Asus ROG Strix XG27ACS
The monitor you’ve been waiting for?
A 27-INCH 1440p panel has been the sweet spot for gamers for as long as I can remember. Arguably, that hasn’t changed. Okay, I’d favor a 34inch ultrawide version of the 1440p thing. But at the very least, a high-refresh 27 incher remains one of the most popular and relevant monitor form factors.
Panels in this category that hit the basic spec points of minimum 144Hz refresh and an IPS panel can now be had for under $200. But if you add a couple of provisos, let’s say minimum 400 nits brightness and basic HDR support from a brand you’ve heard of rather than some random panel with no provenance, you’re looking at around $230 to $250 minimum.
The Gigabyte G27Q can be had at the lower end of that range, and ticks each and every box. That’s a lot of monitor for the money, and it makes life difficult for the likes of the Asus ROG Strix XG27ACS. A couple of years ago, its $299 realworld pricing would have looked super appealing. Today, it’s trickier.
Along with the aforementioned 27inch, IPS, HDR400 specs, it rocks a 180Hz refresh, 1ms GtG response, and USB-C with power delivery. That’s more comprehensive than the 2ms, 144Hz Gigabyte, which lacks USB-C connectivity. However, the Strix XG27ACS’s USB-C port can only deliver 7.5W of power, so you can forget keeping a laptop juiced up in a single-cable scenario—that’s not enough.
That minor snafu aside, this is one heck of a monitor. For starters, it’s beautifully calibrated. In default SDR mode, it looks great—vibrant, punchy, and accurate. But most impressive is this panel’s performance with HDR enabled.
Oddly, I’m not actually talking about how it handles HDR visuals. This is an HDR400 panel with no local dimming, so you’re only getting the most basic HDR support. Instead, it’s the way SDR content is rendered when you enable HDR. It’s the closest I’ve seen an affordable HDRcapable LCD monitor get to perfect SDR calibration in HDR mode.
It’s all too common to have wonky SDR colors and contrast in HDR mode on so many monitors. The upshot is that you have to keep jumping back and forth between modes, but not with this Asus Strix screen. You can run it in HDR mode all the time, and everything just looks right.
That rare victory aside, this monitor’s other party piece is response. It’s as quick an IPS panel as I’ve seen. What’s more, the OSD menu offers 20 granular levels of pixel overdrive, so you can decide just how much overshoot you are willing to tolerate in return for faster response.
That said, even with the overdrive maxed out, the overshoot and inverse ghosting isn’t too bad. This is just a rapid display, but it’s not as rapid as an OLED monitor of the same size and resolution, and that begs an immediate corollary, which is whether such OLEDs represent value by comparison.
You’re talking roughly $800 for a 27-inch 1440p OLED gaming panel—they definitely aren’t three times the experience. All of that means this monitor gives you almost everything you could ask for.
Its only slight misstep is that underpowered USB-C interface. For sure, if you have no intention of hooking up a laptop, it arguably doesn’t matter. But it feels like a bit of a gimmick to advertise a display with USB-C power delivery only to find it’s limited to a fairly pointless 7.5W.
$299, www.asus.com