Separating the large blocks of crumbly foam reveals a panel and upright already assembled and a solid metal base that attaches with two captive bolts. It’s divided into seven submenus with plenty of choices for picture modes, image adjustment, gaming tools and lighting effects. The most important part is that you can change the overdrive when using a variable refresh rate, so you’ll always be able to get the optimal performance.

In competitive games the case is not if you can see many frames but the delay until the next frame is pumped to the screen after exiting the GPU. Without any tinkering, both ELMB and ELMB-Sync work great above 200FPS, but overshoot starts creeping in the lower the frame rate goes. In general, we preferred this model’s design to that of its ultrawide counterpart; whereas this one exudes a gaming vibe, the ultrawide model can be classified as a casual-looking display owing to its overall aesthetics.

The stand of the monitor is robust and ergonomic with up to 100mm height adjustment, 90° clockwise pivot, +/- 25° swivel, -5°/20° tilt and 100x100mm VESA mount compatibility. ASUS FastIPS Display-ASUS Fast IPS Display allows the display’s liquid crystal elements to switch up to 4X faster than conventional IPS panels for improved response.

There are some caveats with the Asus XG27AQM starting with its lack of creature comforts compared to its competitors. To navigate the OSD (On-Screen Display) menu, you can use the directional joystick placed at the rear of the monitor.This of course is all moot if you game at 4K like me where in the heaviest GPU demanding games with RT you'll be lucky to max out your 120Hz/4K monitor at the same FPS even with a high end GPU. Calibration is easy to accomplish in the Color menu with three gamma presets, three color temps and a set of RGB sliders. The ASUS XG27UQ changes that entirely, bringing almost the best possible specs on a 4K screen down to a reachable tier for general PC gamers. Video processing options are many, so we tried various combinations before going with adaptive sync on, 170 Hz overclock, Overdrive level 4 and Dynamic Dimming on. They retained the single-color finish on the other half but added some plus buttons below the joystick.

Continuing our review of Asus monitors of the week, today we have another model from the ROG STRIX series, this time featuring gaming and picture quality capabilities, as well as a few salty pricing. High-performance monitors are one of his fixations and he believes that it’s every citizen’s right to enjoy one. It’s sharp and it offers more room, plus it doesn’t take a lot to run most games at higher refresh rates. Though it works with adaptive sync at 170 Hz, it doesn’t make enough improvement in motion clarity to warrant turning off Dynamic Dimming. We'll send breaking news and in-depth reviews of CPUs, GPUs, AI, maker hardware and more straight to your inbox.

Dark sequences like the train capture mission were richly detailed but ultimately more a dark gray than black.

The Gaming menu has a complete set of video processing features along with nine picture modes and GamePlus play aids. We recommend trying the OSD out manually first to find a setting that looks correct to you before spending more money.ASUS Ultra-Low Blue Light technology reduces the amount of potentially harmful blue light emitted by the display. The screen isn’t factory-calibrated like the XB273UGX, but it is not going to be a big issue if you only plan to use it for gaming. Calibrating it with a colorimeter revealed the true quality of the Asus XG27AQM since it reduced the dE average to 0.