The Viewsonic Elite XG270QG is one of the best 1440p gaming monitors I’ve ever tested,
let’s check it out and find out why that’s the case in this review.
The Nano IPS panel is 27 inches with a 16 by 9 aspect ratio and runs with a 1440p resolution.
It’s got a 165Hz refresh rate and a fast 1ms grey-to-grey response time with G-Sync
support, so based on those specs it sounds like it’s got everything you could want
for gaming.
To get games at high enough refresh rates at 1440p you’re going to need some decent
power, I’ll be testing with my RTX 2080 Ti gaming rig with an 8700K overclocked to
5GHz.
You don’t require Nvidia graphics though, I’ve also confirmed that I could use FreeSync
with a Radeon RX 5700 XT, I can still get the full 165Hz refresh rate, and CRU reports
the FreeSync range as 1 to 165Hz.
Viewsonic list that the monitor has support for 98% of the DCI-P3 colour space, though
I got 93% with the Spyder 5, either way the results look decent compared to other gaming
monitors I’ve tested, they’re even similar to some content creator targeted panels I’ve
used.
The contrast ratio is listed as 1000:1, however I measured mine at 620:1, which is on the
lower side when compared to most monitors I’ve tested. The brightness was fair, at
100% I measured it at just over 400 nits in the center, though the specs say 350 nits,
so my panel might just be giving me a bonus.
I’ve run the UFO test to look for ghosting, this footage is slowed down about 5 times
from the original speed to allow for a closer look, and I didn’t think it was looking
too bad in this test.
Viewing angles were fine regardless of angle, the specs note that it’s good for up to
178 degrees both horizontally and vertically.
The bezels aren’t too thick, I measured them at around 1cm on the sides, though I
honestly can’t say I noticed them or really care once you get into a game.
There was some backlight bleed, mainly towards the bottom corners, definitely not ideal,
but I found it hard to notice when viewing darker content, and it will vary between panels.
It’s not all just about the panel though, the stand feels quite solid and has a brushed
metal base, though the rest was plastic, at least on the exterior, and all with a black
finish.
There are quite a few adjustments available including -5 to 20 degrees of tilt, 90 degrees
of swivel in either direction, 120mm of height adjustment, and 90 degrees of pivot in either
direction.
The stand connects to the back of the panel without any tools required, and behind this
are four screws for the 100mm VESA mount if you want to attach the panel to a different
stand or monitor arm.
The back also features a Kensington lock towards the bottom on the right, along with speakers
on the left and right, which I thought sounded quite good for a monitor, probably the best
I’ve ever heard in terms of monitor speakers, they had some bass, were clear and they got
loud enough at maximum volume.
There are two rubber mouse anchors built in which you can pull down to put your mouse
cable in to keep it out of the way, one on the left and the other on the right, so you’re
covered regardless of which hand you use your mouse with.
There are three buttons in the middle below the screen. These include a power button,
the main joystick in the center for on screen display navigation, and a quick access button
which by default turns the blue light filter on or off, however you can customize its function
in the OSD.
The I/O is on the back and faces down, from left to right we’ve got full size DisplayPort,
HDMI, 3.5mm audio output, USB Type-B which you connect to your PC to use the following
3 Type-A ports, and the power input.
The cables included are full size DisplayPort, USB Type-B to A for the USB hub functionality,
and a power cable and brick, unfortunately that’s not built into the monitor and is
external. I was a little disappointed that HDMI wasn’t included, although when I tried
my own HDMI cable it wouldn’t run at 1440p above 60Hz, and the overclock option used
to enable 165Hz was greyed out, so seems like DisplayPort is required.
There’s a plastic cover that goes on top of the cables to keep the rear looking a little
neater, and you can run the cables through the hole in the stand to keep them tidy.
There are also optional plastic doors you can screw onto the sides, installation was
easy, and they help reduce other light sources from hitting the display. The left hand side
has a metal headphone holder which folds down if you need it, and you can still use it with
the side panels installed.
The on screen display itself was easy to navigate through, but occasionally I would move to
the wrong menu, not sure if I just suck as using this particular joystick or what. There
are quite a few options here, you’ve got to enable the overclock option to use the
full 165Hz refresh rate, you can change the OSD timeout value, monitor colour profiles,
disable the blue power LED on the front, change RGB lighting and more.
Speaking of that RGB, there’s lighting on the back in this hexagonal shape around the
VESA mount, and also 5 lights on the left and right sides which provide an underglow
effect. The effects are limited to just 3 through the OSD, and outside of rainbow you
seem stuck to the colour blue, but you can turn all lighting off if you prefer.
There’s software you can download from the Viewsonic website to manage the monitor, you
just need to connect the included USB Type-B cable to your PC to use it. Most of the functionality
is locked at the moment as it’s in beta, all I was able to do was change the RGB lighting,
but this does give you more effects to choose from compared to the OSD as well as colour
selection.
So far the monitor looks pretty good, but how was it to actually use day to day? I normally
use a 32” 4K monitor as my daily driver for video editing, so swapping to 27 inches
at 1440p was a little adjustment. Overall I thought it looked great, and when playing
some games that are actually able to spit out high FPS gameplay just felt smooth, probably
due to the combination of 165Hz, G-Sync and the 1ms GTG response time.
Unfortunately all of this comes at a cost, you can find updated prices linked in the
description. At the time of recording, the Viewsonic Elite XG270QG goes for $600 USD,
while we’re looking at double the price here in Australian dollars, the current human
malware issue has killed our exchange rate.
It’s really difficult for me to talk about value and how this stacks up compared to others,
as I haven’t personally tested much else with similar specs. I can see there are what
appears to be similarly specced panels for less money on Amazon though, check out the
card in the top right for the Hardware Unboxed top 5 1440p gaming monitors by Tim, needless
to say he’s tested out far more than me.
That said, without having tested others, this one did feel great to play games on. The only
issue I had was the bleed towards the bottom right on my unit, otherwise I thought it was
excellent.
Let me know what you thought of the Viewsonic Elite XG270QG gaming monitor down in the comments,
and also let me know if you’re interested in more gaming monitors, I had a few requests
lately to see some more and I’ve got another here to test out. Finally, as always if you’re
new to the channel consider getting subscribed for future tech videos like this one.