- Everyone knows that at high levels of competition,
the slightest advantage can be the difference between
chicken dinner and a sloppy second place sandwich.
So competitive gamers should be really excited
by the Asus PG259Q.
This is the first 360 Hertz gaming monitor.
But can this
fast IPS panel even take advantage
of that kind of high refresh rate
without becoming a blurry mess?
Can any PC games even run at 360 frames per second?
And, if they can,
will you,
a common gamer,
be able to properly appreciate
the difference between this
and an already insanely fast 240 Hertz monitor?
I doubt it.
But our sponsor believes in you.
This is the new VENGEANCE a4100 Streamer PC from Corsair.
It's powerful, it's beautiful,
and you can pick it up today at the link
in the video description.
(upbeat music)
You've probably heard,
or even experienced,
that upgrading from a gaming monitor
that refreshes at 60 Hertz
up to one that refreshes at 100+ Hertz
is a much more noticeable jump
than say going from 120 or 144 up to 240.
That's because 60 Hertz displays
are showing you a new frame
about every 16 and a half milliseconds,
whereas 120 to 144 Hertz,
that's a new frame about every seven milliseconds.
That means that
whatever you're looking at in that comparison,
is gonna be twice as up to date.
Then, when we jump from 144 to 240,
that only shaves three more milliseconds off.
And finally,
going from 240 to 360,
that's an extra 120 refreshes per second
above the existing fastest monitors around,
for a whopping savings of just 1.4 milliseconds, each frame.
To find out if that's an improvement
that can even be perceived by the average gamer,
we set up a blind test with the PG259Q
next to not one,
but three competing 240 Hertz monitors
to see if anyone,
including me,
could tell the difference.
(screaming)
- I'm excited.
I really don't like this monitor.
- This is good, this one feels good.
- Yeah, I'm guessing just purely off of
how many of like this block I can see at once
when I go like this. I think I can see more of it.
- 70% sure that this would be the highest refresh rate one.
- Really having a hard time even picking out the difference
'cause these games are running at about,
yeah about 700 frames per second,
or above.
So I will say this is the 360
and everything else is the 240.
- I have no clue if I can do this. Like, you can see here
like I'm basically just creating circles
with this thing on all of them.
So it doesn't really matter if you have more frames,
if it's all just of a schmeary mess anyway.
I think I might guess this one
just because I feel like there's a bit more like,
trails behind the objects when I move it.
- I wanna say that the second one might be 360 Hertz,
but that's kind of just a guess at this point, honestly.
It's number three?
Damn.
It really,
it really doesn't feel any different to me.
- You think you're going to bamboozle me, eh?
Not a chance, I'm a pro gamer.
I need more wood.
I'm gonna say it's that one, but I,
I'm probably wrong.
So.
- [Guy] You're wrong. - Cool.
- I'm going with my gut feeling.
I don't even,
I can't,
like I can't tell,
but not only did I kinda feel like it was this one,
I scored the best on this one,
I'm saying it's this one.
- [Guy] That is right.
- Wow, it's subtle.
Like yes, I gave an answer.
Yes, it was correct.
Don't read too much into it.
There were quite a few learnable here,
starting with that none of our gamers,
even the ones who guessed correctly,
were confidently able to identify the 360 Hertz monitor
from gameplay.
But,
is it just because the refresh rate jump is too small?
Another factor could be the pixel response times.
Remember guys, if the pixels can't change color fast enough,
smeary motion blur could hurt the experience,
no matter how many times you refresh the picture per second.
By the way, you should try refreshing LTT store.com,
where the pictures are always clear
wow, we really shoehorned that one in.
Anyway,
early 240 Hertz monitors,
like the Asus PG258Q,
used TN panels,
the LCD technology with the fastest pixel response times.
By contrast,
the PG259Q uses an IPS type panel,
which is traditionally known
more for color accuracy and wide viewing angles,
rather than for speed.
So to see how the pixel response times of this new monitor
compared to its 240 Hertz TN predecessor,
we put together a Blur Busters Pursuit Camera setup,
which helps us capture
the motion blur produced by the monitor
without the blur introduced by persistence of vision.
You can see here, the old TN has less ghosting,
but is actually a bit less clear with thicker lines
and a bit of image doubling.
Compared to itself running it 240 Hertz,
the PG259Q at 360 looks only slightly more clear,
but with a similarly slight increase in inverse ghosting
caused by pixel overdrive and
a lot more smearing on the dark background,
which suggests that the panels struggles
with light to dark transitions.
And for bonus points, by the way,
here it is compared to the Samsung Odyssey G7,
which uses a VA panel.
Interestingly, the clearest image we got from the PG259Q,
was when it had ULMB turned on,
which is only available at 144 Hertz and 240 Hertz.
Nothing more,
nothing less.
You know, I'd actually love to see a pursuit camera setup
of a high refresh rate OLED,
since they supposedly
have instantaneous pixel response times.
Which actually we can do
when LG's CX 120 Hertz OLED TV arrives.
Make sure you guys sub so you don't miss that.
Anyway,
with all that in mind,
is there any point in paying,
that's more expensive,
two to $300 more for the PG259Q
compared to a last gen 240 Hertz monitor?
Well, probably.
In our video investigating
how refresh rate affects the performance of pro gamers,
we discovered that it depends on the in-game scenario.
So, even if this monitor doesn't offer
much more motion clarity than existing offerings,
the higher refresh rate
could still give you an advantage in situations,
like our CS: GO double-door hallway test,
where having the most up-to-date information
can make a huge difference.
And, there are actually other ways that this monitor
is just plain better than its predecessors.
Take a look at this color accuracy.
Yeah, that's for real.
You could legitimately use this thing for gaming by night,
and creative color critical work by day.
As long as you're working in the sRGB color space.
That's because as an eight-bit panel,
it's gamut coverage isn't the greatest.
And, unfortunately that doesn't change,
even if you use a graphics card
that supports display stream compression.
Rats!
That also plays into its HDR performance.
I mean hey,
it's HDR 10 compatible.
But, it's low peak brightness keeps it from really shining
in this respect.
And like most HD-aren't monitors as we call them,
it can look sometimes worse in HDR mode than in SDR.
It also has G-SYNC though,
and that is standard real G-SYNC,
not compatible or ultimate,
which means that it's variable refresh rate range
is completely unlimited,
and it means it has variable overdrive,
meaning less noticeable coronas at lower frame rates
than you would get if it was
over-volting the pixels the same across all frame rates.
It does have limitations.
As mentioned earlier,
it's got ULMB,
but, notice the use of NVIDIA's acronym here.
Asus usually calls their low-motion blur ELMB
and, mightn't you expect it to have ELMB Sync,
that is backlight-strobing wild G-SYNC is on?
Well, sorry, it doesn't.
You'll have to turn variable refresh rate off
if you want that motion blur reduction
that gave it that amazing clarity.
Back to the bottom line though.
Should you buy this monitor?
I, for one, think it's absolutely fantastic.
But only for a very specific gamer.
So if you're a competitive player
and you play games that your PC
can actually run at frame rates above 300 FPS,
and you don't need more than 1080p,
then this is one of,
if not the best 240 Hertz monitor on the market.
And,
Oh, it can also run it 360 Hertz,
if you're a sensitive and skilled enough to,
well, if not benefit from it,
at least even notice it.
Backblaze is a cloud storage solution
that's easy to use and affordable,
starting at just $6 a month.
With Backblaze you can back up your personal
or business data and even use it as a B2 storage solution.
Over 50 billion files have been restored
and they've got over an exabyte of storage now.
You can back up almost anything
and restore your files from anywhere with their mobile app,
allowing you to access your files on the go.
If you need to restore,
you can download your files directly from the web
or restore by mail.
So you just purchase a Restore Via Hard Drive,
and they will overnight FedEx it to you.
You copy the data to wherever you want it to go,
and then you return the hard drive to them for a refund.
Crazy, right?
It's unlimited data backup at a fixed price,
and you can get a fully featured 15-day free trial
at backblaze.com/ltt.
So try it out for yourself,
and start protecting yourself from bad times
at the link in the video description.
If you're looking for another video to watch,
an obvious one is checking out the big collab we did
with Shroud, Mr. Grimmmz, Corey, and Paul's Hardware,
where we determined once and for all,
if higher FPS makes you a better gamer.
Spoiler alert,
it does,
but with some caveats.
You definitely have to watch the video.