ASUS ROG Swift PG279QZ Monitor Review

The ASUS PG279QZ has a simple design, with thin bezels on all sides and a square base that's accentuated by two red LED lighting zones on the stand.

The stand is square and doesn't take up a significant amount of space. It supports the monitor well, but it does wobble a bit when nudged. There are two red LED lighting zones; however, the metal contact that allows the light to turn on only works when the monitor is in a fully landscape or a fully portrait mode.

Great ergonomics. The stand allows for all manner of adjustments, including rotation to portrait mode, and it has a wide swivel range.

The back of the monitor is plain and made out of plastic. There are two vents to dissipate heat and there's basic cable management built into the stand.

The bezels are very thin and aren't distracting, which is great for a multi-monitor setup.

The monitor without the stand is fairly thin and won't protrude much when VESA mounted. However, when attached to its stand, the entire setup looks relatively thick.

The PG279QZ has an impressive build quality. It's mostly plastic, but there are no obvious gaps in its construction and it feels very sturdy.

Like most IPS monitors, the contrast ratio is mediocre. This results in blacks that look grayish when viewed in the dark.

The PG279QZ doesn't have a local dimming feature. The video is for reference only.

SDR peak brightness is decent. It's very consistent and there's virtually no difference in brightness when displaying different content. The real scene measurement is slightly lower than the measurements on our preset size windows, but this is normal due to the uniformity of the screen.

Our measurements were done using the 'FPS' (calibrated) Picture Mode.

This monitor doesn't support HDR.

The PG279QZ has excellent horizontal viewing angles. This is great for co-op gaming and for sharing content with others.

Decent vertical viewing angles. The image should remain accurate for the most part, but the top and bottom of the screen can look a bit washed out if you sit very close.

Gray uniformity is excellent. There are some darker spots near the edges of the screen, but there's very little dirty screen effect and uniformity is significantly better in dark scenes.

The PG279QZ has poor black uniformity. There's very visible backlight bleed near the corners of the screen as well as clouding throughout; however, uniformity can vary between units due to manufacturing tolerances.

Out of the box, the color accuracy of the PG279QZ is good. We used the 'FPS' picture mode for our measurements, as it's the most accurate one. There are inaccuracies with several colors, but white balance is pretty good. The color temperature is a bit warmer than our target of 6500k and the gamma doesn't follow the target curve much, causing most scenes to appear brighter than they should.

Color accuracy is excellent after calibration, which was also done using the 'FPS' Picture Mode. White balance and gamma are nearly perfect, and the color temperature is much closer to our target, although still on the warm side. There are still some inaccuracies with a few colors, but they're difficult to notice.

You can download our ICC profile calibration here. This is provided for reference only and should not be used, as the calibration values vary per individual unit even for the same model due to manufacturing tolerances.

The PG279QZ has an excellent SDR color gamut, with an outstanding coverage of the sRGB color space. It has good coverage of the Adobe RGB color space, but it may not be good enough for professional-level photo or video editing.

Excellent SDR color volume. The monitor is capable of producing bright and saturated colors in most color shades. Unfortunately, it can't display dark colors well due to its low contrast ratio.

This monitor doesn't support HDR.

This monitor doesn't support HDR.

The PG279QZ doesn't exhibit any signs of temporary image retention.

Excellent gradient performance. There's only very faint banding when displaying gray and green.

There's a very small amount of color bleed when displaying large vertical bands of uniform colors; however, it isn't noticeable in normal content.

The PG279QZ has decent reflection handling. The matte coating reduces the intensity of direct reflections and diffuses them across the screen. You shouldn't have any issues using the monitor in most well-lit rooms, but it's best to avoid placing the monitor opposite a bright source of light.

Text clarity is decent. It's recommended to turn on ClearType, as it significantly improves the appearance of diagonal lines, as seen on the R and N.

The response time of the PG279QZ is excellent, resulting in clear images with very short blur trails in fast-moving scenes. The recommended overdrive setting is Normal, which provides the best performance with minimal overshoot. The Extreme option is faster, but it causes quite a bit of artifacts.

Response time is slower when playing at 60Hz, but it shouldn't be noticeable for most people. Again, the best overdrive setting is Normal.

The ASUS PG279QZ has a flicker-free backlight.

This monitor has a black frame insertion feature called ULMB, which introduces flickering to produce a clearer image with less motion blur. Do note that because it's a native G-SYNC monitor, this feature only works with NVIDIA graphics cards.

Update 08/10/2020: We previously indicated that the monitor is G-SYNC compatible, which is wrong. It has native G-SYNC support.

The PG279QZ has a 144Hz native refresh rate that can be overclocked up to 165Hz. It supports NVIDIA's G-SYNC to reduce screen tearing and it only works through a DisplayPort connection. When using an HDMI connection, the refresh rate is limited to 60Hz.

BFI frequency tested: 120Hz

The PG279QZ has an amazingly low input lag, even when G-SYNC is enabled. It's slightly higher when ULMB is enabled, as well as when playing at 60Hz, but it's still good enough for most gamers.