ASUS ROG Strix XG27ACS Monitor Review

The ASUS XG27ACS has a gaming-oriented design. Its all-black plastic body has some branding elements on the back. The stand even features a slot meant to put your phone on, but thicker phones don't fit.

The build quality is great. The plastic materials feel well-made, and the stand is sturdy. The biggest downside is that the bottom bezel isn't perfectly flush with the screen, so dust can get trapped inside.

The ergonomics are fantastic. You can adjust it in a number of ways, which is ideal for placing it in your preferred position or for sharing the screen with someone next to you. The screen stays in position when you adjust it, and there's a cutout in the stand for cable management.

There's a joystick and three buttons to control the on-screen display, as well as a power button.

• DisplayPort cable
• Power cable
• User manuals
• ROG stickers
• Accessory bag

The contrast ratio is mediocre. Blacks look gray, and there's no local dimming feature to further improve it.

Settings

• Game Visual: User Mode (after calibration)
• Brightness: 100

The SDR brightness is great. It easily gets bright enough to fight intense glare, and there's no variation in brightness between different content.

Settings

• HDR Setting: Console Mode
• Adjustable Brightness: Off

The HDR brightness is okay. It's fine if you want to use it in a well-lit room, but without a local dimming feature, highlights don't pop against the rest of the image for an impactful HDR experience. The PQ EOTF tracking is good for the most part, but it has raised blacks due to its low contrast. With a sharp cut-off at the peak brightness, it lets highlights get the brightest they could. The EOTF tracking is the most accurate in the 'Console Mode' picture mode.

The horizontal viewing angle is great. The image remains consistent from the sides, which is ideal for sharing your screen with someone else.

The vertical viewing angle is okay. Although the image gets darker and washes out at wide angles, it's still fine if you're standing up and looking down on the monitor.

The gray uniformity is good. The corners and edges are a bit darker, but there's minimal dirty screen effect in the center, which is great.

The black uniformity is mediocre. There's clouding throughout the screen, and there's backlight bleed towards the corners. It lacks a local dimming feature to further improve it.

The accuracy before calibration in the 'sRGB Mode' GameVisual is incredible. It locks colors well to the sRGB color space, and there are minimal color and white balance inaccuracies. Even the color temperature and gamma tracking are close to their targets.

The 'sRGB Mode' locks out a few settings, including Contrast and Color Temp. However, if you want to use another picture mode to have access to those settings, then colors are oversaturated.

The accuracy after calibration is remarkable. The main benefit of calibrating it is if you want access to the settings that are locked out in the 'sRGB Mode.'

The SDR color gamut is incredible. It has perfect coverage of the commonly used sRGB color space. It also has good coverage of the Adobe RGB color space that's used in professional editing. However, it oversaturates reds and blues and undersaturates greens.

The HDR color gamut is great. It displays a wide range of colors in the DCI-P3 color space used in most HDR content. It has more limited coverage of the Rec. 2020 color space, though, but colors are fairly accurate in both color spaces.

The HDR color volume is good. It displays dark colors well, but bright colors aren't that vivid.

The text clarity is good. Although it has a more aggressive matte coating than some other monitors, it doesn't negatively impact the text clarity, and letters are still sharp with Windows ClearType (top photo) enabled. These photos are in Windows 10, and you can also see them in Windows 11 with ClearType on and with ClearType off.

The reflection handling is good. Its matte coating is more aggressive than on other matte displays, and it diffuses light well. This means it's good to use in most well-lit rooms, unless you place it opposite a bright window.

The gradient handling is fantastic. You won't notice any banding between shades of similar colors.

Due to bandwidth limitations, you can only reach the max refresh rate over DisplayPort.

On top of supporting FreeSync VRR and G-SYNC compatibility, this monitor also supports HDMI Forum VRR.

The ASUS ROG Strix XG27ACS has great motion handling across its VRR range. Motion looks sharp and is consistent as the refresh rate drops, but there's a bit more overshoot at lower refresh rates. You can adjust the Variable OD from '0' to '20,' but we didn't measure the CAD for each setting as there are minimal differences between individual settings. However, there are bigger differences between the least aggressive '0' and the most aggressive '20' settings, as well as the '9' and '10' settings in the middle. The '9' and '10' settings perform similarly, but '9' is a bit better at lower refresh rates. The '20' setting has such a high CAD that it passes the limits of the chart, which you can see in an alternative chart.

Although ASUS advertises Variable Overdrive 2.0, the overdrive settings don't change their performance based on the refresh rate but rather are more consistent across the refresh rate range.

The refresh rate compliance is good. Although its response time isn't fast enough to make full color transitions before the monitor draws the next frame at the max refresh rate, it's better at lower refresh rates.

The CAD at the max refresh rate of 180Hz is great. Motion looks sharp with Variable OD on '9,' and even though there's a bit of overshoot, it has less noticeable inverse ghosting than the more aggressive settings.

The CAD at 120Hz is great. Using either the '9' or '10' Variable OD settings results in sharp motion without much inverse ghosting, but there's more blur compared to higher refresh rates.

The CAD at 60Hz is good. The recommended overdrive setting is still '9' because '10' has just a bit more inverse ghosting.

The ASUS XG27ACS has an optional backlight strobing feature to reduce persistence blur. With VRR disabled, you can set ELMB to 'Level 1' through 'Level 5,' with the differences being the pulse width, and Clarity Position controls the pulse phase. You can only use ELMB with fixed 100Hz, 120Hz, and 180Hz signals. If you enable VRR, then you can use ELMB Sync instead, which doesn't have adjustable settings, and it works as low as 80Hz before it stops functioning. The feature reduces blur well, but most of the settings cause image duplication.

The ASUS ROG Strix XG27ACS doesn't have noticeable VRR flicker with changing frame rates, which is great for gaming.

The backlighting is completely flicker-free, which helps reduce eye strain if you're sensitive to it.

The input lag is incredibly low for a responsive feel.

This monitor works well with the PS5, but without HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, it can't take full advantage of it. Even though VRR works with 1440p and 1080p signals, it doesn't work at all with downscaled 4k signals, regardless of settings.

Besides not supporting 4k @ 120Hz due to the lack of HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, this monitor works well with the Xbox Series X|S. Keep in mind that the Xbox doesn't support HDR with 1080p or 1440p signals, so this isn't a limitation of the monitor.

The DisplayPort Alt Mode is useful to connect your laptop if it only has a USB-C port, but with limited power delivery, you'll need a separate cable to charge your laptop.

The ASUS ROG XG27ACS works well with macOS, and there aren't any issues. However, if you're using a MacBook, the USB-C port doesn't deliver enough power to charge it. Windows return to their original position when waking the laptop up from sleep and reopening the lid with any connection type.

The ASUS ROG Strix XG27ACS has a few features, including:

• ASCR: Dynamic contrast ratio feature that changes the contrast based on the content.
• GamePlus: Includes gaming-oriented features, including FPS Counter, Crosshair, Timer, Stopwatch, and Display Alignment.
• Low Blue Light: Removes blue light to help reduce eye strain.
• Shadow Boost: Adjusts gamma so that it's easier to see opponents in dark scenes.