ASUS ROG Swift 360Hz PG259QN Monitor Review

The ASUS ROG Swift 360Hz PG259QN's design is very similar to the ASUS ROG Strix XG279Q, but the stand's feet now sit flat on the table. It has thin borders on three sides and a thicker bottom bezel. The back has an etched design and a Republic of Gamers (ROG) logo that lights up.

The ASUS ROG Swift PG259QN's build quality is great. The display is made of plastic, but it feels sturdy, and there are no loose parts. The stand has a solid metal base and supports the monitor well. All the hinges feel well-made, and it feels stable when rotating the screen. It doesn't have the most premium materials, but you shouldn't have any issues with it.

The ASUS ROG Swift PG259QN has good ergonomics, making it easy to adjust the screen to your ideal viewing position or share content on your screen. If ergonomics are important to you, the MSI Oculux NXG253R is a nearly identical monitor with a wider swivel range.

The back of the monitor has a fairly heavy gamer design. The ROG logo lights up, and you can control it through the on-screen menu or the Aura Sync software. There's a cutout at the bottom of the stand that allows cables to pass through for cable management. It can be VESA-mounted, but there's no quick-release feature to remove the stand.

The stand takes up a fair amount of desk space, but it supports the monitor well and doesn't wobble much.

The controls are located on the right backside. There are four buttons and a joystick to turn the monitor On/Off and navigate the on-screen menu.

• USB-A to USB-B upstream cable
• HDMI cable
• DisplayPort cable
• Power supply
• Power cord
• ROG stickers
• User guide

As is expected of most IPS panels, the ASUS PG259QN has a mediocre contrast ratio, resulting in blacks that look grayish when viewed in a dark environment. It's slightly higher than the advertised 1000:1 contrast; however, this can vary between units.

Update 02/22/2021: Some users have asked whether the Variable Backlight feature is a local dimming feature. It is not. We verified it using the test on the Lagom website. It seems to act more like a dynamic contrast feature, because the 253 white pattern is visible when it's off, but not when it's on, which means that it's affecting the contrast.

The ASUS ROG Swift PG259QN doesn't have a local dimming feature. The video above is provided for reference only.

Great SDR peak brightness. It's very consistent across different content, and it's more than enough to overcome glare in bright environments.

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

The ASUS PG259QN's HDR peak brightness is okay. It's again very consistent when displaying different scenes, but it isn't enough to make highlights stand out in HDR content.

We measured the HDR peak brightness in the 'HDR' Picture Mode. The screen's brightness isn't adjustable in this picture mode.

The ASUS ROG Swift PG259QN has good horizontal viewing angles. Images remain accurate when viewed from the side, great for sharing content on the screen or playing co-op games.

The vertical viewing angles are decent. This only affects image accuracy if you have the screen mounted far above or below eye level.

Gray uniformity is excellent. The sides and top corners are noticeably darker, but dirty screen effect is minimal, and uniformity is much better in dark scenes.

Black uniformity is decent on our ASUS PG259QN. There's backlight glow along the top and bottom edges, making some parts of the screen look more grayish.

The ASUS PG259QN has excellent accuracy before calibration. The sRGB mode limits colors to the sRGB color space, so they aren't oversaturated. The white balance and gamma are both also good. However, the color temperature is on the warm side, resulting in a reddish tint. Unfortunately, the sRGB mode limits some picture settings, including the Brightness, so if you want those enabled, use 'Racing Mode' instead, which performs nearly exactly like the sRGB mode anyways, as you can see here.

After calibration, accuracy is only slightly better since it was already excellent out-of-the-box. Both the white balance and color temperature are nearly spot-on with the targets.

Update 01/12/2022: We remeasured the SDR color gamut with the refresh rate at 60Hz to see if there was a difference with 360Hz. We measured the Adobe RGB color space before calibration, and noticed that the 60Hz refresh rate results in a wider color gamut with 77.3% coverage as opposed to 73.0%. However, we're leaving the results as-is because we don't expect people to use the monitor at 60Hz.

The ASUS PG259QN has an excellent SDR color gamut. It has near full coverage of the widely-used sRGB color space, but it only has decent coverage of the Adobe RGB color space used for photo editing.

Update 01/12/2022: We remeasured the SDR color volume with the refresh rate at 60Hz to see if there was a difference. We measured the Adobe RGB color volume before calibration, and noticed that the 60Hz refresh rate results in a better color volume. However, we're leaving the results as-is because we don't expect people to use the monitor at 60Hz.

Excellent color volume. It only has trouble displaying dark and saturated colors due to its low contrast ratio.

Unfortunately, although the ASUS ROG Swift PG259QN supports HDR, it can't display a wide color gamut. Its DCI-P3 coverage is only decent, and it has poor coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 color space. If you'd like a gaming monitor with a wide HDR color gamut, check out the Dell Alienware AW2721D.

The HDR color volume is just decent, mainly due to its limited color gamut. It has difficulty displaying very bright colors, as well as dark and saturated colors.

The ASUS ROG Swift PG259QN has great reflection handling. The matte anti-reflective does a good job of reducing the intensity of reflected lights. Combined with the monitor's high peak brightness, you shouldn't have any visibility issues in bright settings.

Text clarity is decent. Enabling Windows ClearType (top photo) makes letters look more even and improves diagonal lines, such as on the R and N.

The ASUS PG259QN has exceptional gradient handling. The small amount of banding in the reds shouldn't be visible in most content.

The ASUS ROG Swift PG259QN has a superb maximum refresh rate to deliver a smooth and responsive gaming experience. Due to HDMI's bandwidth limitations, you need a DisplayPort connection to take full advantage of this monitor.

It has native G-SYNC support and is compatible with Adaptive Sync, so it works with AMD graphics cards, too. If you're looking for a similar monitor with native FreeSync support for your AMD graphics card, check out the Acer Nitro XV252Q Fbmiiprx. G-SYNC works over HDMI and DisplayPort.

The ASUS ROG Swift PG259QN has an excellent response time at its maximum refresh rate, resulting in clear images in fast-moving scenes. The recommended overdrive setting is 'Normal', as it provides the best performance without adding an overwhelming amount of overshoot like the 'Extreme' option. The 'Off' option has virtually no overshoot, but the response time is slower. If you want a 360Hz monitor with less overshoot, then check out the Dell Alienware AW2521H or the BenQ ZOWIE XL2566K, which also offers a customizable overdrive experience.

The response time at 120Hz is great. Like at its max refresh rate, the recommended overdrive setting is 'Normal' because it has less overshoot than 'Extreme'.

The ASUS ROG PG259QN's response time at 60Hz is very good, although noticeably blurrier than at its max refresh rate. The best overdrive setting is also 'Normal' because the 'Extreme' option adds more overshoot. If you want a similar 360Hz monitor with an even better response time at 60Hz, check out the Acer Predator X25 bmiiprzx.

The ASUS ROG Swift PG259QN has an optional backlight strobing feature to improve motion clarity. It only works at fixed refresh rates, 144Hz or 240Hz. It can't be used simultaneously with VRR and enabling it disables the overdrive settings menu. Also, it causes slight image duplication due to strobe crosstalk. There are different settings available with it to control the brightness of the backlight, and you can see the differences between them below.

The backlight is flicker-free at all brightness levels, which helps reduce eye strain.

The ASUS ROG Swift PG259QN's input lag is very low, resulting in an incredibly responsive gaming experience.

The ASUS ROG PG259QN has a decent resolution and size. The screen might be a bit too small for productivity, and the pixel density is also low, so text and images don't look as sharp. That said, the 1080p resolution makes it easier for the graphics card to reach higher frame rates. If the resolution is important to you, the ASUS ROG Swift 360Hz PG27AQN is a 360Hz monitor with a 1440p resolution.

The ASUS PG259QN works as expected with the PS5. It can only display 1080p signals, and because it has native G-SYNC support, the PS5's VRR feature also works on it.

This monitor has limited compatibility with the Xbox Series X. Like with the PS5, it only displays 1080p signals, but because HDR only works in 4k on the Xbox, you can't play HDR games on this monitor.

The ASUS PG259QN works fine with macOS devices like a MacBook Pro. The refresh rate is limited to 240Hz, and there aren't any issues with VRR. Like most displays that use a USB-C to DisplayPort adapter, windows return to their original position when the laptop goes to sleep, but not when you close the lid.

The ASUS PG259QN has many additional features, including:

• LED Bias Lighting: Controllable RGB lighting on the back of the monitor. A few lighting options are accessible through the on-screen menu, but you need the Aura-Sync software for full customization options.
• Crosshair: Adds a virtual crosshair.
• Timer: Adds a timer on the screen.
• Frame Rate Counter: Adds an overlay display current frame rate.
• Stopwatch: Adds a stopwatch on the screen.
• Dark Boost: Helps make objects more visible in dark scenes.
• Display Alignment: Helps with alignment in multi-monitor setups.

Unfortunately, unlike most of the other 360Hz G-SYNC monitors available now, like the MSI Oculux NXG253R, this monitor doesn't support NVIDIA's Reflex Latency Analyzer.