Acer Predator XB273U GXbmiipruzx Monitor Review

The Acer Predator XB273U GX has a very similar design to the Acer Predator XB273K Pbmiphzx. It looks good with gamer-oriented touches and slight red accents.

The monitor feels well-built. It's made of decent-quality plastic, and there's not too much flex. There are no obvious gaps or issues.

The Acer Predator XB273U GX has very good ergonomics, similar to the Acer Predator XB273K Pbmiphzx, but with the added ability to rotate into portrait mode in either direction. The back is fairly simple, with the Acer branding and some brushed metal texture in the plastic at the top. There's a cutout in the stand for cable management.

The stand is slightly raised and has a wide footprint, but there's still plenty of space in front. It supports the monitor well with no wobble.

There's a joystick and four buttons on the back to navigate the on-screen display.

• Power supply
• Power cable
• DisplayPort cable
• HDMI cable
• USB to USB-B upstream cable
• User guide

The Acer XB273U GX has a passable contrast ratio. It's better than the typical 1000:1 contrast of most IPS panels, although contrast can vary a bit between units.

The Acer XB273U GX doesn't have local dimming. The video above is provided for reference only.

The Acer XB273U GX has impressive SDR peak brightness, even higher than the advertised 400 nits. It's very consistent across different scenes and should be bright enough to overcome glare in most settings.

We measured SDR brightness after calibration in the 'User' Picture Mode, with Brightness set to max.

HDR peak brightness is decent. It meets the brightness requirement for its DisplayHDR 400 certification and stays very consistent across different scenes. It should be bright enough for a satisfying HDR gaming experience, but it may not be bright enough to make HDR movies really pop.

We measured HDR brightness in 'HDR' mode, with Brightness set to max.

The Acer XB273U GX has great horizontal viewing angles, so the image should stay accurate from the sides.

The vertical viewing angles are okay, but the image may lose a bit of accuracy if viewed from above or below.

The Acer Predator XB273U has excellent gray uniformity, although this can vary between units. The corners and edges are darker, but there's not much dirty screen effect.

Black uniformity is okay. There's a bit of noticeable clouding, as well as some backlight bleed near the top and bottom edges, but it's not bad overall.

The Acer XB273U GX has excellent out-of-the-box color accuracy, though this can vary between units. The colors are excellent, most are only slightly off, and the white balance is great. Gamma follows the curve very well, and the color temperature is fairly close to our 6500K target, albeit slightly on the warmer side.

After calibration, the accuracy is fantastic. The color temperature is even closer to the 6500K target, and gamma follows the curve well, although bright scenes may be a bit over-brightened. Any remaining color or white balance inaccuracies shouldn't be noticeable to the naked eye.

The Acer Predator XB273U has an exceptional SDR color gamut. It has full coverage of both the sRGB color space used in most content and the Adobe RGB color space used in professional photo editing. If you're not in sRGB mode, some colors may appear oversaturated. Greens and reds may also be oversaturated in Adobe RGB since the gamut covers more than the required Adobe RGB color space.

SDR color volume is outstanding. It only has trouble reproducing very dark, saturated colors due to its low contrast ratio. Otherwise, colors look vibrant at a wide range of luminance levels.

The Acer Predator XB273U can display a wide color gamut for HDR content, with remarkable coverage of the DCI P3 color space and impressive coverage of the wider Rec. 2020. Its HDR tone mapping is excellent as well, with very few inaccuracies.

HDR color volume is good, although it's limited by the monitor's low contrast ratio.

The Acer Predator XB273U has decent reflection handling. It does a good job of diffusing light, but it's still best to avoid placing it directly across from a window or light source.

Text clarity is good. Enabling ClearType (top photo) makes diagonal and curved lines look clearer, as seen on the R, N, and G.

Gradients look incredible. There's hardly any visible banding.

The Acer XB273U GX has a native 240Hz refresh rate, which can be overclocked to 270Hz. It supports Adaptive Sync natively, is FreeSync-compatible, and is certified as G-SYNC-compatible. Unfortunately, you can't enable VRR while 'Overclock' is on, meaning the monitor is limited to 240Hz with VRR. Enabling VRR also locks the overdrive setting to 'Normal'. While that's the recommended setting for the max refresh rate, it's not recommended for 60Hz because the overshoot is too noticeable, which could be frustrating if you're playing low frame rate games.

Update 11/26/2021: We measured the response time with VRR enabled across a range of refresh rates. We've added a table and explanation below.

The Acer Predator XB273U GX has an incredible response time at its max refresh rate, resulting in exceptionally clear motion in fast-moving content. We recommend the 'Normal' overdrive setting, as it's the fastest and the amount of overshoot is acceptable. The 'Off' setting has no overshoot, but it's a bit slower, while the 'Extreme' setting has too much overshoot.

We also measured the response time with VRR enabled across a range of refresh rates. One of the interesting things we found was that the monitor uses low framerate compensation as soon as the framerate drops below 60. For example, when the framerate decreased to 59, each frame was doubled by the GPU, and the monitor behaved as if it was receiving 118fps. This results in much smoother, clearer motion at 59fps than at 60fps. If your computer tends to hover around 60fps with some games, it might be best to cap the framerate at 59fps, as it delivers a smoother gaming experience overall. Note that these results were obtained using slightly different methodology, so the tables and charts look a bit different.

At 60Hz, the response time is still remarkable, although you may notice a bit more motion blur. The best overdrive setting at 60Hz is 'Off' because both 'Normal' and 'Extreme' produce too much overshoot.

The Acer XB273U GX has an optional Black Frame Insertion (BFI) feature that flickers the backlight to help reduce motion blur, called Visual Response Boost (VRB). It only works above 120Hz and can't be used at the same time as VRR.

The Acer Predator XB273U GX has a flicker-free backlight, which can help reduce eye strain.

The Acer XB273U GX has a remarkably low input lag. It's a bit higher at 60Hz, but it's still quite low overall. The monitor uses Display Stream Compression (DSC) to achieve its 270Hz refresh rate, allowing it to display a 10-bit signal at 270Hz.

The Acer XB273U GX has a 27 inch screen with a high 1440p resolution. There's plenty of space for multitasking and the pixel density is good, resulting in a sharp image.

The USB-C port supports DisplayPort Alt mode at 1440p up to 270Hz with 10-bit thanks to DSC. It also supports power delivery up to 65W, as well as upstream, so it can transfer data to your PC from devices plugged into the monitor's USB ports.

There are no issues with sleep or the USB ports when using this monitor with recent MacBooks. VRR doesn't work properly, especially when the refresh rate dips to 48Hz. The overclock doesn't work with Macs, as the refresh rate becomes locked at 60Hz instead.

The Acer Predator XB273U GX has built-in speakers and HDR10 support. It also has several extra features, including crosshairs, an Ultra-Low Latency mode to reduce input lag, and a low blue light mode to reduce eye strain.