Tag Archives: Skill

Asus ROG Swift 360Hz PG259QNR

"The Asus ROG Swift 360Hz PG259QNR is a great, competitive gaming monitor."

• Unmatched clarity of movement

• Very low entry delay

• Buttery, fluid gameplay

• Excellent stable stand

• Including desk clamp

• 1080p only

• Limited mainstream appeal

When buying a new gaming monitor, you need to find the perfect balance between price, picture quality, gaming performance, and features. Finding the best monitor for all of your needs can be difficult. But what if all you care about is absolute gaming performance and nothing else?

Asus' new ROG Swift PG259QNR may fit your bill just right. Be warned, however, that thanks to its ultra-fast 360Hz 1080p display, this monitor is a one-trick pony intended only for the most competitive gamers.

design

As a monitor designed for competitive gameplay, two things stand out. First and foremost, it is not very large at just 24.5 inches diagonally. More importantly, the stand is set up like a tank.

You might not think it matters, and while I'd normally agree with you, competitive gameplay is quite a physical activity. From quick mouse movements to quick slamming of the keyboard, your movements can jolt your desk, and the vast majority of monitors jiggle like fresh jelly.

But not the PG259QNR. The stand Asus built for this display absolutely plants it on your desk and won't let it move no matter how aggressive you get with your gameplay.

For those who don't like a large stand, the display also comes with a desk clamp that replaces the funky stand, as most monitor arms again allow too much wobble. So we can't help it that VESA mounts are not supported.

Regardless of your choice, the stand offers a range of settings including height, tilt, rotate to portrait, and swivel. This is impressive when you consider the stability of the monitor. Rotating it to portrait is of course not required, but it helps if you connect the cables after you have run them through the stand.

The ROG Swift 360Hz isn't afraid to take a stand.

This display has no curve, and its 24.5-inch size may seem small to some gamers. For competitive people, however, this means that they can see the entire game without moving their heads. If you've ever wondered why 24-inch monitors are popular in tournaments, now you know.

All in all, this is one of the most aggressive displays I've seen, with tons of accents and a huge RGB LIT Asus ROG logo on the back that engulfs a quarter of the property.

Connections and controls

There isn't much connectivity to be found on the PG259QNR, but it doesn't have to be. You want to use the DisplayPort 1.4a interface to get the most out of this monitor, as the HDMI 2.0 connection limits the maximum refresh rate to "only" 240 Hz instead of the full 360 Hz. DisplayPort also enables G-Sync at 1 Hz to 360 Hz. This is the largest range I've seen on a monitor.

Next to these two inputs there is a power connection socket that is fed by a small external 90 watt power module. There is also a headphone jack and a two-port USB hub with an upstream connection to your PC.

Asus' on-screen display (OSD) is not particularly attractive, but it is functional and extremely easy to navigate. The monitor has a main direction switch that will bring up the main menu when it is interacted with in any way. This menu contains segments for activating Nvidia Reflex Analyzer, a game menu with game-related settings like FPS counter, fraudulent crosshair, dark gain, overdrive settings and more.

Of course, there are also settings to adjust brightness, contrast and color, as well as options for shortcuts, lighting effects and general monitor settings.

picture quality

When it comes to image quality, you may be wondering why the display doesn't come as a QHD monitor. After all, 1080p isn't very sharp, and today's GPUs should be powerful enough to run popular esports titles at high frame rates at QHD.

There's a simple reason: bandwidth. DisplayPort 1.4a offers just enough bandwidth to transmit 1080p at 360 Hz to the monitor. Until we get a new interface or a manufacturer implements DSC (Display Stream Compression), 1080p is the upper limit if you want a 360 Hz monitor. Since the panel is not very large, the picture still looks quite sharp.

Asus has equipped the PG259QNR with an IPS panel, which means that the viewing angles are excellent. Slight bleeding and IPS glow are minimal on our sample and much better than curved ultrawide monitors. The PG259QNR produces a very consistent, even and clean image.

But where IPS normally produces star colors, it seems that some sacrifice had to be made with this panel. It's by no means terrible, but with coverage of 98% of the sRGB space and 73% of the AdobeRGB and DCI-P3 space as tested on our Spyder X Elite, you won't be blown away with vibrancy. saturated colors.

We also tested the color accuracy, which resulted in a Delta-E (Difference from Real) of 2.12 in the standard “Racing” mode, with the sRGB profile achieving a better result of 1.68. Note that sRGB mode disables brightness control and instead uses the built-in light sensor to determine the brightness.

Oddly enough, both values ​​are worse than the calibration report provided by Asus, which stated a Delta-E of 0.53. However, this may be due to different devices and test conditions. Either way, the PG259QNR produces accurate colors so you can use it for non-professional color grading if necessary.

The Asus PG259QNR delivers too much in terms of brightness and contrast performance.

The display is characterized by brightness and contrast. Asus claims a brightness of 400 cd / m2, but our sample exceeded 415 cd / m2. The panel also exceeded the stated contrast ratio with a contrast of 1200: 1, which is an impressive performance for an IPS panel. The white point was exactly at 6500K, which is great.

We calibrated the monitor to see if we could improve its performance but made few gains. Only the color accuracy has been improved to 1.35 so calibrating the PG259QNR can produce some gains.

But let's face it, you're not buying this monitor anyway because it can reproduce colors, and its color rendering is more than enough for competitive gameplay. Given this monitor's focus on the raw refresh rate, Asus could have cut the color accuracy and contrast – but thankfully, it didn't.

Gaming performance

It's time to get down to the brass nails and talk about what really matters – gaming performance. In that regard, the PG259QNR is at home with a mind-boggling 360Hz refresh rate. You are probably wondering why you need 360 Hz and if you can tell the difference.

At 360 Hz it's not about fluidity and smoothness. It's about reducing latency

If you are not a competitive gamer this monitor is not for you. The jump from 144 Hz to 360 Hz takes a trained eye to see, but at 360 Hz it's not really about increasing fluidity and smoothness. Rather, the point of this insanely high refresh rate is to reduce latency so you can see the enemy before they can see you. The difference is only milliseconds (we're talking less than 10 milliseconds compared to a 144Hz display) but that's a lot in the competitive world.

Now, I'm not a competitive gamer (I just don't have the time or the skills) but I asked a veteran friend to try this monitor out in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and you should have seen the grin on his face. He landed shot after shot, shot after shot, and definitely felt like a better player compared to his 144Hz panel. The PG259QNR is for when you want to know that the only thing holding you back is your skills.

This monitor is so fast that all you can do is hold back your skills.

There is one thing to keep in mind when viewing this ad. We tested it on a PC with an AMD Ryzen 9 3900X and an Nvidia RTX 2080 Super graphics card. When we launched Destiny 2, the highest frame rate this system managed was around 170 FPS with the graphics at the lowest settings. Even in CS: GO, we only occasionally jumped over 300 FPS.

If you are going to buy this display, make sure your system has a processor with a very powerful single core performance.

So I checked out the Task Manager to see what happened and this confirmed my suspicions. The CPU had a bottleneck in the system, as only a few cores worked almost 100% and the graphics card was used to around 70 or 80 percent, often even less. I picked the 3900X for its multi-core performance, but it's not as powerful as Intel's alternatives on single-core, and games rely on that to get really high frame rates at low resolutions like these.

When buying this display make sure you have a processor like Intel Core i9-9900K, Core i9-10900K, or wait for AMD's Ryzen 5000 CPUs as these are expected to deliver amazing single-core performance.

Of course, even if you don't, you will still benefit from this advertisement. You don't have to hit 360 FPS to take advantage of it as you will benefit from reduced latency and become a more competitive gamer even at lower frame rates.

Nvidia Reflex Latency Analyzer

As I said, the PG259QNR is all about latency, which is why Nvidia's Reflex Analyzer technology is packaged in. This is essentially an extension of the G-Sync module that allows you to measure the time from click to display. When combined with the right hardware, you can numerically display the benefits of faster viewing. We tested the function with Destiny 2 and the ROG Chakram Core mouse from Asus. (You should note that not many games are currently supported.)

You use it by connecting the monitor with DisplayPort and the USB hub to your PC, and then connecting the compatible mouse to the red USB port on the monitor. This allows the monitor to recognize when you click. Then activate the Reflex Analyzer via the OSD of the monitor, which displays a detection rectangle that you place over the trigger, the nozzle or the part of your weapon that reacts first so that the monitor can recognize when your click is visible on the screen Changes.

With the Nvidia Reflex Analyzer, you can be sure that you will see your actions as soon as possible.

With this option in Destiny 2 with the minimum settings, we achieved a response time of approx. 14 milliseconds. Increasing the settings to the highest value increased this number to about 21 ms. This isn't a huge difference, but it can be the difference between landing a shot or landing a shot. We couldn't run these tests in CS: GO because the game is incompatible.

However, if you are not using an RTX 2080 Super but a GTX 16 series card, the latency will be longer. The same goes for other factors like graphics settings or background tasks that can decrease your frame rate. Ultimately, it's just a tool that lets you see the real latency benefits of upgrading your system or changing game settings, rather than estimating latency based on your frame rate.

Our opinion

Asus' ROG Swift 360Hz PG259QNR is an extremely fast gaming monitor that shows the entire view in a relatively small area so you can see everything at once. With a response time of 360 Hz and 1 ms it ensures that you see the enemy and shoot them before they see you. This can help you get a head start on competitive online games.

However, at $ 699, the PG259QNR isn't affordable. So you have to wonder if you need a monitor as fast as this or if you prefer something more immersive like an ultrawide display.

Are there alternatives?

Yes. MSI is expected to launch its Oculux NXG253R monitor with similar specs for $ 799 in November. Acer built the Predator X25, which also has a 360 Hz panel. If you don't mind dropping to 240 Hz to save real cash, Dell's Alienware 25 is a great half-price option.

How long it will take?

The Asus PG259QNR should last as long as any monitor – at least five years. However, if you're using it for competitive gameplay, don't be surprised if something even faster pops up in esports.

Should I buy it?

Yes. It's not for everyone, but the Asus ROG Swift 360Hz PG259QNR absolutely raises the bar for competitive gaming monitors while avoiding any major issues that could affect the fun.

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