Asus XG438Q Impressions - not great

[xBlizzDevious]

Hi all,

I gave in and bought this monitor as I felt it was close enough to my dream monitor and I want companies to realise that it is a desired item. Can't say I'm at all impressed for £1100!!!

My immediate impression upon turning this monitor on was that it looks rather unremarkable. Having tweaked the settings on my computer and on the monitor itself for a while, I've settled on a barely-acceptable look.

I had read that there was fuzziness to text due to the BGR pixel layout and Windows' poor handling of it but it's actually really bad to me.
Colour accuracy doesn't seem too bad, but I'd read that contrast on VA panels was really good... So why do dark colours look far too bright and washed out?

I can't comment on the Freesync or HDR capabilities as my 980Ti can't output either.
Speaking of, I can't run 120Hz either - but I knew this before purchasing. I've managed to run 75Hz with reduced timings at 4K but even at 75Hz and with overdrive set to level 3 in the monitor's settings, I'm getting substantial and unacceptable ghosting. It's unbearable with overdrive off and above level 3 is disgusting to look at due to the over-overdriving.
I'm also seeing a weird effect on some motion that looks like a screen-door effect from VR but I think is due to the ghosting.

 

Perhaps my expectations are too high but my experience of monitors is rather limited. I used an old 2008 Dell monitor that came with a computer and loved it until it got damaged. That was replaced with an Asus V222H (or something like that) which was a horrible TN but got the job done. I then did loads of research and thought back to my previous Dell monitor and - in 2012 - purchased three U2312HMs from Dell and ran them in 3x1080P portrait for 6 years... At some point, I even overclocked them all to 75Hz and it was an awesome experience. At some point, I also bought a 24" U2414H, again from Dell and have loved that as a secondary display. The last monitor I bought was an Acer ET430K and it's crap but I'd had enough of the bezels and put up with it until something I really wanted came out. I've been waiting for a 32-40" monitor with the specs of the Asus PG27UQ since I first heard about it at CES all those years ago. Nothing ever showed up... This XG438Q was as close as I've found and so I gave in. But it's just miles from what I'm after!




So after that long ol' rant, what does everyone else think of it and what the hell is out there that fits my requirements? Or should I just get a 144hz 1440P monitor until exactly what I'm after is released?

[SolarNova]

Did u read competent thorough reviews prior to purchase ?

 

Tftcentral done a reivew and it gives a rather obvious impression that its a bad display in certain areas.

https://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/asus_rog_strix_xg438q.htm

 

The uniformity is terrible with over 30% differences across the panel.

 

Pixel response times are bad, with high overdrive causing alot of overshoot. The figures shown are actually very forgiving since tftcentral uses a 10% to 90% datapoint, not a 0 to 100% data point like rtings. So those figures are actually lower than they would be if rtings reviewed it.

 

As for contrast. it should be good. Calibrated they managed to get 3800:1 with a black point of 0.03. Perhaps ur not running ycbcr 444 in the Nvidia control panel settings. using al limited color range like RGB limited, will produce a washed out image.

 

 

Since ur running a 980ti i would NOT recommend a 4k display. 1440p 144hz will be hard enough.

 

Check out rtings.com and tftcentral.co.uk for reviews.

Rtings has a good filter and search tool.

https://www.rtings.com/monitor/tools/table/13675

[xBlizzDevious]

35 minutes ago, SolarNova said:

Did u read competent thorough reviews prior to purchase ?

 

Tftcentral done a reivew and it gives a rather obvious impression that its a bad display in certain areas.

https://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/asus_rog_strix_xg438q.htm

 

The uniformity is terrible with over 30% differences across the panel.

 

Pixel response times are bad, with high overdrive causing alot of overshoot. The figures shown are actually very forgiving since tftcentral uses a 10% to 90% datapoint, not a 0 to 100% data point like rtings. So those figures are actually lower than they would be if rtings reviewed it.

 

As for contrast. it should be good. Calibrated they managed to get 3800:1 with a black point of 0.03. Perhaps ur not running ycbcr 444 in the Nvidia control panel settings. using al limited color range like RGB limited, will produce a washed out image.

 

 

Since ur running a 980ti i would NOT recommend a 4k display. 1440p 144hz will be hard enough.

 

Check out rtings.com and tftcentral.co.uk for reviews.

Rtings has a good filter and search tool.

https://www.rtings.com/monitor/tools/table/13675

Thanks for the deeper review sites. I had found some info saying that it wasn't fantastic but it suggested it was half-decent.

The problem I'm having is not so much that blacks aren't black, it's that dark greys look light-grey. There's a sort of light-sheen to everything.

The other major issue is the response times being way worse than they should be. Text sort of merges with the previous frame as you move a window around and overdrive doesn't help. It looks quite awful, honestly.

Unfortunately, I've looked around and nothing that does what I want seems to exist, shy of the Asus PG27UQ but that's only 27" and I want at least 32" at 4K. Even looking at 1440P equivalents, rather than 4K, I can't seem to find anything that perfectly matches my requirements. Is there a 1440P monitor with the other specs of the PG27UQ? If I go with 1440P, I could possibly cope with a 27".

[SolarNova]

2 minutes ago, xBlizzDevious said:

Thanks for the deeper review sites. I had found some info saying that it wasn't fantastic but it suggested it was half-decent.

The problem I'm having is not so much that blacks aren't black, it's that dark greys look light-grey. There's a sort of light-sheen to everything.

The other major issue is the response times being way worse than they should be. Text sort of merges with the previous frame as you move a window around and overdrive doesn't help. It looks quite awful, honestly.

Unfortunately, I've looked around and nothing that does what I want seems to exist, shy of the Asus PG27UQ but that's only 27" and I want at least 32" at 4K. Even looking at 1440P equivalents, rather than 4K, I can't seem to find anything that perfectly matches my requirements. Is there a 1440P monitor with the other specs of the PG27UQ? If I go with 1440P, I could possibly cope with a 27".

Perhaps consider the LG 32GK850G-B.

https://www.rtings.com/monitor/reviews/lg/32gk850g-b

Pritty much the best VA panel i know of in regards to pixel response, particularly the 0-20% transition which is where VA is usualy  the weakest.

[xBlizzDevious]

14 minutes ago, SolarNova said:

Perhaps consider the LG 32GK850G-B.

https://www.rtings.com/monitor/reviews/lg/32gk850g-b

Certainly looks decent - slightly lower pixel density than I'm after but that's what I'll get with 1440P.
The G-sync version seems to be harder to find than the Freesync version. I have to question whether I go with the Gsync or Freesync model though as Gsync isn't compatible with AMD cards, is it? Whereas Freesync does work with Nvidia cards - though not mine, unfortunately. If I upgrade to an AMD GPU in the future, that might cause annoyance. Thoughts?

EDIT: Should note that picture quality isn't greatly improved between 8 bit RGB and YCBR444 10 bit. Text is slightly more readable in some scenarios but worse in others. Other issue is that I then can't go above 60Hz. With RGB, I can run at 80Hz on this graphics card.

[SolarNova]

15 minutes ago, xBlizzDevious said:

Certainly looks decent - slightly lower pixel density than I'm after but that's what I'll get with 1440P.
The G-sync version seems to be harder to find than the Freesync version. I have to question whether I go with the Gsync or Freesync model though as Gsync isn't compatible with AMD cards, is it? Whereas Freesync does work with Nvidia cards - though not mine, unfortunately. If I upgrade to an AMD GPU in the future, that might cause annoyance. Thoughts?

The freesync version may end up having different pixel response times. so keep that in mind.

 

I wouldnt worry about future upgrades in regards to AMD GPU's , they no doubt are doing better nowadays vs Nvidia but nothing indicates a massive change to them suddenly challenging at the top end, and for 4k 120hz+ ur going to need top end, even the 2080ti has a hard time there.

 

 

As for PPI.

99 times out of 100 when a person complains about PPI, its not actually the PPI at fault, but rather the rendering resolution for the size of display.

By that i mean if u run a game at 1080p on a 32" display and on a 24" screen,people will complain the 32" looks pixelated. BUT if u downsample from 4k on the 32" display all of a sudden it looks fine. By doing that u havnt suddenly changed the PPI ..thus its not the PPI at fault ..its the rendering resolution.

 

Consider rendering at a higher resolution if u find things looking to aliased. I do this myself, i run a 42" Plasma. games look aliased AF at 1080p.. so i run most games at 4k.

 

Becouse people run things at native resolution all the time they have incorrectly assumed PPI is the fault. its not. games in particular becouse of LOD, dont actually render everything on a pixel for pixel basis. You dont start to see the true limit of a displays native resolution until ur way above that resolution in regards to rendering resolution.

[xBlizzDevious]

Just now, SolarNova said:

The freesync version may end up having different pixel response times. so keep that in mind.

 

I wouldnt worry about future upgrades in regards to AMD GPU's , they no doubt are doing better nowadays vs Nvidia but nothing indicates a massive change to them suddenly challenging at the top end, and for 4k 120hz+ ur going to need top end, even the 2080ti has a hard time there.

 

 

As for PPI.

99 times out of 100 when a person complains about PPI, its not actually the PPI at fault, but rather the rendering resolution for the size of display.

By that i mean if u run a game at 1080p on a 32" display and on a 24" screen,people will complain the 32" looks pixelated. BUT if u downsample from 4k on the 32" display all of a sudden it looks fine. By doing that u havnt suddenly changed the PPI ..thus its not the PPI at fault ..its the rendering resolution.

 

Consider rendering at a higher resolution if u find things looking to aliased. I do this myself, i run a 42" Plasma. games look aliased AF at 1080p.. so i run most games at 4k.

All useful info, thanks.

As for PPI vs rendering resolution and size... To me, that's what that means. My U2312HMs run at 1080P and are 23" screens so ~95PPI. So if I want a larger screen that looks at least as sharp, I would want something like 4K at 46". Now I know I don't want a display quite that large so I'd happily take a higher PPI. And if I drop to something like a 32" monitor at 4K which would equate to 137PPI, I know that'd probably be slightly uncomfortable to use at 100% scaling but I'd happily enough up that to 125% which should look nicer and be perfectly readable but also be manageable for anything that Windows doesn't scale (because Windows...).

Anyways, I can get that LG screen in to a local shop for £600 so I might do that and send this one back. I would at least get all the benefits of the screen without upgrading my GPU, too.

[SolarNova]

27 minutes ago, xBlizzDevious said:

Anyways, I can get that LG screen in to a local shop for £600 so I might do that and send this one back. I would at least get all the benefits of the screen without upgrading my GPU, too.

Aye , having a local location to get it form would be very beneficial.

at 1440p 144hz a 980ti would be ok, but ull likely want to upgrade in the future anyway as newer titles will really put pressure on a 980ti.

[xBlizzDevious]

47 minutes ago, SolarNova said:

Aye , having a local location to get it form would be very beneficial.

at 1440p 144hz a 980ti would be ok, but ull likely want to upgrade in the future anyway as newer titles will really put pressure on a 980ti.

Trust me, I'm looking at upgrading. It's not coping too well with my Valve Index on intensive games, but I don't want to spend another £1100 on a 2080Ti. So I'm currently waiting for Nvidia and AMD to release their next gen stuff and hopefully Intel will get in on the fun soon, too.

[xBlizzDevious]

On 11/9/2019 at 4:18 PM, SolarNova said:

Perhaps consider the LG 32GK850G-B.

https://www.rtings.com/monitor/reviews/lg/32gk850g-b

Pritty much the best VA panel i know of in regards to pixel response, particularly the 0-20% transition which is where VA is usualy  the weakest.

Excellent recommendation, Sir (or whichever you are)!

I've requested a return on the Asus and bought this one - it arrived today. 165Hz is beautiful, for sure. The image quality is great but not perfect and there is still a small amount of blur. But it's sooo much less than the 43" and is so close to perfect that I can't complain. There's no weird fuzziness to text and I think the size of the screen is perfect.

If I grade the image quality disregarding the resolution, then my old Dell U2312HMs would be 9.5/10, the Acer ET430K would be 5/10, the Asus XG438Q would be a 2/10 and the above LG is a 9/10.

But the improved size, resolution and more-than-doubling of refresh rate is worth the slight drop in quality.

EDIT: Build quality of this monitor is not fantastic, but it's good enough. Again, the old Dells come up top trumps in that regard too. Maybe I do just have too high standards. Haha!