Newegg purchaser said: "Games are absolutely MIND BLOWINGGG. It was whiIe i was playing Destiny 2... I chucked a void grenade, the Firefly perk on my SunShot, explosions looking so vivd I could feel the heat from the fire on my face... the muzzle flash from a fireteam members Sweet Business reflecting off the surface of my assault rifle like a strobe light in that dark cave.... and in that moment I knew I made the right decision. You will, too."

Despite being a fantastic monitor, the price is ridiculous, and it's too small for 4k.

Nice review...

I'll immediately jump into my journalistic operating mode though, 27-inches for Ultra HD, isn't that a bit of a silly resolution DPI scaling wise? Is Ultra HD is the best choice at this moment in time? Personally, and a lot of people will frown at me right now, I do not believe so, at 24 inches up to 32 inches I feel panels at 2560x1440 or 3440x1440 are far better suited for the job, at a much lower price and a lesser need of graphics horsepower...

Amen to that. Sure a few people can and may appreciate the extra DPI on 4k 27", just think it would be far more impressive on a larger screen. Have a feeling that Asus opted for the smaller size to showcase the effectiveness of HDR. 348 LD zones on 27" allows the zones to be smaller and the HDR effect more pronounced. If on a larger screen, the zones would either have to be increased (as well as cost) or stretched which may diminish the effect.

Paulo Narciso:

Despite being a fantastic monitor, the price is ridiculous, and it's too small for 4k.

Not sure about the size. There's a lot to be said about gaming on a high pixel density display. Edit: About Newegg/Amazon/etc "reviews", I wouldn't trust them. Companies pay a lot money to hire hordes of "reviewers" to influence people buying on those sites. Never trust them. "And you will too" sounds really legit, people.

Paulo Narciso:

Despite being a fantastic monitor, the price is ridiculous, and it's too small for 4k.

That is you're opinion. I have asus 27 AQ 4k 60hz g-sync, and the size is perfect for me. Had it since release. Perfect as secondary monitor, on the right side of my Acer x34. Same hight. 🙂

Agree with every point. It's a nice tech showcase of a monitor, but not something I would spend my money on... yet. However 2-3 years from now, very likely, especially if a 30-32" one with similar specs will be out by then.

Its priced so ridiculously high simply because time and time again these companies have discovered that tech nerds with access to a credit card simply have no common sense/self restraint and will pay any price to have bragging rights on tech forums to complete strangers... 🙄

Coming from someone who has the 1440p gsync version of this monitor it is truely insane that not only are they charging over double what i paid for, but there are compromises if you want to have the higher frame-rate (which in my mind basically makes this a 100hz/98hz monitor not a 144hz) but then you also have an active fan and halo effects. for the price range this should never have been a thing, and although halo effects wont be affecting most specially in many games its still a pain to see it on such an expensive screen. hopefully in 2nd or 3nd Gen we will have HDMI 2.1/2 and DP1.5 which can fully handle everything needed, i know it's not Asus fault, but man is it sure a kicker for the price tag

The price tag of the monitor isn't really a big deal when you need a pair of 1080Ti's to drive it.

I would like it at 32-34". Nice monitor, but I agree with the pricing being too high. It's a start. Let see what follows.

Waiting for 3440x1440 200hz, so dropping this

For gaming ? No thanks. From TFTCentrals review: "Pushing the OD setting up to the maximum 'extreme' setting improved the response times slightly, but unfortunately a large amount of overshoot was introduced, and you could see dark trails and artefacts on moving content" A 27" PG279Q reaches around 4ms max respons times, no dark trailing. This PG27UQ is reaching going as far as 9ms respons time. VA panels still have significant issues with dark games and dark trailing compared to IPS panels. "active ventilator" Reminds of me of 10 year old plasma TV's with noisy ventilators. How good quality is this fan agian, how will it sound after 2 years usage?. 4k+Active ventilation+slow panel+high price, this is the PG27UQ.

Great review! I feel like HDR is going to be one of those features that becomes standard on monitors and televisions similar to increasing refresh rates on standard televisions. HDR also seems like one of those things by which once you go there, there's no going back. I need to force myself to wait a generation or two before I go HDR for my gaming rig.

Great review as always @Hilbert Hagedoorn

hey @Hilbert Hagedoorn , nice pictures in your review. Been using the X27 on my desk for 2 months now. tips: Netflix and other video content HDR is perfectly possible regardless your hardware but you will need to buy and download for 1€ the "hevc video extensions" from microsoft windows store. It took a while to find that out 😉 You might want to revise that part of your review after you've seen it working for yourself. Desktop chroma reduction only happens in 144hz, you can perfectly leave it in 120hz 8-bit RGB for everything. No need to go 98hz 10-bit as no almost no content is true 10-but currently and gets translated to 8-bit eventually anyway. We had entire discussions about it over on the overclock.net forums for both the X27 and PG29UQ. Also did you test with the old firmware that has black crush or the new firmware where this is solved ? use the fastest FALD mode of the 3 in the monitor OSD to reduce or completely solve the blooming in dark movie content or games. After tuning brightness it's close to no longer noticeable Windows HDR is indeed 1 big mess, I agree. Not standardized and mature yet. You can get it working but lots of tuning needed (and still buggy) but we're making progress 🙂 The fan seems to be hit and miss for both Asus and Acer. I can't hear mine over my silent watercooled pc while for other people it seems unbearable. QA issues again... Typo's encountered in this review: page 2: "confinced" (convinced) last (conclusion) page: "pron;"

nizzen:

That is you're opinion. I have asus 27 AQ 4k 60hz g-sync, and the size is perfect for me. Had it since release. Perfect as secondary monitor, on the right side of my Acer x34. Same hight. 🙂

maybe so, but i wouldnt be paying 2500 for a secondary monitor lol.

As other have said i too think this is too small for the 4k res, id prefer a monitor i can buy, plug in and use, not have to mess with the dpi settings on the os cause everything is tiny Iv got the Asus VG248QE but might upgrade and just get the PG258Q Or look/wait for a Asus 1440p monitor with gsync thats new

Ziggymac:

Its priced so ridiculously high simply because time and time again these companies have discovered that tech nerds with access to a credit card simply have no common sense/self restraint and will pay any price to have bragging rights on tech forums to complete strangers... 🙄

What's worse is that there are a bunch of compromises being made; a 2560x1440 monitor wouldn't have had any outside QC and the backlighting zones and would've made more sense at the physical size.

It seems to me like this monitor is simply too early to the market. New GPU's are coming but currently nothing can really run it in all titles. The physical connectors are limiting its functionality to an extent. The beefy FPGA required to drive the G-Sync module not only requires active cooling but apparently is directly adding $500 to the cost of the monitor. MicroLED is right around the corner and will solve the FALD resolution problems + bring a bunch of other improvements to refresh rates, contrast, blooming, etc. Unless you have a considerable amount of money to spend I'd avoid this monitor and derivatives built on the same panel. Nearly all the technology in it will be obsolete in two years. Edit: I also want to use this thread as a soapbox and say it's time for Nvidia to end G-Sync. There are currently no QHD HDR G-Sync monitors on the market but plenty of FreeSync/Adaptive ones and now even TV's. At this point G-Sync offers no features over Adaptive Sync aside from arguably making this monitor possible.. a monitor almost no one can afford. The only thing it does is limit my choice in monitor selection and increase the overall costs of monitors it's featured in. When G-Sync offered noticeable advantages I was fine with it but now it's just pointless vendor lock in. I always assumed Nvidia would add features and make G-Sync a premium option while using AdaptiveSync for budget, but thus far they've done nothing to differentiate it. I'm not happy about it.

What about Display Stream Compression (DSC)?