We’ve seen a slew of new OLED gaming monitors, but Asus’ ROG Swift PG27AQDP marks a massive leap forward for image quality and motion clarity.
I was floored the moment Asus announced the ROG Swift OLED PG27AQDP. After we just saw the first 1440p OLED monitors last year, here Asus was claiming it could increase brightness while pushing a 480Hz refresh rate. If Asus could pull it off, I thought at the time, the PG27AQDP would be among the best gaming monitors. And after months of waiting, the monitor is here. Somehow, even with sky-high expectations, Asus managed to exceed them.
Yes, you’re getting a higher refresh rate and better brightness compared to the OLEDs of last year, but the PG27AQDP is more than that. It’s a monitor that brings together more than a year of growth from Asus in the OLED space, packing in more features than ever before while delivering exceptional image quality. The PG27AQDP isn’t another niche OLED. It’s the new standard, and other displays are going to have a hard time achieving what Asus has pulled off here.Asus ROG Swift OLED PG27AQDP specsSubtle design changes
Looking at pictures of the PG27AQDP sells short just how stunning the monitor is in the flesh. The design overall is familiar if you’ve seen a monitor like Asus’ PG32UCDM. The display is sat on a tri-point stand that offers a wide range of adjustment, as well as an underglow that blasts through an ROG logo. I particularly like this stand on a 27-inch monitor, too. Adjusting it down to a comfortable height almost blocks out the back of the stand, which makes the screen look like it’s floating.
The design is familiar, but it’s not identical to previous ROG designs. In particular, the back of the monitor features a diagonal design that mashes solid plastic and an illuminated ROG logo with a semi-transparent bit of plastic that expose the internals of the display. It looks fantastic.
It’s impossibly thin, too. There’s a bump on the back of the monitor that houses Asus’ custom heatsink, but the edges of the display are remarkably small. It’s similar to the thinness we saw on the LG UltraGear OLED 27 when it debuted, which remains one of the thinnest OLED monitors you can buy.
Otherwise, Asus includes some of its more premium design touches that were absent on the recent XG27AQDMG. You get a clean cable routing channel through the stand, along with an illuminated logo on the back of the stand. At the top, you’ll also find a 1/4-inch mount for attaching a tripod head, a microphone, or any other accessory you could want.A culmination of features
As if the high-level specs weren’t enough, Asus packed a ton of features into the PG27AQDP. For starters, it includes a range of AI features that are meant to be more intelligent versions of pack-in features we normally see in monitors. There’s a crosshair, a shadow boost mode, and even a MOBA map highlighter, all of which are dynamic to what’s happening in your game. I never felt the need for these types of features previously, and AI doesn’t change that. But they’re some nice goodies to play around with.
The more exciting features are elsewhere. The PG27AQDP includes Asus’ Extreme Low Motion Blur, or ELMB, which you might more commonly know as Black Frame Insertion (BFI). This halves the refresh rate of the monitor (240Hz) and inserts a black frame in between each refresh. The idea is to increase motion clarity, as you’re seeing sharp frames instead of a blur between refreshes when games can’t max out the 480Hz refresh rate.
Like ELMB on previous Asus monitors, the brightness is significantly limited on the PG27AQDP. It’s not something I imagine most players will use considering you should be able to max-out the refresh rate in most games where motion clarity is a major concern. Still, I’m not mad at Asus’ kitchen sink approach to features. Even if only some players will engage with these features, it’s great to see Asus cater to them.
One of the more useful features available is the 24.5-inch crop mode. This is the prevailing monitor size for esports displays, and it can be tough to adjust to a larger monitor.
