G-Sync IPS Panel Mania

Stay Tuned! :thumbs:

Bah! - This should have been up much sooner, "work" has been a real pain these last 2 weeks...... So here we go.....

@ Dave, I know where you are with your AMD-cheapo thing, but now you have gone to the Brighter side & bought a GTX970, you should consider a G-Sync affair & toss IPS @ it to boot. :thumbs:

I know we're a bit of a small shout on the Internet in here, but hopefully, my choice of "Thread title" might make a bit of a "hit" on the internet on the search engines. - If our dear & beloved "Harrison" (Dave) can think of a better thread title to "Max" this, please help yourself fella! Maybe IPS G-Sync Panel Woes might be better..... Have a read mate. ;)
I have cross-linked reference to this issue on the Asus ROG Forums @ the bottom of this thread, but please read & see my comments from" here on" first & if you do make the thread Title different, pls advise me so I can change the link on the ROG Forum. :thumbs:

This is more of a Story than a review, but I really just wanted to share my IPS experiences with you guys, if only for future reference. So, ....for a Birthday pressy from "Me" to "Me", I arranged for an IPS G-Sync 27" Panel to be delivered on Sunday November 13th 2015 for my Birthday & here's how it all went....

I sold my A4000D last year. The dear girl just wasn't getting used as much as it deserved & to be perfectly honest, I'd been hankering after a G-Sync flat panel for some time. In the last 8 months now, IPS panels have hit the scene with low G2G response times & whilst 1ms is favoured, a 4/5ms Grey-to-Grey response on a G-Sync capable panel really makes no difference, even in fast paced 3D shooters. But being able to have up to 165Hz Vertical refresh is rather exciting after a mere 120Hz/FPS on an ageing LG TN panel.

Just to perfectly clear, a G-Sync capable monitor will only work with a G-Sync capable nVidia card, and likewise, a FreeSync capable panel will only work with a FreeSync capable AMD/ATI card....

I went for the Asus PG279Q ROG which is a 27" IPS panel with 2560 x 1440 & G-Sync to boot. That's a big step from 1920 x 1080 on a 3yr old TN panel from LG. :lol:
I'd paid for a Sunday delivery which never arrived & had to pick it up from our local DPD depot early Monday morning. This saved me hanging around all day until they'd worked out their "delivery round schedule" for the day.....
After several close friends had popped round hoping for some G-Sync action over a few beers on the Sunday, it wasn't as exciting as we had all hoped it would be. However, once it was here, I was truly gob smacked at my Dual 780ti's at this resolution. BF4 with everything set to ULTRA is 144FPS 99% of the time. nVidia 780ti's will only do 144Hz max so I wont see 165Hz/FPS until I get a next gen nVidia card (970 or greater) but WOW all the same. Despite the WOW factor, I was rather dissapointed with what I perceived to be Back Light Bleed, which actually turns out to be IPS Glow.

You can see this on the pictures below. My supplier asked for pics & on all 3 occasions, all the pics I submitted endorsed a swap out.

RMA #1

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RMA #2

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RMA #3

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However, after the 3rd one went back, my supplier would only offer me a refund. I contacted Asus complaining of this horrible IPS Glow thing to which they said if my supplier would only offer a refund, the best they could do was swap my panel out with a refurbished one. - Not in my book for £750.00......

So, in for a penny & in for a pound so to speak, I forked out another £150 & bought an Acer X34 IPS G-Sync curved panel, from another supplier. Ordered it on a Sunday afternoon & had it by 08.15 Monday morning! - Amazing!!! - Now for being £900.00 lighter, all of a sudden I needed a larger desk, but put it across the corner & again...OMG!! BIGGER WOW!!
3440 x 1440 but only with a Max refresh of 100Hz & not 144Hz, but the 780ti's still wacked up high 90's in terms of FPS with BF4 still in ULTRA settings. I did see one huge explosive scene destroy the FPS to 55, but the G-Sync really did an awesome job keeping it all very playable through those devastatingly intensive situations. However, another 44FPS over 100FPS is very noticeable if you know how this kind of set up should feel. Hmmmm, .....whaddya do.....??
Your desktop Real Estate at this resolution allows you to have three Google browsers open side by side & really is impressive. - Playing BluRay versions of Martian, Prometheus & Star Wars is nothing short of breathtaking. 21:9 Letterbox on a 34" curved screen @ 3440 x 1440 isn't far off 4K @ 3840 x 2160 so the detail & sharpness of the picture is just simply "Fantastic". It completely smokes my 42" Pioneer Plasma panel; And of course, no black borders @ the top & bottom of your screen. So many wins for this Monitor, but this one went back to the supplier for a refund because of the same horrible IPS Glow/BLB thing again. Looks absolutely terrible in dark screens/environments in both Movies & Games.

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I was now at the point of prefering the Asus screen control functionality & was now willing to pay another £100 & have the Asus PG348Q ROG Swift 34" 3440x1440 IPS G-Sync one @ £1000.00.... Problem was, no one was going to have them in stock until March 25th, though Scan did have a few prior to my Acer X34 going back. By the time the refund was processed, Scan were sold out, so I had some time to get my head together & perhaps think a little more rationally than a 5 year old kid going into the sweet shop on his own for the first time.....
Using my old LG 120Hz TN thing again was shocking by comparison, so I figured the most logical thing to do was pay as little as possible for a 27" IPS G-Sync if I had to suffer the indignity of horrible IPS Glow & BLB. Switching Suppliers again but going back to the guys who shipped me 3 x Asus PG279Q ROG's, I ended up buying the Acer Predator XB271HU 27" 2560x1440 IPS G-Sync 165Hz from them, which arrived on Tuesday March 8th. ......& O-M-G-!-!

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Here's proof that not all IPS panels suffer with Glow or BLB & dammit, I'm tickled pink! As a bonus, I'll be doing 165Hz/fps on the next graphics card upgrade & not restricting myself to 100Hz/fps @ 3440 x 1440. If you buy a true 4K screen which is 3840 x 2160 in an IPS format, you'll only get 60Hz/fps at this resolution. It's all due to bandwidth limitations of the Display Port protocol @ present industry capabiities. - "60Hz is fine" my Ass Dave! :shades:

Maybe I was just Lucky with this one! Imagine trying to buy 3 of them for a tripple screen set up....... Meh! :eyebrow:

Asus ROG Forum Link..... I'm not the "only" one! - Worth a read. :thumbs:

Wow the first lot wasn't half glowing :o Glad you got one in the end :thumbs:

27" 2560x1440 UHD resolution is great and I've been running this resolution for 4 years now. You wouldn't think it would make such a difference over standard HD, but I couldn't go back.

Regarding 60Hz. As you know I buy monitors for colour accuracy for photo editing, design and video editing. I do game on them too, but colour accuracy is more important so I know what I can see on screen is what will come out of the printer. So it's a refresh rate compromise for colour.

I would love one of those really wide screens but 3x 27" setup is fine for now.

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Yes Dave, those 34" IPS screens with G-Sync are simply stunning on the desktop. Three browsers side by side & Letterbox movies are absolutely Fantastic & whilst your gaming would get a boost from where you are @ 60Hz, it gave me less than where I was on the old 120Hz Tn panel.

I caught up with the Spunkster this weekend. He was down for the Bank Holiday with his family & spent the early Saturday Evening out with us for Debs Birthday. After putting Jon's daughters to bed, we retired to my man-cave zone for a bit of a special evening, further still. - My rig with his two GTX1080's in SLI. :ninja:

Very impressive cards to say the least, complete monsters in fact. Of course, we wanted to see some 165Hz action @ 2560 x 1440 so set the over-clock function to facilitate this. Desktop was fine, but we witnessed some horizontal banding & flickering in BF4, so backed off the refresh rate to 160Hz & the flicker/banding stopped. A tad disappointing, but I won't be sending this panel back for the sake of 5Hz after the nut-ache of getting a right one.

2 x GTX 1080's in SLI on Ivybridge @ 4.7Ghz ran BF4 with ULTRA settings @ 2560 x 1440 & sat at 160Hz/160FPS 98% of the time. Quite breath taking to see such fabulous PC Gaming so smooth & so precise.

I don't know the 1080s had been released yet? I thought it was this month. Or is that just the 1070s? Which I'm tempted by.

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Just the GTX1080's atm & released with Stock Cooler & called the Founders edition? - Just another Big Corporate f**k in my book.

1070's are available on June 10th from what I've read. £399

@ Harrison

The GTX 1070 was indeed released yesterday. :thumbs:

Guessing you'll be waiting a while for the dust to settle & then buy a "non-founders" :rolleyes: (B.F. Edition) to be faster & cooler?

I'm happy with my 970 at the moment, but possibly towards the end of the year or the beginning of next I might then consider one.

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The 970 is a respectable card m8. :thumbs: