I want to accompany this previous paragraph with a (pretty obvious to some, but I’ll mention it anyway) disclaimer: this won’t make you an aiming God if you’re coming from a 240Hz monitor, or a good 360Hz IPS monitor. The difference isthere, and this is the smoothest and clearest panel I’ve ever used for gaming so far, but we’re talking razor-thin margins here. Margins that can and will matter for people who are very serious about their gaming, but small margins regardless.

It goes without saying that you need to remember this is a small screen size and with a low resolution compared with many models available today. We certainly missed the larger screen sizes and desktop space that we’re used to using day to day, but again this is not the intended market for the XL2566K. That is Overdrive/Response Time Compensation (RTC) function in RL/XL series. This technology is based on applying an over-voltage to the liquid crystals to motivate them into their orientation faster. We will usually quote a "grey to grey" (G2G) response time figure on displays using this technology since they are normally the fastest transitions available. Learn more

How can I make Variable Refresh Rate (Adaptive-Sync / FreeSync Premium / G-Sync Compatible) work on my monitor? Should you still consider a TN Film panel in this day and age? Does it have anything left to offer for gaming? Read on to find out

The ‘High’ AMA mode delivered a significant improvement in response times, now down to 2.1ms G2G average. There were moderate levels of overshoot detected with our oscilloscope measurements, particularly on a few changes from light to dark shades shown in the bottom left region of the overshoot table. In practice this was quite minimal with a few darker trails evident in a few places, but only small in size as the frame rate is very high. Moving up to the ‘Premium’ AMA setting made a very small improvement to the G2G response time, but at the cost of some increased overshoot which became a bit more noticeable visually. It’s by no means terrible in practice, and some people may find the ‘Premium’ mode usable, but there’s not much point we don’t think when the ‘High’ mode is just as fast really. 0 > 255 transition in ‘High’ mode showing slightly slower response times changing from x > white How do I set the monitor's refresh rate to the highest value as the monitor spec claimed (EX: 144, 165, 240, 360Hz)? The XL2566K builds on what has made its predecessors great, and that can be taken quite literally in some cases. The exterior and design is the exact same as that of the XL2546K, but I think that that’s a plus. ‘Never change a winning team,’ they say, and if you ask me the modern XL line of monitors have a design that’s pretty hard to beat. I’ll speak more about the build quality and design in the next section, but I love the fact that they haven’t made any unnecessary changes here. That’s not the case with the XL2566K. The base measures a mere 18×25 centimeters, and while the stand itself expands outwards a tiny bit it’s not much more than a centimeter or two, making this a very compact monitor indeed. The stand also has a bunch of markings applied to it in all the relevant positions so that you can mark down your ultimate panel position in case you’re sharing the monitor with other people. This also comes in handy if you want to curve the monitor a bit for those lounge sessions where you’re slouched down in your chair when watching some Netflix, for example. You might not make use of those markings at all, but it’s cool to see that they’re there, as it shows how ZOWIE is really thinking about all the little things with this product.I have an upgrade plan for my PC for the near future. Before that, if I set XL2566K to 240Hz, will it perform better or worse than XL2546K with the same 240Hz setup? With AMA switched to off, the average G2G response time was 4.6ms which was very good really, but not fast enough to keep up with a high 360Hz refresh rate, which results in a low 27% refresh rate compliance and some added smearing on moving content as a result. Obviously we have no real reason to want to turn overdrive off anyway, so we tested the other modes as well. It’s very interesting to compare the response times and motion clarity of this new 360Hz TN Film panel against the 360Hz IPS panel we tested a couple of years ago, found in the Asus ROG Swift PG259QN (and other screens since). At the time we reviewed that screen we were using the “traditional” response time measurement method instead of newer, gamma corrected measurements. So to make the comparison fair, we’ve tested the BenQ XL2566K using the exact same method here: 360Hz TN Film vs 360Hz IPS Comparison Response times captured with “traditional” method to provide fair comparison This is normal behavior, much like making major changes to the graphics settings of a game. When FreeSync Premium is enabled or disabled with a game running, some games will be affected because graphics settings need to be reset for the change to take effect. Learn more Connectivity is satisfactory, offering one DisplayPort and two HDMI ports. Regrettably, the HDMI ports only support 2.0 spec instead of 2.1, limiting them to 240Hz. This leaves only the DisplayPort 1.4 connector capable of fully handling 360Hz input, which could disappoint those wishing to connect multiple PCs.

It’s perhaps a very specific example, but I noticed that spraying in CS:GO just felt a lot smoother and clearer on the XL2566K when compared to IPS panels. In case you’re not familiar; spraying in CS:GO violently shakes your screen, and that can cause a blurry mess if your display isn’t up to par. I’m not saying that the two IPS panels I compared it to made spraying a blurry mess, but I did definitely notice a difference. The setup in this mode was far better than FPS 1. Gamma was now very close to 2.2 across the greyscale which was great news. While some grey shades were still a bit too cool (6% deviance average across the greyscale) they were closer to our 6500K target than the FPS 1 mode, and we also had a more accurate white point with only 3% deviance, measured at 6678K. This leads to a much more accurate greyscale with 1.5 dE average, and also an improved contrast ratio too at 1010:1 which was very good for a TN Film panel. On the face of it when comparing the BenQ and Asus 360HZ LCD displays the raw response time measurement numbers look quite similar overall, but we need to dissect them a bit more as well as consider the perceived motion clarity behaviour that we will capture in a moment. While the average G2G figure is very similar between the two screens (2.5ms on the BenQ vs 2.6ms on the Asus), there are a few differences across the data set which translate to differences in motion clarity in practice.

Games

The maximum brightness of 353 nits peak is average, but as mentioned earlier, it's commendable to see that strobed brightness is also high, at 330 nits. If desired, you can run this display at 42 nits, though this might not be the optimal configuration for professional gaming. DyAc+ is based on this same technology (DyAc) and through panel optimization (with little faster panel response), provides gamers with a different option for actions such as spray control. Learn more