Reviewing gaming monitors is kind of tough for me. Not because they’re particularly hard to
review or anything, but because they, almost more than any other product I get to play around with,
give me the most massive FOMO.
The high refresh rates, crisp resolutions, and cool features I just don’t have with the monitors
I actually own are really hard to give up when I have to send them back, never to be seen again.
And I never see them again, because they’re usually priced WAY outside of my budget.
But the monitor we’ll be taking a look at in this video is VERY different. ASUS’ TUF Gaming VG27WQ
promises to deliver pretty much everything I could ever want from a gaming monitor and then some,
and most importantly, do so at a shockingly affordable price.
And if you do decide to pick it up after the video, go ahead and use my Amazon Affiliate
link in the description if you wanna help the channel out. Or, if you’re in South Africa,
definitely grab it from Wootware also linked down below, because they rock.
Now, where better to kick this review off than with my absolute favorite part of this monitor –
its price. The TUF Gaming VG27WQ only comes in at about $400 or R9,000 at Wootware, which, when
paired with the specs we’ll be taking a look at next, makes it a phenomenally attractive package.
The VG27WQ is equipped with a 1500R curved, 27 inch, 1440p VA panel that can be overclocked all
the way up to 165Hz. So pretty much every single spec I’m looking for with my next monitor upgrade.
But for those of you who prefer a different panel type and like your screen flat,
ASUS is also selling IPS and TN models of the monitor in the form of the VG27AQ and VG27BQ.
The monitor also features a 1ms response time, HDR functionality, adaptive sync,
and a special little something ASUS calls Extreme Low Motion Blur,
a little something that can potentially up the monitor’s value proposition tremendously.
But we’ll dig much deeper into all of that in just a little bit.
Now I’ve worked with more than a few TUF Gaming parts on this channel before,
and they’ve earned themselves a reputation with me for being budget-friendly,
performance focussed, and no-nonsense parts. And the VG27WQ falls in line with that perfectly.
Design-wise, we’re not really getting anything that’s out of this world or super flashy.
The base looks a little antiquated, kind of like a gamery cheese wedge with red trim, and the stand
itself seems to be stuck in a weird limbo between trying too hard, and not trying hard enough.
Luckily, the rest of the monitor does a much better job of blending the gamer
aesthetic with a much more modern and sleek look.
The front of the monitor is almost uninterrupted with minimal bezels along the top,
left, and right sides, with a slightly larger bezel at the bottom displaying the ASUS logo,
and featuring an angled design to add some character into the mix.
Speaking of character, the back of the monitor is where we find most of it.
The back features some key gamer-focused design choices like angular cutouts, sharp corners,
and circuitry designs etched into a matte black finish. But even though it’s definitely a gamery
design, it isn’t obnoxious about it, and still manages to look clean and modern.
Rather than screaming GAMER! The monitor just calmly whispers it, and it works really well here.
Sure I would’ve liked the design of the monitor even more if it was either a little more gamery,
or a little less gamery, and you know, some glorious RGB lighting would’ve been dope too,
but even without all of that, it’s still a monitor that should look great in 90% of setups.
It’s also built really well considering it’s a mostly plastic design. This is a
TUF Gaming product, after all, and it’s definitely a sturdy boy. No part of the monitor felt overly
cheap or flimsy in any way, and the matte surfaces make the whole thing feel premium.
Which is important since you’ll probably be touching the thing pretty often.
The monitor features a wide range of motion, allowing for generous height,
swivel, and tilt adjustments, all of which can be done effortlessly and smoothly,
and you can plop it onto a VESA mount if you need even more flexibility.
And because we’re working with a VA panel here, the display from any of those angles looks
pretty great, even though the curve kind of blocks side-viewing a good bit.
Unfortunately, the monitor can’t be flipped vertically (without a VESA mount), but that’s
not too big of a deal considering curved displays aren’t really ideal for that anyway.
Connectivity-wise, the VG27WQ is… fine. We’ve got
a DisplayPort 1.2 which is in a very awkward position and hard to get to,
two HDMI 2.0 ports, and a headphone jack. And that’s perfectly fine for most people but...
Where are my USB ports, ASUS?!
USB passthrough is one of those PC gamer luxuries that I’m a massive fan of,
and not having even just one anywhere on the monitor is a bit of a bummer.
But if I’m being totally honest here, if it did have USB passthrough my cable management
would’ve been an even bigger mess than it already is, so maaaaaaaybe it’s a good thing.
Speaking of messes, while I appreciate the effort, ASUS,
this monitor really didn’t need built-in speakers. I can’t really think of any
scenario where any self-respecting gamer would want those two 2W speakers.
They just don’t sound very good, and I think cutting them entirely and
passing the savings on to consumers would’ve been far more appreciated.
What ASUS didn’t cut down is the control panel on the back of the display,
featuring four buttons and a little analog controller.
A lot of monitors only have the little analog controller nowadays, and that’s fine and all,
but I love that the monitor gives us more control with those four extra buttons.
All of which are used to navigate the monitor’s extensive list of tweakable features.
GameVisual is the first of these, and it’s essentially a selection of presets
tuned for various use cases and game genres. Each one is supposed to tweak settings to
best match whatever you’re doing on your monitor, and it works fine for the most part.
I tend to prefer a one-size-fits-all kind of approach,
so it was a little disappointing that there wasn’t a normal preset in the bunch.
But I just started off with the FPS preset then tweaked brightness, contrast, saturation,
and color temp to suit my preference and that amounted to the same thing.
One preset I was particularly excited for was sRGB, and it did not disappoint. ASUS claims
the panel covers 120% of the sRGB spectrum, and I believe it. With the preset applied,
the panel was perfect for video editing, especially since I do a lot of color calibration
and need colors to be represented as accurately as possible, and that’s exactly what I got.
I did experience some weird color quirks while using the preset,
with certain colored icons and such blending together and not looking quite right,
but after some manual color adjustments, those were ironed out pretty easily.
Shadow Boost was another interesting feature to play around with, which ups the brightness of
especially dark areas in-game while doing a pretty decent job of not overdoing it
and taking away from the experience.
One feature the esports enthusiasts among you will definitely appreciate
is GamePlus, a hotkey that you can use to toggle a crosshair, timer, and FPS overlay onto your game.
It’s not cheating, it’s a feature. Oh, and it’ll also help you with aligning multiple displays.
Then, we’ve got some flicker-free tech, along with a comprehensive list of blue light filters to help
reduce eyestrain and discomfort that tends to set in after many hours-long gaming sessions.
You’ll also find a setting for HDR, which the monitor does support, but kind of sort of just
barely. It’s certified for DisplayHDR 400, which is indeed HDR, but the display really isn’t bright
enough at 400 nits to make a big difference in my opinion, in either gaming or cinema modes.
But I’m not too sold on HDR anyway, and Windows sucks at it,
so it’s not a particularly big deal to me.
Now, with all of that out of the way, it’s time to shift focus to what really matters most here,
is the TUF Gaming VG27WQ as good as it looks on the spec sheet?
Well, the short answer is a RESOUNDING
yes. And that’s the video done, see you guys in the next one.
Oh, you’re still here, okay, then let me elaborate a little.
The panel ASUS has stuck on this thing is phenomenal. It features the exact specs
I’m personally looking for, those being 27 inch, 1440p, and above 144Hz refresh rate,
and the 1500R curve is something I didn’t know I wanted in my life but now desperately do.
Gaming on this thing was fantastic in
every possible way. Story-driven games like Sekiro and Horizon Zero Dawn looked
absolutely gorgeous, and thanks to that generous curve, were wholly immersive too.
And at the same time, my esports titles like Warzone and Apex were as responsive and buttery
smooth as, you know, butter, and as always when I review high refresh rate monitors,
I definitely felt like I played better and got more kills than with my 60Hz monitor. And this
was actually confirmed more than a few times by the increase in Ws I was able to pick up. Nice.
While I didn’t personally notice any difference between 144Hz and the monitor’s max overclock of
165Hz, I’m sure the esports pros among you will definitely be able to appreciate it.
Something I was actually able to notice a hell of a lot more is something that
truly sets this monitor apart from others in its price range, and even
from monitors hundreds or thousands of dollars more expensive than it,
and that’s its implementation of Extreme Low Motion Blur Tech or ELMB for short.
Hardware Cannucks does a fantastic job of fully explaining and showing exactly how it works
in their review of the VG27AQ which I’ll link down below,
so definitely go check that out if you want all of the details.
But the massively oversimplified explanation is that ELMB inserts black frames between normal
frames by rapidly turning the backlight on and off, which results in a huge reduction in
motion blur, like almost to the point where it’s eliminated entirely. It’s some really cool tech.
It’s not really a new feature, of course, since we’ve seen similar tech under different names
on quite a few other monitors. But what makes the implementation on the VG27WQ so
special and effective is that you can enable ELMB while also keeping adaptive sync on.
Enabling tech like ELMB can often lead to an increase in in-game stuttering, and that’s
a tradeoff you’re kind of forced to make on most other monitors with a feature like this,
but that’s not the case here. The VG27WQ lets you have your low motion blur cake and eat it too.
And the result is awesome. The only real downside is that brightness will take a bit of a hit,
considering the backlight is only really on half of the time.
But, when you get past that, which isn’t too hard to do, the smoothness is kind of
mind-blowing. Silky smooth gameplay with practically zero stuttering in sight.
After gaming with it on for a while, I turned the feature off and it kind of felt like I
had just taken my glasses off. Obviously not quite as dramatic, but you get the point.
Overall, I haven’t been this impressed with a gaming monitor in a very, very long time.
It looks good, is packed with features you’d normally only see in much more expensive monitors,
and at least one feature you don’t see on pretty much any other monitor
has the specs to back up its performance claims and does everything you want it to.
And best of all, it packs all of this into a surprisingly reasonably-priced package.
And that last part especially makes all of the smaller issues I have with it seem very trivial.
Great job, ASUS. And great job, ASUS for sending the monitor over for me to check out.
Very big brain move.
If you’re thinking of picking up any of the monitors in this range,
be sure to use my Amazon affiliate links down below.
It costs you nothing but really helps the channel out. And if you’re in South Africa,
go grab them at Wootware and help yourself out with their awesome service and support team.
And you know the drill, if you liked the video, hit the button,
get subscribed for more, and hit the stupid bell so you’ll actually be notified when I upload.
Cheers!