AMD gamers shopping for a new monitor should look no further than the ASUS MG278Q that’s slated for a North American release in early September. The panel supports AMD’s FreeSync technology and provides a 144 Hz refresh rate, two features that eliminate annoying screen tearing. Unfortunately, ASUS didn’t provide pricing in its product announcement but typically panels like this one don’t come cheap.
The specifications show that the upcoming 27-inch monitor will have a 2560 x 1440 resolution at up to 144Hz (DPI.2 and HDMI-1) and a 1920 x 1080 resolution at up to 120Hz (HDMI-2). The panel will also have viewing angles of 170 degrees (H) and 160 degrees (V), a 1ms response time (gray-to-gray), a brightness level of 350 cd/m2, a 100,000,000:1 contrast ratio, and two 2-watt speakers. The panel itself is TN and not IPS, so people who also do graphics work might want to steer away. Gamers only here.
The new panel also provides gamers with a number of ports including DisplayPort 1.2, two HDMI ports, Dual-Link DVI, an earphone jack, two “fast charging” USB 3.0 ports, and a third USB 3.0 port (upstream). The monitor’s cable-management design keeps all the ugly cables gathered neatly behind the display.
“ASUS MG278Q is specially-designed for marathon gaming sessions. It features ASUS Ultra-Low Blue Light technology reduces blue light emission by up to 70%, and has four different blue light filter settings that are easily accessed through a new onscreen display (OSD) menu. Flicker-Free technology also helps reduce onscreen flicker for a more comfortable gaming experience,” the company says.
The panel comes packed with an overlay that’s activated by an exclusive GamePlus hotkey. This overlay provides a frames per second counter, timer functions, and four separate crosshair options that gamers can cycle through. The timer can be positioned in the bottom left corner and keeps track of how longer the gamer has been playing.
In addition to the overlay, the upcoming panel will also come with six preset display modes: Scenery, Racing, Cinema, RTS/RPG, FPS, and sRGB. Accessible through the OSD settings menu or the hotkey, this feature essentially allows the gamer to pick pre-generated settings for a specific type of game so they’re not having to manually adjust individual settings.
Obviously the big news here is that AMD scored another FreeSync win with ASUS. This technology allows the panel to refresh the screen in sync with the frame output of an AMD APU or GPU. This prevents screen tearing, ghosting and stuttering and provides a more immersive experience. Obviously this is essential in shooters and racing games that feature a lot of fast action.
Again, the panel will be available to purchase in September. The exact date and price is unknown at this point, as is the actual ship date. That said, keep checking back with ASUS if this panel is the right solution for your PC gaming setup. However, as a point of reference, the ASUS MG279Q, which is another FreeSync gaming monitor from ASUS, costs around $579.
From maximumpc
from http://bit.ly/1PCD822
