RTINGS staff PLEASE don’t review this like everyone else. It is plagued with problems! Please identify them and call them out. I had to already return mine! Search reddit and Google. G-SYNC is broken. Causes brightness changes constantly. HDR is awful. Screen randomly goes black for many people. (Mine stopped doing that at some point for no reason) My PG279QM looks MUCH better side by side. Even in HDR on the desktop. AQDM has terrible SDR to HDR conversion or w.e.

TFT Central has a whole post investigating this monitor and its many problems.

Hope you guys can identify them and help us out. And you don’t just get lucky with a working unit. Does RTINGS.com buy them anonymously? I hope they don’t hand pick them for you guys

May 05, 2023 12:29 AM By Mykeyz

36

RTINGS staff PLEASE don’t review this like everyone else. It is plagued with problems! Please identify them and call them out. I had to already return mine! Search reddit and Google. G-SYNC is broken. Causes brightness changes constantly. HDR is awful. Screen randomly goes black for many people. (Mine stopped doing that at some point for no reason) My PG279QM looks MUCH better side by side. Even in HDR on the desktop. AQDM has terrible SDR to HDR conversion or w.e. TFT Central has a whole post investigating this monitor and its many problems. Hope you guys can identify them and help us out. And you don’t just get lucky with a working unit. Does RTINGS.com buy them anonymously? I hope they don’t hand pick them for you guys

Yes, we buy all our own products in a way that mimics the same experience the average user would have. As for testing it a specific way, I passed your feedback along to the rest of the team to keep in mind while we start testing this product!

I intend on waiting for the review before purchasing, but I’m curious where it’s available. I haven’t seen it for sale anywhere yet, but I’m obviously not looking in the right places… And thanks to RTINGS for the extensive reviews, much appreciated!

Lots of people trust your reviews and im one of them, im holding on to buy the Lg 27gr95qe just to see your review on Asus pg27aqdm as most youtube reviewers are only reading the product description. I want to see if the extra brightness on the asus worth it and if the hdr is balanced because people say that asus hdr is broken

I’ll receive it tomorrow.

EDIT:

I received it yesterday.

Hey Rtings. Been a long time lurker but your website has helped me so much in the past that I wanted to shortcut any research you can get online for this product.

The ASUS ROG Swift OLED PG27AQDM, Corsair Xeneon 27QHD240 (just released), and Acer Predator X27U (upcoming) uses the same panel as the LG 27GR95QE-B.

I’ve done a lot of research on this because I myself want a 1440P 240HZ OLED Flat 27 Inch monitor.

The Asus PG27AQDM uses a custom heatsink and gets brighter than the LG 27GR95QE-B. However, it is worth noting that it is possible they are sacrificing higher burn-in risk for better performance. The only downside to the Asus PG27AQDM versus the other two models is that the HDMI port is 2.0 whereas the other two are HDMI 2.1. Previously on the PlayStation 5, you could not get high refresh, native 1440p, and VRR with HDMI 2.0 but that is now possible with PlayStation’s update 7.00 early in March 2023 so this might be a non issue anymore?

The Corsair 27QHD240 does the exact opposite. They are sacrificing Performance for better warranty. The Corsair 27QHD240 has the worst brightness versus the PG27AQDM and 27GR95QE-B in SDR mode 100% white. However, Corsair is offering a 3 year warranty with Zero Dead Pixel and Zero burn-in. It is also the least RGB monitor and has a nice PROXIMITY SENSOR OSD.

The Acer Predator X27U has not been released yet but it will also be HDMI 2.0. On paper, what differs this unit from the pack is the built in Speakers, and a KVM built in which none of the other three have.

It’s hard to make a ranking of which is the best out of the four without the Acer being released yet but this is my opinion on it:

Best Brightness: ASUS ROG Swift OLED PG27AQDM

Best Warranty and future proofing: Corsair 27QHD240

Most Versatile? : Acer Predator X27U?

Please take this with a grain of salt and anyone reading this feel free to correct me if I am wrong. Everything I’ve gathered is from Youtube comments and people posting on Reddit. I’m ultimately going with the Corsair 27QHD240 for it’s warranty and because I have Photophobia (Sensitivity to light) anyways so I use my Monitor in a low brightness settings.

Hopefully you guys can do a review of the Corsair 27QHD240 and Acer Predator X27U soon!

How has the monitor still not arrived

May 23, 2023 06:32 PM By chromatronic

1

How has the monitor still not arrived

The ETA best buy provided was June 9th unfortunately.

May 05, 2023 12:29 AM By Mykeyz

36

RTINGS staff PLEASE don’t review this like everyone else. It is plagued with problems! Please identify them and call them out. I had to already return mine! Search reddit and Google. G-SYNC is broken. Causes brightness changes constantly. HDR is awful. Screen randomly goes black for many people. (Mine stopped doing that at some point for no reason) My PG279QM looks MUCH better side by side. Even in HDR on the desktop. AQDM has terrible SDR to HDR conversion or w.e. TFT Central has a whole post investigating this monitor and its many problems. Hope you guys can identify them and help us out. And you don’t just get lucky with a working unit. Does RTINGS.com buy them anonymously? I hope they don’t hand pick them for you guys

Sounds like you had some dramas. Not sure how wide spread it is though. Plenty of smaller youtubers loving the screen.

The Acer Predator X27U has not been released yet but it will also be HDMI 2.0. On paper, what differs this unit from the pack is the built in Speakers, and a KVM built in which none of the other three have.

Corsair 27QHD240 has KVM.

Will you guys check how much the heatsink covers? Heard from somewhere that the heatsink is basically just a gimmick.

New FW MCM 104 came out today! Hopefully it fixes all the issues or atleast some of them! Probably what’s taking them so long to get their order. Asus already delayed orders on April to make users wait for them to be updated to MCM 103 before being shipped out. (That’s was confirmed by internal Asus employee, mine still was on 102 when I got it tho)

Thanks everyone for sharing your thoughts. I shared all of this with our testers and we’ll do our best to look into some of this stuff ASAP!

May 23, 2023 08:34 PM By  Dylan Crete

The ETA best buy provided was June 9th unfortunately.

UGH! Best Buy is the worst! Long story short…they have horrible customer service (*or lack thereof!), they do not listen and provide incorrect information and or answers when you try to get help from any of their support options, and lastly, they will blacklist your account and any orders you make will get automatically cancelled! Finally, they are thieves, they will take your money, and if you return something…keep your product or claim it was lost, even though it was signed for by them with carrier proof…and not refund you…ask you to start a claim with said carrier, and local authorities….then keep that money when the claim was filed…and still never refund you!

I hope this helps someone!

May 31, 2023 01:00 PM By Mykeyz

36

New FW MCM 104 came out today! Hopefully it fixes all the issues or atleast some of them! Probably what’s taking them so long to get their order. Asus already delayed orders on April to make users wait for them to be updated to MCM 103 before being shipped out. (That’s was confirmed by internal Asus employee, mine still was on 102 when I got it tho)

Well, so how do you like it…and after the new MCM 104 firmware update? Anything you notice that changed with the latest firmware update?

Im curious about its support for consoles via HDMI 2.0, such as HDR, VRR, 120HZ @ 1440p, about any hdr flickering issues? Its brightness, just all the niceties really :)

I would like to know how it performs with respect to each of the Firmwares…starting with what Firmware version your unit arrived with…and up to the latest MCM 104? Also, what their differences were as in what exactly changed and if it was noticeable? Also, to clearly explain and define the Brightness levels etc…with regards to Normal use, SDR, HDR…etc…

The color vibrancy compared to QD-OLED panels like the AW3423DWF for example

May 05, 2023 12:29 AM By Mykeyz

36

RTINGS staff PLEASE don’t review this like everyone else. It is plagued with problems! Please identify them and call them out. I had to already return mine! Search reddit and Google. G-SYNC is broken. Causes brightness changes constantly. HDR is awful. Screen randomly goes black for many people. (Mine stopped doing that at some point for no reason) My PG279QM looks MUCH better side by side. Even in HDR on the desktop. AQDM has terrible SDR to HDR conversion or w.e. TFT Central has a whole post investigating this monitor and its many problems. Hope you guys can identify them and help us out. And you don’t just get lucky with a working unit. Does RTINGS.com buy them anonymously? I hope they don’t hand pick them for you guys

Where is this post? Can’t find it. The review on TFTcentral is actually pretty good and the monitor is also part of the recommended ones in 2023 there.

Jun 23, 2023 08:16 AM By RtingsUser9580792

1

Where is this post? Can’t find it. The review on TFTcentral is actually pretty good and the monitor is also part of the recommended ones in 2023 there.

The OP means the TFT review that delves into where they point out the confusion with how you configure HDR and using SDR…with regards to Windows, etc…

See it here:

https://tftcentral.co.uk/articles/asus-rog-swift-oled-pg27aqdm-hdr-performance-investigation-and-firmware-confusion

Definitely interesting Preliminary Results. This is curious! Odd in fact! Especially, as just about every other review out there states and shows that the ASUS ROG Swift OLED PG27AQDM here is much much brighter than the LG 27" UltraGear OLED (27GR95QE-B) for example! Whereas, your initial testing here shows otherwise…when comparing these two in this case, and based from your reviews for each at the time of writing this. Something seems…amiss!

After the reviews I have seen from other sources, like Monitors Unboxed or TFTCentral, I must confess I didn’t see some of these results coming. Mostly the SDR/HDR brightness. The other sources recorded it to be around 250 (aprox), but in this review is far less than that and the same for the brightness results in HDR. Also, the input lag was disappointing.

How can the results be so different? Is there any possible theory for this?

Did you guys check if the heatsink is a gimmick or not?

Jun 28, 2023 05:28 PM By Arivi

12

After the reviews I have seen from other sources, like Monitors Unboxed or TFTCentral, I must confess I didn’t see some of these results coming. Mostly the SDR/HDR brightness. The other sources recorded it to be around 250 (aprox), but in this review is far less than that and the same for the brightness results in HDR. Also, the input lag was disappointing. How can the results be so different? Is there any possible theory for this?

Yeah even monitors unboxed have it as higher brightness

Wahh?? How is the input lag so high???

They could have gotten a bad unit. I did and had to return mine. The QC is awful. I got a calibration report for a different monitor! Different serial numbers! And my user manual was a different serial # as well. See my comment above

Something does seem really off compared to every other review.

Input lag is way too high.

Brightness in SDR brightness section is shown as 152 cd/m², while in Color Accuracy (Pre-Calibration) section its shown as 255 cd/m².

Peak 2% Window HDR brightness is shown as just 502 cd/m². I think that’s just how bright it goes without calibrating brightness with Windows HDR calibration App, It comfortably Hits 850-920 after calibrating with that app ( I tested this in Asus Console HDR ).

Jun 29, 2023 05:01 AM By arshu

6

Something does seem really off compared to every other review. Input lag is way too high. Brightness in SDR brightness section is shown as 152 cd/m², while in Color Accuracy (Pre-Calibration) section its shown as 255 cd/m². Peak 2% Window HDR brightness is shown as just 502 cd/m².

Indeed. Those are good points.

I have a calibrite digital plus and I recently bought a PG27AQDM (I am still deciding if I will keep it or just return it and go for the LG 27GR95QE-B or Corsair Xeneon 27QHD240).

So I’ve just done some measurements with sRGB, brightness at 100% and uniform brightness turned on. And I got a value just above 250 cd/m².

There must be something that we are missing here.

Jun 28, 2023 12:38 PM By Taskmaster

130

Definitely interesting Preliminary Results. This is curious! Odd in fact! Especially, as just about every other review out there states and shows that the ASUS ROG Swift OLED PG27AQDM here is much much brighter than the LG 27" UltraGear OLED (27GR95QE-B) for example! Whereas, your initial testing here shows otherwise…when comparing these two in this case, and based from your reviews for each at the time of writing this. Something seems…amiss!

Yes it is interesting that we got such different results from the LG 27GR95QE-B in terms of SDR brightness, but these results are also with Uniform Brightness enabled - which minimizes the ABL. It does get bright with it disabled, and it’s actually a bit brighter than the LG in that case. Another thing to note is that we tested this with firmware MCM102 because we had issues updating it to MCM103 or MCM104, and this is something that other people have experienced too.

We’re aware of all the issues and bugs related to this firmware, which we will address in our written review. Expect the full review to come out early next week to see our findings :)

Jun 29, 2023 11:06 AM By  Nicholas Di Giovanni

Yes it is interesting that we got such different results from the LG 27GR95QE-B in terms of SDR brightness, but these results are also with Uniform Brightness enabled - which minimizes the ABL. It does get bright with it disabled, and it’s actually a bit brighter than the LG in that case. Another thing to note is that we tested this with firmware MCM102 because we had issues updating it to MCM103 or MCM104, and this is something that other people have experienced too. We’re aware of all the issues and bugs related to this firmware, which we will address in our written review. Expect the full review to come out early next week to see our findings :)

I understand that is out of your control and that being unable to update the FW is also an issue that any buyer of this monitor could face, but at the same time I can’t help to think that would be very useful to know this monitor true capabilities by testing against the last available FW - as the versions MCM103 and MCM104 bring a lot of improvements/fixes. I hope in the future RTINGs can find a way to work through this and test against the latest firmware update available. I don’t want to sound to harsh, but personally I don’t see much value in testing a known buggy FW. Nevertheless, if the review in the future is updated with the results of the latest fw it would make the comparison very interesting.

Still, I am very curious for the full review coming next week!

about the input lag - I read articles about this monitor on io-tech.fi and techporn.ph.

article says “high input lag is a bug related to adaptive sync and it’s selection. When Adaptive Sync is off, the screen’s input lag is a good 8ms, and when it’s on, the input lag drops to about 2 milliseconds.

After the reset, Adaptive Sync is on by default, so the input lag SHOULD be about 2 milliseconds, but if Adaptive Sync has been off before the reset, the input lag is a good 8 milliseconds. When Adaptive Sync is turned off, the input lag is still 8 milliseconds, but when it is turned on again, the input lag finally drops to 2 milliseconds.” used translator.

Jun 29, 2023 11:58 AM By arshu

6

about the input lag - I read articles about this monitor on io-tech.fi and techporn.ph. article says “high input lag is a bug related to adaptive sync and it’s selection. When Adaptive Sync is off, the screen’s input lag is a good 8ms, and when it’s on, the input lag drops to about 2 milliseconds. After the reset, Adaptive Sync is on by default, so the input lag SHOULD be about 2 milliseconds, but if Adaptive Sync has been off before the reset, the input lag is a good 8 milliseconds. When Adaptive Sync is turned off, the input lag is still 8 milliseconds, but when it is turned on again, the input lag finally drops to 2 milliseconds.” used translator.

Thanks for sharing this info with us. Our input lag testing is with Adaptive sync off, and we tried different tools and testing methods and got consistent results, sorry!

Jun 29, 2023 11:44 AM By Arivi

12

I understand that is out of your control and that being unable to update the FW is also an issue that any buyer of this monitor could face, but at the same time I can’t help to think that would be very useful to know this monitor true capabilities by testing against the last available FW - as the versions MCM103 and MCM104 bring a lot of improvements/fixes. I hope in the future RTINGs can find a way to work through this and test against the latest firmware update available. I don’t want to sound to harsh, but personally I don’t see much value in testing a known buggy FW. Nevertheless, if the review in the future is updated with the results of the latest fw it would make the comparison very interesting. Still, I am very curious for the full review coming next week!

I agree it isn’t ideal to be testing monitors on old firmware, but we can only test new firmware when we can update our monitors with them! Thanks for the kind feedback though :)

Jun 29, 2023 05:01 AM By arshu

6

Something does seem really off compared to every other review. Input lag is way too high. Brightness in SDR brightness section is shown as 152 cd/m², while in Color Accuracy (Pre-Calibration) section its shown as 255 cd/m². Peak 2% Window HDR brightness is shown as just 502 cd/m². I think that’s just how bright it goes without calibrating brightness with Windows HDR calibration App, It comfortably Hits 850-920 after calibrating with that app ( I tested this in Asus Console HDR ).

So our Early Access results for SDR Brightness were with Uniform Brightness on, which is causing the low brightness, but after some consideration, we’re changing the results to it with Uniform Brightness off. It goes up to around 250 nits, and you’ll see this change once we publish the full review early next week :)

The SDR Brightness explanation makes sense, but the HDR Brightness results still seem anomalous compared to other reviews. Monitors Unboxed found 196 nits at 100% window size and 905 nits at 10% window size. TFT Central found 924 nits at 10% window size, though their 100% window size result was only 118 nits. Meanwhile, Toms Hardware claims they’ve measured 870 nits at a 25% window size, which is double what Monitors Unboxed and TFT Central report. So the measurement results are all over the place for this monitor depending on who’s doing the measuring, it seems. It’s very strange. Manufacturing variance can’t be that extreme, can it?

Jun 29, 2023 03:21 PM By dk382

230

The SDR Brightness explanation makes sense, but the HDR Brightness results still seem anomalous compared to other reviews. Monitors Unboxed found 196 nits at 100% window size and 905 nits at 10% window size. TFT Central found 924 nits at 10% window size, though their 100% window size result was only 118 nits. Meanwhile, Toms Hardware claims they’ve measured 870 nits at a 25% window size, which is double what Monitors Unboxed and TFT Central report. So the measurement results are all over the place for this monitor depending on who’s doing the measuring, it seems. It’s very strange. Manufacturing variance can’t be that extreme, can it?

Keep in mind that we tested it with firmware MCM102 because we couldn’t update it to MCM103 or MCM104. These updates are supposed to fix the HDR performance, so it’s possible that the brightness gets fixed with it too.

Jun 29, 2023 12:55 PM By  Nicholas Di Giovanni

Thanks for sharing this info with us. Our input lag testing is with Adaptive sync off, and we tried different tools and testing methods and got consistent results, sorry!

So can input lag be tested by RTINGS with adaptive sync on in OSD menu? Thank you.

Jun 29, 2023 03:27 PM By  Nicholas Di Giovanni

Keep in mind that we tested it with firmware MCM102 because we couldn’t update it to MCM103 or MCM104. These updates are supposed to fix the HDR performance, so it’s possible that the brightness gets fixed with it too.

That’s good, but if you could update it to 103 then 104 and just try to see and report if you can spot difference by your own eyes it could be a good idea !..

Jun 29, 2023 01:15 PM By  Nicholas Di Giovanni

I agree it isn’t ideal to be testing monitors on old firmware, but we can only test new firmware when we can update our monitors with them! Thanks for the kind feedback though :)

Have you exhausted all means of being able to update the Firmware? Have you given up on trying? Have you attempted to contact support for assistance with the Firmware Update?

I wish to ask again as well about the Heatsink performance…such as the OP asked here:

“RtingsUser2460474 is an insider

RtingsUser2460474 9 • Posted 1 month ago Will you guys check how much the heatsink covers? Heard from somewhere that the heatsink is basically just a gimmick.”

Have you looked into how the Heatsink performs and what precisely it covers?

Jun 29, 2023 01:15 PM By  Nicholas Di Giovanni

I agree it isn’t ideal to be testing monitors on old firmware, but we can only test new firmware when we can update our monitors with them! Thanks for the kind feedback though :)

I have seen reports of people being able to update using their spare pc but not main pc so it’s worth trying on a few rigs if you can

I was first comment. Guess I’m kinda glad you tested on 102. I was able to try 103. Returned before 104. However seems kinda worthless to test only 102. Even if you can’t FW update your model for some reason. Return it and try again. This does back up my complaints of AWFUL Quality Control. I don’t know why you guys are unable to update? Assumed you tried different USB cabels?

Jul 02, 2023 10:12 AM By Mykeyz

36

I was first comment. Guess I’m kinda glad you tested on 102. I was able to try 103. Returned before 104. However seems kinda worthless to test only 102. Even if you can’t FW update your model for some reason. Return it and try again. This does back up my complaints of AWFUL Quality Control. I don’t know why you guys are unable to update? Assumed you tried different USB cabels?

I have to agree. It feels kinda worthless to test only on 102, an outdated firmware at the date of the review and knowing before hand it is a “buggy” one. If a user couldnt update the fw, they would probably just return the monitor. Personally I would prefer the review to wait for that issue to be solved and then test it on the latest fw.

Jul 02, 2023 03:53 PM By Arivi

12

I have to agree. It feels kinda worthless to test only on 102, an outdated firmware at the date of the review and knowing before hand it is a “buggy” one. If a user couldnt update the fw, they would probably just return the monitor. Personally I would prefer the review to wait for that issue to be solved and then test it on the latest fw.

While we tried updating the firmware with different PCs and USB-B cables, absolutely nothing has worked and we’re stuck on MCM102. I understand this isn’t ideal and we would have liked to test it on MCM104 to share our results with everyone, but it’s not possible at this time. We don’t return units unless they are defective and we can’t test them properly. If ASUS believes that our unit is out-of-spec, they can use our Out-of-Spec policy here.

We just published the full review, where you can read more into detail about this, let us know what you think!

Jun 30, 2023 09:03 AM By Taskmaster

130

I wish to ask again as well about the Heatsink performance…such as the OP asked here:
“RtingsUser2460474 is an insider RtingsUser2460474 9 • Posted 1 month ago Will you guys check how much the heatsink covers? Heard from somewhere that the heatsink is basically just a gimmick.” Have you looked into how the Heatsink performs and what precisely it covers?

Yes we looked into it and you can read more about it in detail in the HDR Brightness section here :)