Conclusion
Final Words & Verdict
ASUS has a terrific offering with the MG279Q Gaming monitor, it just ticks all the right boxes and offers very decent image quality with lovely tweaking options as well. 144Hz is a personal thing, for most 60Hz screens are more than sufficient, the hardcore gamers like 144 Hz, especially fast ones. I have not included test results on latency just yet as I still need to figure out a proper objective way to test this, but you are looking at roughly 17ms on 60Hz. However, you are not buying a 144 Hz screen to use at 60 Hz right? Well, there's FreeSync to consider, the result is that that Hz will go up and down dynamically. Once you reach 90Hz (the upper FreeSync range) up-to 120Hz you're in the 13~14ms range. According to a test a colleague of mine did there's a significant reduction in lag at the maximum 144Hz refresh rate. Here the total lag is only 4.05ms with ~0.8ms signal processing. So if you are gaming at 144Hz then there's close to no signal processing lag, and that is just terrific news considering you are gaming on an IPS panel. That said, at 90Hz or below with FreeSync you are looking at 13~14 ms for signal processing. This latency should be fine for most people, albeit the hardcore FPS gamers might find that a notch high.
On the topic of FreeSync, it works as well as Gsync does and vice versa, FreeSync however is highly dependant on the dynamic range the monitor offers, and therein lies the Achilles heel of this technology with the first batches of monitors that support it. I mean, when your graphics card is rendering inside the dynamic range then the tech is lovely, great even. But if you game outside that range, Adaptive Sync simply will not work. AMD has now partly solved it with Low Framerate Compensation, as explained in the review.
The Monitor Overall
ASUS really is offering a truly lovely product with the MG279Q Gaming. Typically there are gamers that demand and choose a TN panel purely for speed. They accept the lack of contrast, color precision and viewing angles for granted over the extremely fast speeds these monitors can achieve. Then there is the kind of end-user that purchases a monitor for better image quality and these guys care less about speed but more for nice black-levels, contrast, display quality and color precision. It is for that last group that this monitor would be an excellent choice. I am among that last group personally as I prefer quality and color reproduction anytime. The MG279Q Gaming is built right, looks very nice and offers great image quality.
Color precision is pretty good, and with the push of a button pretty much color precise or you can just as easily configure the screen to a color preference of your own. A calibrated monitor is not for everybody, it is however a reference point we can use. In terms of color space you will reach 80% of the AdobeRGB and 100% of sRGB color space. Gamma is spot on at 2.2 even uncalibrated. The black levels are great as, hey, it is an IPS, there is little to no clouding. Albeit brightness uniformity did show offsets reaching 15%, but that is well within acceptable margins. The screen, once tweaked to your preference, will absolutely impress. FreeSync really is a nice improvement over the overall visual quality. I stated this however with GSYNC as well, a 'game changer' in my personal opinion would be a bit of an overstatement for this technology. Also, this being proprietary AMD technology means that you can only pair it with selected (GCN) Radeon graphics cards. In theory a FreeSync monitor of course could work with GeForce cards, if Nvidia would support the adaptive sync protocol (which obviously they won't). Power consumption then; we test at full brightness and you will sit in the 42 Watt range there. We however doubt you'll want 370 nits fired off at you. Likely you'll settle in the 50% brightness range, and at such levels your power consumption will once again go down towards 25~30 Watts. In standby mode the monitor uses close to nothing at 0.3 Watts.
The Verdict
For me the MG279Q Gaming has all the variables right. It offers gaming at WQHD 2560x1440, which I feel is the best gaming resolution anno 2016. I prefer it over Ultra HD mainly based on cost of your monitor and graphics horsepower required. Next to that the MG279Q Gaming is fast at 144Hz with very little lag. Color reproduction is good, screen uniformity well within margins. It has Displayport 1.2 and HDMI 1.4 and then some extras like small speakers and the USB 3.0 HUB with two ports. From an aesthetics point of view the screen looks lovely and matches the ASUS ROG theme a bit, that said the bezels are on the thick side so if you were planning for a seamless three screen surround view setup, don't. The FreeSync range is quite comfortable really, it kicks in at 35 Hz and halts at 90 Hz. The screen quality overall is great though, the viewing angles rock, contrast is good as well as a maximum brightness level that reaches close to 380 nits. At default settings the color temperature is a bit off, set it to 'Warm' and you'll be fairly spot on at a 6500 Kelvin color temperature (if you prefer that color temperature). The display is really good in the sense that you can tweak colors in every way possible. This is a LED IPS panel, it is a notch slower than TN yet offers better display quality. Then again at 144 Hz with acceptable latency, we cannot complain at all. If you are seeking a fast high Hz quality screen, then this is as good as it gets in this price-range. The monitor sells for under 599 USD/EURO and with everything the MG279Q Gaming offers and does we feel that is well worth the money. Remember, for Adaptive Sync / FreeSync you need to have a more recent AMD Radeon card or APU alongside driver support. In the end this is a superb monitor with the benefit of FreeSync enabled once it hits the dynamic range. Very complete, good quality, it ticks all the right boxes, and as such it comes recommended by Guru3D.com.
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