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00:00Hey guys I'm Tomatek Jack and this is the new ASUS ROG PG32UQX and it's
00:07insane. 4k, 144 Hertz, G-Sync Ultimate and most exciting of all this is using a
00:13brand new mini LED panel which boasts up to 1400 nits of brightness and also
00:19400,000 to 1 contrast in HDR. Now it turns out playing Crysis sideways with
00:25an upside-down keyboard while filming is it's not exactly ideal but my first
00:30question with this is how much is it gonna be? Those specs are insane. Well
00:35it's certainly not cheap we're looking at about $3,000 or around 2,300 pounds so
00:40an awful lot of money although of course this is cutting-edge stuff. So the
00:46question is does mini LED really make that much of a difference? Can you max
00:50out 4k at 144 Hertz and is this the ultimate gaming monitor or just a bit
00:56overkill? Well you know a product must be something special when the author of
01:00ASUS's own reviewers guide actually gives us his personal take on how
01:05awesome it is. Kind of like saying this time I really mean it. So let's dive in
01:09and if you do enjoy the video a cheeky little subscribe and a ding of that bell
01:13icon would be lovely. Now the big deal for me is that this is the first mini
01:18LED gaming monitor that I've got my hands on which promises far better
01:21contrast and HDR performance than one of your regular old boring LED LCDs. Oh and
01:27it gets better because it's actually an OLED screen as well. Well not this one
01:31this one. There's a little 2-inch OLED screen built in to the lower bezel
01:35because why not? But let's be real any serious gamer isn't gonna want to buy a
01:414k gaming monitor it just doesn't make sense. The sweet spot really is 1080p at
01:46240 Hertz or maybe Quad HD at 144 or 240 but if you're playing twitch shooters
01:51and you want the best FPS possible well still 4k is just gonna destroy your
01:55frame rate even if you have the most powerful gaming system out there. So this
01:59isn't really aimed at pro gamers but surprisingly while official HDMI 2.1
02:03support isn't listed when I hooked up my Series X I was somehow able to access
02:07the full 4k 120 option which makes this a much more tempting choice for console
02:12gamers however without the official 2.1 spec it does leave me a little bit
02:16worried and that your experience may vary. So if you're after the best image
02:20quality for gaming with high refresh this is definitely worth considering
02:24particularly with its mini LED panel. And also 32 inches is a great size for 4k
02:30anything smaller I just don't think really does justice to all those 8
02:33million pixels. And also 144 Hertz is a sensible refresh rate for 4k it's a
02:39massive step up from 4k 60 and you can just about max it out in some triple-a
02:44games. Plus it supports the display HDR 1400 standard which means it guarantees
02:49at least 1400 nits of brightness in HDR mode. So if I jump into one of the HDR
02:55videos that youtubers always play for these kind of things to show it off you
02:59can see here in the OSD we've got peak white nits 1400 it looks absolutely
03:04stunning and this is the brightest gaming monitor I've ever used. There are
03:08other professional mini LED displays out there Apple's Pro XDR display there's
03:13also a Asus ProArt monitors but so far they've been extremely expensive and not
03:18really gaming oriented so they haven't had high refresh rates or G-Sync. And the
03:224k resolution paired with this crazy brightness and I think just as
03:25importantly the whopping 400,000 to 1 contrast ratio which is well on the way
03:30to OLED levels. Altogether this is one of the most stunning looking gaming
03:35monitors I've ever used. Now just a quick word on design it's sturdy and
03:40well made and I do like the overall look mostly although this lower bezel looks a
03:44little too chunky because of that OLED screen and I could also do with a little
03:48less of the omnipresent ROG branding. In fact all the RGB on this is just the
03:53logo. I kind of prefer LG's ultra gear styling with this ring of RGB instead.
03:58Plus if I'm honest this flashing ROG logo on the tiny OLED screen just feels
04:04like a distracting reflection so mostly I've turned it off although you can
04:08customize it with other GIFs or system stats but I'm not really convinced it's
04:12needed. Also the on-screen controls are a little bit fiddly I would have much
04:17preferred just a simple joystick. And then there's the stand which functionally
04:22works really well it is nice and secure also there's not much screen wobble it's
04:26well built and pretty heavy as well but this is a problem I've had with these
04:30ROG monitors for years now. But why Asus insist on this triple leg layout with
04:36this back one sticking out so far? I just don't understand because it means when
04:41you have it on your desk whereas a normal 32 inch monitor would be pretty
04:45reasonable on my setup but actually with this and the stand it just sits so far
04:50forward. Honestly this 32 inches as much as I like it feels too big and close to
04:55me. You can of course VESA mount it which I might recommend you do or try and push
04:59it back as far as you can on your desk because well in my setup at least it
05:04just feels too close. I'm really not a fan of this stand. You could even say I
05:09can't stand it.
05:12Okay enough nitpicking let's move on to what I'm most excited about this mini
05:17LED screen. Why is it a big deal? Well the much higher brightness and contrast is
05:21thanks to thousands more LEDs along with lots more local dimming zones and dimming
05:26zones are individually dimmable groups of LEDs and so the more groups you have
05:31the smaller the area of the screen that you can dim at one time and this helps
05:34reduce the light bleed you get into darker parts of a scene. It's still not
05:38as perfect as the individually lit pixels on an OLED but it's close. The
05:44thing is unlike TVs only top-end monitors usually get full array local
05:49dimming. Most rely on edge dimming and it shows just how much less light bleed
05:53we're getting with this mini LED. Colors look fantastic as well thanks to the
05:57pre-calibrated 10-bit panel. Accuracy is impressive almost pro level and actually
06:02this could moonlight as a great work monitor. It's bright, clear and being
06:06high refresh we get the benefit of an extra smooth desktop experience. The
06:10contrast is also exceptional for an IPS even better than VA panels I've tested
06:14which is a big deal. Blacks actually look black not gray like on my edge lit IPS
06:20LG gaming monitor here. The downside is there is still a fair amount of haloing
06:24around bright objects but you can tweak the backlights and the black levels to
06:28reduce this a little bit. I really wish you guys were here in person to see this
06:32because it looks incredible. This is Cyberpunk running at 4k in HDR although
06:38of course since this video is being broadcast at 4k but in SDR you're not
06:42really getting that full experience. It's just so much more vibrant than when
06:46you're playing in SDR and everything from the deep inky blacks thanks to the
06:50contrast as well to the sort of bright searing highlights. Honestly going back
06:54to an SDR game just feels a bit dull but the problem is of course that PC HDR
06:59gaming just isn't really where it should be at least compared to console gaming
07:03with HDR TVs although it's kind of like a chicken-or-the-egg situation because
07:07until you have good HDR displays like this game developers might not really
07:11put that much effort into actually optimizing their games for it so
07:14hopefully we do see more HDR games going forward. Cyberpunk is a really
07:18great example of it. It just looks so good. Now ASUS claims a full millisecond
07:24response time with this. A lot of IPS alternatives claim a one millisecond
07:27response although in pretty much every case you'll only get this figure by
07:31using the extreme overdrive setting which with some monitors can introduce a
07:35ton of inverse ghosting but the good news with this is that even setting it
07:39to extreme overdrive, artifacting and inverse ghosting was not bad at all.
07:43Although personally I'd be happy backing it off to the normal setting. Besides the
07:47difference between a one and a four millisecond response time is not
07:51something you and I probably can be able to notice. Maybe esport pro gamers but
07:55then this isn't something they'd be looking to buy anyway. But then the
07:58question is just how much power do you need to actually max out this 144Hz
08:03refresh at 4k? Well I can tell you you're not gonna get it in Cyberpunk. This is
08:08with maxed out settings RT ultra with a balanced DLSS mode and we're getting
08:13sort of high 30s 40 FPS with an RTX 3080 so really does all come down to the game
08:19you're playing. If you're playing some League of Legends or Age of Empires 2
08:22then you're gonna max it out all day long but if you're playing Crysis Remastered
08:26or Cyberpunk then you might be best off with a Quad HD. But to give you an
08:30example in Rainbow Six Siege I got over 240 FPS at 4k with ultra settings so
08:36honestly a 3060 or even a last-gen 2070 would probably be fine for this. But then
08:41in Watch Dogs Legion which I'm not sure if anyone's actually still playing this
08:44but I could only manage about 100 FPS on the lowest settings at 4k with RT off
08:50and DLSS set to ultra. I did just about hit 144 in Wolfenstein Youngblood though
08:56with max settings including RT and DLSS. So in these more demanding games I would
09:01either have to drop back to Quad HD or just use the render scaling slider if
09:06there is one to reduce the internal resolution to get anywhere close to
09:09maxing out that 144. On the plus side there's not a hint of screen tearing and
09:14that's because this actually has the G-Sync Ultimate module built in. It's a
09:18physical module which helps reduce screen tearing and the difference really
09:22between regular G-Sync and the Ultimate is the support for HDR at high refresh
09:28rates. There's three HDMI 2 ports which as I say did work at up to 4k 120 on the
09:34Xbox but not being officially 2.1 spec there's no guarantees here. So for
09:39desktop PC users you'll just want to use the DisplayPort 1.4 cable which means
09:44you get the full 4k 144 as it uses DSC or display stream compressions. However
09:49due to its limitations you can only get the full 10-bit color at up to 120 Hertz.
09:54At 144 this drops back to 8-bit plus FRC. We do also get built-in speakers which
10:00are fine but they are lacking in bass and really I would still recommend a
10:04good pair of headphones. So here's the deal if you have very deep pockets and a
10:09very powerful gaming PC and want the best 4k gaming monitor in the world
10:15this is it. And actually by far the most impressive aspect of this is the fact
10:19that we get this mini LED which makes a massive difference to brightness and
10:23contrast particularly because a lot of time you probably won't be playing in
10:27HDR or streaming HDR videos or movies but that contrast is there throughout.
10:31And as I say even though it's not quite up to OLED levels you really don't have
10:35many options for OLED for PC gaming. The best you can do is maybe use a TV like
10:40LG's 48-inch or maybe upcoming 42-inch OLEDs. LG did also introduce a OLED
10:46monitor at this year's CES but I think it's gonna cost like five or six grand
10:49and really it's meant for productivity and work rather than gaming. So this is
10:54as close as you're gonna get without using a big TV but as I say it's not
10:58quite perfect and you are still going to see some haloing particularly if you
11:01are using this in HDR mode. Personally this is something I would actually love
11:05to have on my desk even though I'm not a huge fan of the stand but if I was
11:09gonna go out and buy a new gaming monitor now I still think I'd go with a
11:12QHD 240 Hertz type deal but it wouldn't be mini LED and it's almost spoiled me
11:18now especially when I've put it next to that edge lit LG gaming monitor but I am
11:22confident we will see more mini LED options coming soon so maybe hold fire
11:27and also hopefully that will introduce some competition for pricing because
11:30this is not gonna be cheap. But what do you reckon? Have I convinced you to
11:35upgrade to a 4k mini LED monitor or just made you convinced that it's a bit
11:39overkill? Let me know what you think of this in the comments below I'll also
11:42leave a link in the description if you want to check this out and yeah if you
11:45enjoyed the video and want to see more from me hit that subscribe button do all
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11:51the difference actually it helps to grow the channel and the community and I'll
11:54see you guys next time right here on the tech chat