There’s some pretty crazy high-end tech on the floor of Computex in Taipei this year. Chief amongst them are two new monitors that take the absolute best tech from high-end TVs and cram it into desktop-friendly sizes, although the price tags will probably put any other peripheral you could ever think of to shame. If you’re cashed up and ready to frag, the Asus ROG Swift PG35VQ and the Acer Predator X35 are equally worthy of your attention.
The PG35VQ is an ultra-widescreen 35-inch gaming monitor with a 3440x1440pixel resolution. And a 200Hz refresh rate. And Nvidia’s G-Sync tech. And HDR. And quantum dot pixels. And 512 zones of locally dimming backlighting with 1000 nits of peak brightness. And a curved display with an 1800R radius. Alex called it a monitor with everything and it really is.
There are a few things that I don’t like about the PG35VQ. The stand, for one, is… pretty ugly. The ROG design is… OK, if you like that kind of thing. But when you see it in action, in person, all those concerns kinda just fall by the wayside, because when you have so many useful bits of tech in one screen it just puts anything else to shame. HDR-10 support is fantastic for those games that support it (and more are on the horizon) as well as streaming content, but it’s the fundamentals of the panel itself that impress me.
The 3440x1440pixel panel isn’t especially high resolution, but its backlighting tech does a few things to massively boost contrast — dynamic LED zone dimming across 512 areas, and a quantum dot pixel structure that makes blacks look better whether they’re lit up or not — and that’s honestly more important. Back that all up with a super-high refresh rate and dynamic refresh rate adjustment through G-Sync and a supported Nvidia card, and you get genuinely the best picture for gaming that I’ve seen on anything that isn’t a ludicrously large and expensive 4K OLED or LCD TV.
It’s hard to pick out any one of this laundry list of features as most important. It’s very bright at 1000 nits peak, twice what some of the best monitors can hit these days — useful when you’re in a bright space, but equally important for quality HDR playback. And its lowest low black level is dark, too
Even without anything else, the fact that the screen hits the DCI-P3 colour space should impress you. The combination of 21:9 ultrawide ratio and the curvature on a screen like this actually makes sense, too. Curved TVs are much of a muchness, but when you’re sitting up close to a panel having it wrap around just slightly is good for the immersion of you feel. By the way: it took me a long time to accept that 21:9 was going to be a thing, but it is and that’s fine. And on a monitor like this, it’s glorious.
The Acer Predator X35 is functionally the same, but with a design that’s a little more mainstream and a little less gamerz. It’s the successor to the Predator X34 in name, but with all those extra hooks – 200Hz, HDR, and that extra inch – it’s really so much more. Whichever one you choose, you’ll get an amazing experience. It’ll cost you an absolute boatload, of that I have no doubt, but it makes sense to spend a good amount of cash on your monitor, right? It’s the thing you interact with most while you’re gaming.
There’s no word on any Australian release date or price for the PG35VQ — but expect it to be expensive, and expect it to take a little while until it reaches our shores. I’m happy to wait.
Comments
15 responses to “Eyes On With Acer And ASUS’s 35-Inch 200Hz Mammoth Monitors”
Again with the super wide… WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYY??!!??!?! Where’s the damn 144+Hz 3840×2160’s?!!?!
From memory Asia is brining one out. Be prepare to power it with SLI 1080tis if you ever want a hope in hell of getting 144fps on modern titles.
Asus* darn auto correct.
I reckon I’ll cope reasonably well with most games. I get well over 100fps in most new games with my system now. I have a 1080ti though 🙂 But yer.. Unreal Tournament, Quake Champions etc., well and truly stable at over 100fps. I honestly don’t mind if I can’t hit constant 144 though. I’d be happy to use 100 or 120Hz. At least if it can handle 144, I can lock it at lower rates if I can’t maintain it. I just really want a monitor at this res that does anything faster than 60Hz! 😉
Asus* sorry auto correct hates me.
Also, I’d like to see someone other than Asus come out with one. Preferably AOC. Asus monitors are RIDICULOUSLY expensive 😐 They want $1200 for a 3840×2160 with g-sync that only does 60Hz! lol Fuck that for a joke! I only paid $485 for my current monitor!
I know what you mean. I’ve been rocking Zowie and Acer monitors of late. I personally wouldn’t mind a 4k 144hz as I do rock dual 1080tis.
One thing is think stops me from buying anything other than zowie these days is the dead pixel policies. Imagine if you get a dead pixel in a $1500 screen and be told it’s within reasonable operation?
haha yeah that would be kind of shit. There are other company’s that have zero dead pixel warranty’s though. One of them just updated their policy not long ago, extending the period where it applies, but I can’t recall which manufacturer it was atm.
ULMB support on these panels? Couldn’t give a rats about gsync, but motion blur reduction is essential for me.
At the prices Asus charge for g-sync monitors, I’m not interested either! They want $1200 for a 3840×2160 g-sync that only does 60Hz! Nuts to that!!!
im just looking at buying a 32″ asus 1440p IPS for 400 bux because my current 4k screen doesnt hibernate
go me!…. insane prices with all the screens at the moment…. i remember when the best you could get was 500 bux
edit: oh 75hz as well…
Doesn’t hybernate?! That’s odd.. what model is it? Mine goes to sleep just fine, unless I play one of a certain few games like GTA5 or Lego Marvel Avengers. For some reason, after playing those games, my screensaver stops working until I go in and change the timer by a minute, apply, then change it back and apply. Then it works again.
its a factory defunct unit one in 1000, the power circuit is fked on it it was the first 4k samsung in australia 2(3?) years ago now..
to power the monitor actually on have to hot boot the power cord lol
had it in for warranty they still diddnt fix it as they diddnt notice it as it sometimes powers on fine
Ah damn! Sounds nasty!
I’m struggling to fathom how expensive the computer would be that could power 4k at 200hz. But if you could afford a computer that can output anything worth looking at in 4k at 200hz then you probably won’t care how expensive this screen is.
Looking around 3k if you build one yourself.
I build my own dual 1080ti system for about 3.9k.
I guess it depends how balls to the wall you wanna go.