A revolution is coming to gaming monitors, and displays like the Asus ROG Swift PG32UQX will start it. This 32-inch, 4K, 144Hz monitor would be impressive even without new technology inside, but the tech sets it apart. It uses a Mini-LED backlight, like that found in many HDTVs and the new 12.9-inch iPad Pro, to reach incredible heights of peak brightness and contrast. The results are spectacular. Just be warned: you’ll have to hand over $3,000 to enjoy it.
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No 32-inch monitor comes off as svelte, but Asus’ ROG Swift PG32UQX is a monster. The large screen hides a thick, heavy, bulbous rear panel larger than any LED monitor I can remember testing. We’re not talking CRT levels of thicc, though: it’s easy to move alone or adjust on a desk.
The monitor’s design is a collection of hard angles, aggressive cyclones, and strange etchings. I’m not a fan, as it lacks a cohesive feel and tries too hard to look macho. Fortunately, the monitor’s garish elements are mostly on the rear.
One flashy design quirk is the small black-and-white “LiveDash” OLED display in the center of the bottom bezel. You can use it to display system information, like framerate, or even load custom graphics, like animated pictures. I warmed up this feature thanks to the genuinely useful FPS counter, though it unfortunately didn’t work with every game.
This is a sturdy monitor that, though clad in plastic, feels solid in-hand. The stand that keeps this beast planted is up to the task. You’ll only see the monitor wobble if you flip over your desk. The stand adjusts for height, tilt, and pivot. However, as with all large monitors, the range of movement is a bit limited.
The stand is deep and, combined with the monitor’s thickness, becomes a problem. It places the monitor close to the user even when pushed all the way to the rear of a standard desk. You can solve this by using the VESA mount to wall-mount the display, attaching a slimmer third-party stand, or using a desk that’s especially deep.
Asus went with an unusual dial control scheme for this monitor. You summon the menu by pressing a button on the dial, then scroll through options by rotating it. I didn’t find this intuitive and often scrolled the wrong direction when I first entered a menu.
While the control scheme could be better, the menus are logically arranged. Most quality adjustments have simple names that don’t try to reinvent the wheel. The menu is physically large on the display, so text is always readable.
The PG32UQX packs a wealth of display calibration options. It includes calibrated gamma presets, a half dozen color temperature options (from 4000K to 10000K), both sRGB and wide color gamut modes, and fine-grain color adjustments. This is more than most gamers need, but will please content creators craving a display for work and entertainment.
You’ll also find a camera mount on top of the display. Yes, that’s right: you can slap a webcam, or even a DSLR, right on top. This is great for streamers but also useful for everyday Zoom calls.
Asus packs the PG32UQX with its suite of gaming-specific extras. You’ll find an optional built-in crosshair, a timer, a framerate monitor, built-in display alignment for multi-monitor setups, and image quality adjustments to punch up shadow detail and make foes more visible. These all work well and can quickly be accessed through shortcuts on the monitor.
The PG32UQX includes three HDMI 2.0 ports and also has a single DisplayPort 1.4, but it lacks HDMI 2.1, which you typically need in order to achieve 4K at 120Hz on console. That said, the Xbox Series X can handle 4K at 120Hz over HDMI 2.0 when using a chroma subsampling mode. This is specific to Xbox, so PlayStation 5 owners will have to stick with a lower resolution to achieve 120Hz. I plugged my Xbox Series X into the PG32UQX and confirmed that 4K 120Hz was available and worked.
What’s missing? Speakers. There’s none in this monitor, despite its price, so you’ll have to bring your own audio.
The Asus ROG Swift PG32UQX looks gorgeous from the moment you turn it on. This is a 32-inch 4K monitor, so its sharpness and sheer size is sure to impress.
Boot your favorite game, and that initial impression will transform into unreserved wonder. The PG32UQX is a stunner. It immediately delivers a sense of depth, color, and vibrance that even competitors with top-tier image quality, like the Alienware AW2721D or Samsung Odyssey G9, can’t touch.
Credit the Mini-LED backlight. This technology consists of LEDs that line the rear of the LCD screen with zones that can turn on or off independently (1,152, in this case). Because of this, portions of the display that should be dark can offer truly abyssal blacks, while those that should be bright can deliver near-blinding luminance.
It works. I measured a contrast ratio of up to 4790:1 which, though it won’t threaten OLED, raises the bar for gaming monitors. Contrast has hardly improved in the past decade: a great gaming monitor from 2011 had a contrast ratio around 700:1, and today’s best IPS gaming monitors hover around 1000:1. The PG32UQX is a five-fold improvement over the status quo.
Ok, but what does that mean for games? Two things.
First, every game benefits from a big gain in depth. Standing in Final Fantasy XIV’s Limsa Lominsa, a major hub city, the sky was bright, distant, and expansive, while the conga line of Lalafells dancing nearby was detailed and animated. You’ll see similar benefits in any game with large outdoor areas, from Assassins Creed: Valhalla to Call of Duty: Warzone.
You’ll enjoy an even larger boost in tight, claustrophobic, dark games like the Resident Evil series. Gaming monitors have a habit of destroying shadow detail and often fail to reach a convincing shade of black, especially if you play in a dark room. Not so with the PG32UQX. It looks inky, deep, and terrifying.
It’s not perfect. All modern Mini-LED displays struggle with halos, an issue created by the backlight selectively turning on near bright objects. The PG32UQX fights this issue with its large number of backlit zones, but you’ll still see a small, hazy ring around bright objects when displayed on a dark background.
On the other hand, Mini-LED eliminates the uniformity issues that plague even the best edge lit LED gaming monitors. It’s common to see cloudy patches along the corners of even the best gaming monitors, especially in dark scenes. That’s not a problem here.
What about the rest of the monitor? It’s awesome. Asus spared nothing with the PG32UQX. It has a quantum-dot screen with an outstanding color gamut, extremely accurate color, well-honed gamma and color temperature, and a maximum sustained brightness over 500 cd/m2. It’s not unusually good in these areas, but it's right alongside other flagship gaming monitors.
Excellent contrast, depth, and shadow detail are only half of this monitor’s story. The other half is told by the DisplayHDR 1400 certification slapped on the box. It’s no joke. This monitor made me a believer.
PC games with HDR have left me cold thus far because, while I’ve witnessed good results from displays in demo booths, the monitors I’ve reviewed were DisplayHDR 1000 certified, at best. Even the best HDR options I’ve reviewed, like Samsung’s Odyssey G9, were lackluster. HDR, when suddenly turned to full blast by an explosion, should make you squint a little.
The Asus ROG Swift PG32UQX achieves that.
The PG32UQX impressed me most in my go-to for monitor evaluation: Microsoft Flight Simulator. This gorgeous game is a stress test for any HDR display. One flight might be a redeye in a cockpit lit only by a few tiny gauges, while another might see you racing against a sunrise as it flares to life on your six.
The PG32UQX looked stunning in either situation, obliterating every competitor I’ve ever tested. A night flight was truly eerie as I navigated by the light of my instruments. A mid-afternoon flight, on the other hand, made the sun’s glare an actual issue. I found myself adjusting the camera’s perspective to keep it out of view.
This is the quality of HDR I’ve come to expect from a premium HDTV, but on a monitor. It’s nothing short of a revelation.
The Asus ROG Swift PG32UQX, as mentioned, is a 144Hz monitor. It also supports Nvidia G-Sync Ultimate, and I found no flaw with its motion clarity in either testing or real-world gaming. There’s minimal sign of overshoot, even with the display’s responsiveness bumped up to extreme, and clarity is on par with other 144Hz IPS displays.
Don’t forget this is a 4K monitor. Even the most powerful desktop gaming PCs can’t take full advantage of the 144Hz refresh rate without making some cuts to image quality. This is true even in games that typically aren’t demanding on hardware, like Fortnite and Final Fantasy XIV. Also, while the monitor’s maximum refresh rate is 144Hz, it’s practically limited to 120Hz when connected to the Xbox Series X/S and when using 10-bit color, and caps at 60Hz with other game consoles.
[poilib element="poll" parameters="id=5dafa481-6a41-43f3-b0c8-c7aa9be75dc2"]
Gamers with a critical eye for motion may take issue with the Mini-LED backlight. As mentioned, it can cause a halo around bright objects on a dark background. This leads to ghosting if the object moves quickly. It doesn’t hurt motion clarity because the ghosting results from a halo around the object, not a problem with the responsiveness of pixels displaying the object itself. Still, it can be distracting.
I’ve gushed plenty of praise about this monitor’s game performance, so you won’t be surprised to learn I love the Asus ROG Swift PG32UQX for more mundane use.
This is a bright, colorful, accurate, high-contrast 4K monitor, so it looks great everywhere. High-resolution photos, Word documents, web pages – it’s all fantastic. Mini-LED’s benefits are less obvious in Microsoft Word than in a game or movie, but the monitor’s excellent sense of depth and crisp detail around fine text remains noticeable. Web pages and documents look painted on the display’s surface. It’s that sharp.
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Movies and streaming TV, like Netflix, stand to gain the most from this display’s excellent image quality. That’s good news for anyone planning to use this 32-inch monitor as a do-it-all display in a small space. Most monitors struggle when asked to play a 4K HDR movie, but the PG32UQX can do it justice.
Content creators will enjoy the PG32UQX’s great color accuracy, 10-bit color support, and high pixel density. It’s a wide gamut panel that can display 96% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, but it has a well calibrated sRGB mode that can lock the monitor’s colors to a narrower range – a subtle but important point for image and video professionals. I tested the monitor’s color accuracy in both sRGB and wide gamut mode and found its accuracy is solid in both, but slightly better in wide gamut mode.
The Asus ROG Swift PG32UQX is available on Amazon and Newegg with an MSRP of $2,999.
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Asus ROG Swift PG32UQX – Design
No 32-inch monitor comes off as svelte, but Asus’ ROG Swift PG32UQX is a monster. The large screen hides a thick, heavy, bulbous rear panel larger than any LED monitor I can remember testing. We’re not talking CRT levels of thicc, though: it’s easy to move alone or adjust on a desk.
The monitor’s design is a collection of hard angles, aggressive cyclones, and strange etchings. I’m not a fan, as it lacks a cohesive feel and tries too hard to look macho. Fortunately, the monitor’s garish elements are mostly on the rear.
One flashy design quirk is the small black-and-white “LiveDash” OLED display in the center of the bottom bezel. You can use it to display system information, like framerate, or even load custom graphics, like animated pictures. I warmed up this feature thanks to the genuinely useful FPS counter, though it unfortunately didn’t work with every game.
This is a sturdy monitor that, though clad in plastic, feels solid in-hand. The stand that keeps this beast planted is up to the task. You’ll only see the monitor wobble if you flip over your desk. The stand adjusts for height, tilt, and pivot. However, as with all large monitors, the range of movement is a bit limited.
The stand is deep and, combined with the monitor’s thickness, becomes a problem. It places the monitor close to the user even when pushed all the way to the rear of a standard desk. You can solve this by using the VESA mount to wall-mount the display, attaching a slimmer third-party stand, or using a desk that’s especially deep.
Asus ROG Swift PG32UQX – On-screen Menu and Features
Asus went with an unusual dial control scheme for this monitor. You summon the menu by pressing a button on the dial, then scroll through options by rotating it. I didn’t find this intuitive and often scrolled the wrong direction when I first entered a menu.
While the control scheme could be better, the menus are logically arranged. Most quality adjustments have simple names that don’t try to reinvent the wheel. The menu is physically large on the display, so text is always readable.
The PG32UQX packs a wealth of display calibration options. It includes calibrated gamma presets, a half dozen color temperature options (from 4000K to 10000K), both sRGB and wide color gamut modes, and fine-grain color adjustments. This is more than most gamers need, but will please content creators craving a display for work and entertainment.
You’ll also find a camera mount on top of the display. Yes, that’s right: you can slap a webcam, or even a DSLR, right on top. This is great for streamers but also useful for everyday Zoom calls.
Asus packs the PG32UQX with its suite of gaming-specific extras. You’ll find an optional built-in crosshair, a timer, a framerate monitor, built-in display alignment for multi-monitor setups, and image quality adjustments to punch up shadow detail and make foes more visible. These all work well and can quickly be accessed through shortcuts on the monitor.
The PG32UQX includes three HDMI 2.0 ports and also has a single DisplayPort 1.4, but it lacks HDMI 2.1, which you typically need in order to achieve 4K at 120Hz on console. That said, the Xbox Series X can handle 4K at 120Hz over HDMI 2.0 when using a chroma subsampling mode. This is specific to Xbox, so PlayStation 5 owners will have to stick with a lower resolution to achieve 120Hz. I plugged my Xbox Series X into the PG32UQX and confirmed that 4K 120Hz was available and worked.
What’s missing? Speakers. There’s none in this monitor, despite its price, so you’ll have to bring your own audio.
Asus ROG Swift PG32UQX – Gaming Performance
The Asus ROG Swift PG32UQX looks gorgeous from the moment you turn it on. This is a 32-inch 4K monitor, so its sharpness and sheer size is sure to impress.
Boot your favorite game, and that initial impression will transform into unreserved wonder. The PG32UQX is a stunner. It immediately delivers a sense of depth, color, and vibrance that even competitors with top-tier image quality, like the Alienware AW2721D or Samsung Odyssey G9, can’t touch.
Credit the Mini-LED backlight. This technology consists of LEDs that line the rear of the LCD screen with zones that can turn on or off independently (1,152, in this case). Because of this, portions of the display that should be dark can offer truly abyssal blacks, while those that should be bright can deliver near-blinding luminance.
It works. I measured a contrast ratio of up to 4790:1 which, though it won’t threaten OLED, raises the bar for gaming monitors. Contrast has hardly improved in the past decade: a great gaming monitor from 2011 had a contrast ratio around 700:1, and today’s best IPS gaming monitors hover around 1000:1. The PG32UQX is a five-fold improvement over the status quo.
Ok, but what does that mean for games? Two things.
First, every game benefits from a big gain in depth. Standing in Final Fantasy XIV’s Limsa Lominsa, a major hub city, the sky was bright, distant, and expansive, while the conga line of Lalafells dancing nearby was detailed and animated. You’ll see similar benefits in any game with large outdoor areas, from Assassins Creed: Valhalla to Call of Duty: Warzone.
You’ll enjoy an even larger boost in tight, claustrophobic, dark games like the Resident Evil series. Gaming monitors have a habit of destroying shadow detail and often fail to reach a convincing shade of black, especially if you play in a dark room. Not so with the PG32UQX. It looks inky, deep, and terrifying.
It’s not perfect. All modern Mini-LED displays struggle with halos, an issue created by the backlight selectively turning on near bright objects. The PG32UQX fights this issue with its large number of backlit zones, but you’ll still see a small, hazy ring around bright objects when displayed on a dark background.
On the other hand, Mini-LED eliminates the uniformity issues that plague even the best edge lit LED gaming monitors. It’s common to see cloudy patches along the corners of even the best gaming monitors, especially in dark scenes. That’s not a problem here.
What about the rest of the monitor? It’s awesome. Asus spared nothing with the PG32UQX. It has a quantum-dot screen with an outstanding color gamut, extremely accurate color, well-honed gamma and color temperature, and a maximum sustained brightness over 500 cd/m2. It’s not unusually good in these areas, but it's right alongside other flagship gaming monitors.
Asus ROG Swift PG32UQX – HDR performance
Excellent contrast, depth, and shadow detail are only half of this monitor’s story. The other half is told by the DisplayHDR 1400 certification slapped on the box. It’s no joke. This monitor made me a believer.
PC games with HDR have left me cold thus far because, while I’ve witnessed good results from displays in demo booths, the monitors I’ve reviewed were DisplayHDR 1000 certified, at best. Even the best HDR options I’ve reviewed, like Samsung’s Odyssey G9, were lackluster. HDR, when suddenly turned to full blast by an explosion, should make you squint a little.
The Asus ROG Swift PG32UQX achieves that.
The PG32UQX impressed me most in my go-to for monitor evaluation: Microsoft Flight Simulator. This gorgeous game is a stress test for any HDR display. One flight might be a redeye in a cockpit lit only by a few tiny gauges, while another might see you racing against a sunrise as it flares to life on your six.
The PG32UQX looked stunning in either situation, obliterating every competitor I’ve ever tested. A night flight was truly eerie as I navigated by the light of my instruments. A mid-afternoon flight, on the other hand, made the sun’s glare an actual issue. I found myself adjusting the camera’s perspective to keep it out of view.
This is the quality of HDR I’ve come to expect from a premium HDTV, but on a monitor. It’s nothing short of a revelation.
Asus ROG Swift PG32UQX – Motion Performance
The Asus ROG Swift PG32UQX, as mentioned, is a 144Hz monitor. It also supports Nvidia G-Sync Ultimate, and I found no flaw with its motion clarity in either testing or real-world gaming. There’s minimal sign of overshoot, even with the display’s responsiveness bumped up to extreme, and clarity is on par with other 144Hz IPS displays.
Don’t forget this is a 4K monitor. Even the most powerful desktop gaming PCs can’t take full advantage of the 144Hz refresh rate without making some cuts to image quality. This is true even in games that typically aren’t demanding on hardware, like Fortnite and Final Fantasy XIV. Also, while the monitor’s maximum refresh rate is 144Hz, it’s practically limited to 120Hz when connected to the Xbox Series X/S and when using 10-bit color, and caps at 60Hz with other game consoles.
[poilib element="poll" parameters="id=5dafa481-6a41-43f3-b0c8-c7aa9be75dc2"]
Gamers with a critical eye for motion may take issue with the Mini-LED backlight. As mentioned, it can cause a halo around bright objects on a dark background. This leads to ghosting if the object moves quickly. It doesn’t hurt motion clarity because the ghosting results from a halo around the object, not a problem with the responsiveness of pixels displaying the object itself. Still, it can be distracting.
Asus ROG Swift PG32UQX – Day-to-day Performance
I’ve gushed plenty of praise about this monitor’s game performance, so you won’t be surprised to learn I love the Asus ROG Swift PG32UQX for more mundane use.
This is a bright, colorful, accurate, high-contrast 4K monitor, so it looks great everywhere. High-resolution photos, Word documents, web pages – it’s all fantastic. Mini-LED’s benefits are less obvious in Microsoft Word than in a game or movie, but the monitor’s excellent sense of depth and crisp detail around fine text remains noticeable. Web pages and documents look painted on the display’s surface. It’s that sharp.
[widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="slug=best-gaming-monitors&captions=true"]
Movies and streaming TV, like Netflix, stand to gain the most from this display’s excellent image quality. That’s good news for anyone planning to use this 32-inch monitor as a do-it-all display in a small space. Most monitors struggle when asked to play a 4K HDR movie, but the PG32UQX can do it justice.
Content creators will enjoy the PG32UQX’s great color accuracy, 10-bit color support, and high pixel density. It’s a wide gamut panel that can display 96% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, but it has a well calibrated sRGB mode that can lock the monitor’s colors to a narrower range – a subtle but important point for image and video professionals. I tested the monitor’s color accuracy in both sRGB and wide gamut mode and found its accuracy is solid in both, but slightly better in wide gamut mode.
Purchasing Guide
The Asus ROG Swift PG32UQX is available on Amazon and Newegg with an MSRP of $2,999.
Continue reading...