little banding in gradients.
TN panels don’t have to be this bad. Still, offsetting all that is the undeniable performance in terms of speed and response. The PG248Q is rated at 1ms, and it feels good for it. Another obvious plus point, and one that goes some way toward justifying the pricing, is support for G-Sync, Nvidia’s proprietary adaptive sync implementation. It’s more costly than the FreeSync alternative from AMD, but for now, it’s simply better. The PG248Q also supports Nvidia 3D Vision and 3D LightBoost tech, a major boon if you’re into 3D stereoscopic gaming.
The top-quality stand, with the full range of height, rotate and swivel adjustments, and the nicely put-together chassis help justify the price, too. The OSD menu is also full of features, even if the image presets are mostly useless, and the fastest overdrive setting introduces chronic inverse ghosting.
There’s lots to like here for gamers. It’s a seriously speedy screen, with a long list of desirable features. But you’d have to be awfully confident in being able to perceive the improvement in refresh rate over a 120Hz or 144Hz alternative.
For us, the fact that you have to jump into the OSD menu and enable the 180Hz refresh as an ‘overclocked’ setting drives home that final nail. It’s pure gimmickry.