MSI G274QPF-QD Monitor Review

The MSI G274QPF-QD has a black plastic body with a simple aesthetic from the front, though it has a much more gamer-oriented look when viewed from behind the monitor. The stand only takes up a little room below the front of the monitor, and you can place a keyboard or mouse very close to it.

The monitor has great build quality. The monitor body is made of plastic, but it feels solid. The stand is also solid, and the monitor is well-constructed overall.

The monitor has fantastic ergonomics, and it's easy to adjust it to your preferred position for a long gaming session or share your screen with another person. The stand features a loop for cable management.

The square-based stand is smaller than the tripod stand on some other MSI monitors and takes up almost no space in front of the monitor. It supports the monitor well, and there isn't much wobble.

A joystick is on the back right side of the monitor, and it controls the power and on-screen menu.

• DisplayPort cable
• Power supply and cable
• VESA screw extenders
• User manuals

The monitor has a disappointing contrast. As a result, deep blacks appear gray in darker rooms, and the monitor has no local dimming feature to improve the contrast further.

This monitor doesn't have a local dimming feature. We still film these videos on the monitor so you can compare the backlight performance with a monitor that has local dimming.

The SDR brightness is very good. It gets bright enough to overcome glare and maintains its brightness consistently across different content. The monitor has a very high minimum brightness, which isn't ideal if you're playing in a dark room and prefer a lower brightness level or are sensitive to bright lights. These results are from after calibration in the 'User' Pro Mode with the Brightness at its max.

The HDR brightness is reasonable. It gets brighter than in SDR, but not enough for highlights to pop. While it tracks the EOTF fairly well, it has a very early roll-off as the monitor approaches peak brightness, so highlights don't get the brightest they could. These results are from the 'User' Pro Mode. Many monitor settings are locked when the monitor receives an HDR signal, including brightness.

The monitor has a fair horizontal viewing angle that isn't as good as many IPS displays. While you can share your screen with someone next to you, the image appears darker and washes out at wider angles.

The vertical viewing angle is okay. The image appears slightly washed out if you stand up and look down at the monitor.

The gray uniformity is good. While the edges of the screen are darker than the rest, there's minimal dirty screen effect in the center, which is great.

The black uniformity is bad. Backlight bleed is very visible along the monitor's edges, and the screen is very cloudy. There's no local dimming feature to improve this performance further.

The MSI G274QPF-QD has good accuracy before calibration in the sRGB mode. The colors and white balance are fairly accurate, and the color temperature is close to the 6500K target. However, it slightly oversaturates colors. Additionally, gamma doesn't follow the target curve well, and most scenes are too bright.

Unfortunately, using the 'sRGB' Pro Mode setting locks other settings, including Contrast and Color Temperature. So, if you want to use those settings, you need to change Pro Mode to something else, which results in worse color and gamma accuracy than before calibration, as you can see here.

The accuracy after calibration is remarkable, and you won't notice any problems. Additionally, you can use any of the settings that are locked out in the sRGB mode.

The monitor has an incredible SDR color gamut. It has fantastic coverage of the sRGB color space and superb coverage of the Adobe RGB color space used in professional publishing. However, greens, blues, and magentas are oversaturated in Adobe RGB, which isn't ideal for professional publishing.

The HDR color gamut is fantastic. It has outstanding coverage of the DCI-P3 color space used in most HDR content. It also has great coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 color space, though colors are less accurate than with DCI-P3.

The HDR color volume is good. Its wide color gamut helps it display a large range of colors, but it struggles to properly display bright and dark colors well.

The text clarity is decent. While the monitor generally has sharp text, the panel sometimes has areas of discoloration due to pixel inversion, which can be distracting. You can see an example of this here. This can be caused by a range of content, including web browsing and watching videos.

With ClearType on (top photo), the diagonal lines appear bolder. These photos are in Windows 10, and you can also see it in Windows 11 with ClearType on and with ClearType off.

The MSI G274QPF-QD has very good reflection handling. While some strong light sources cause distracting glare, it also gets bright enough to fight glare in most well-lit office spaces.

The gradient handling is outstanding, and you won't notice any issues with banding in scenes with shades of similar colors.

Due to bandwidth limitations, the max refresh rate is limited over HDMI, but you won't have issues reaching that max refresh rate over DisplayPort.

This monitor has decent motion handling across its refresh rate range with VRR enabled. Its motion handling is extremely consistent with the 'Normal' Response Time overdrive setting, which is ideal if the frame rate of your game varies a lot, but there's still some motion blur. The 'Fast' overdrive setting is better at higher refresh rates, but it's much worse at lower refresh rates. The 'Fastest' overdrive setting has such a high CAD that it passes the limits of our chart, and you can see it in an alternative chart here.

The refresh rate compliance is decent. The 'Normal' overdrive setting has the most consistent compliance across the refresh rate range, including at lower refresh rates, but the 'Fast' overdrive setting has better compliance at high refresh rates. That said, the response time isn't fast enough to make full color transitions before the monitor draws the next frame.

The CAD at the max refresh rate of 170Hz is very good. The 'Fast' overdrive setting has lower CAD than 'Normal,' resulting in less motion blur, which is great if your games maintain high frame rates.

The CAD at 120Hz is decent. The 'Normal' and 'Fast' overdrive settings have similar CAD, but 'Fast' has more overshoot that results in inverse ghosting, so 'Normal' is the better choice. This means you may have to change the setting if the frame rate of your game drops, unless you use 'Normal' with any refresh rate.

The CAD at 60Hz is decent. It's similar to 120Hz as 'Normal' has the best motion handling, with 'Fast' and 'Faster' having too much inverse ghosting. That said, there's still some motion blur.

The MSI G274QPF-QD has a backlight strobing feature, commonly known as black frame insertion (BFI), to help reduce persistence blur. When active, it causes notable image duplication.

The MSI G274QPF-QD has minimal VRR flicker with changing frame rates. You can see a bit in dark scenes, but it isn't too distracting, and this isn't an issue with consistent frame rates.

The backlight remains flicker-free at all brightness levels, which helps reduce eye strain if you're sensitive to flicker.

This monitor has extremely low input lag for a responsive feel while gaming.

The MSI G274QPF-QD works well enough with PS5, but without HDMI 2.1 bandwidth and HDMI Forum VRR, it can't take full advantage of the console.

The MSI G274QPF-QD has some compatibility issues with the Xbox Series X|S. It doesn't support 1440p at 120Hz or HDR at all, even when we tried different options like Gaming Mode, Professional Mode, VRR settings, and a different Xbox.

The MSI G274QPF-QD has a USB-C input that supports DisplayPort Alt Mode, allowing you to display an image from a compatible device. The USB-C input supplies 15W of power, which isn't enough to charge most laptops while they're operating.

This monitor works well with macOS. When using HDR, the screen appears washed out. When using a MacBook, windows stay in place when reopening the lid or waking the laptop up from sleep.

The MSI G274QPF-QD comes with a few extra features, including:

• Low Blue Light: Adjusts the screen color temperature to a more yellow glow.
• HDCR: Enhances image quality by increasing the contrast of images.
• Image Enhancement: Enhances image edges to improve their sharpness.
• Night Vision: Optimizes background brightness.
• Screen Assistance: Overlays crosshairs to assist with aiming.