[TFTCentral - Review] Acer XB270HU - 27" 144Hz IPS G-Sync

[Termie]

OK I got the monitor. Using it now. Its pixel perfect and legit as hell. Looks way better than my old monitor. I had to go from ultra to medium with no AA on BF4 though, lol. Funny thing is, the image looks crisp without AA. Crazy.
There is still some color shift in the vertical direction. Not as bad as a TN and colors looks way better and more uniform, but white turns to brown at the lower end of the screen. I need to calibrate it and do all that jazz. This is straight from box and this thing kicks ass.
All I gotta say now is bring on those damn 980ti's already. For God's sake release them.

This is great to hear, moonbogg. It looks like you had a 120Hz monitor before. Do you find G-Sync is a lot smoother?

Also, time to update your sig!

 

[moonbogg]

This is great to hear, moonbogg. It looks like you had a 120Hz monitor before. Do you find G-Sync is a lot smoother?

Also, time to update your sig!

Keep in mind I only played with it a little bit last night, so my overall impressions are still being formed I guess. I only tested BF4 and my old monitor is 1080p @ 120hz TN, so I am used to high refresh.

75fps looked and felt really bad, regardless of Gsync. This surprised me and will cause me to investigate and play around with it more. I don't remember 75fps looking that crappy, but then again, the frame rate was very unstable and performance kind of sucked because my 2GB cards were choking to death with my old 1080p settings (Ultra + 4xAA). So i'll check it out later.
At higher FPS, Gsync added a kind of "completeness" to the image. It certainly felt nice to have no tearing and the image was just solid and uniform. I like that, but to be honest I didn't see a big difference in motion clarity over a standard 120hz screen without Gsync. Again, with more usage my opinion may change.
I have only a couple hours experience with it and I did notice a smoother feel to the game once the FPS was higher, but not having Gsync wouldn't be a huge deal IMO, mostly because if your FPS is low to begin with, the experience will suck anyways. I think a gamer is much better off with simply having high FPS and 120+hz. Gsync is the icing on that cake, but its just the icing. Its not the whole cake.
Now, colors and image stability are far better on this thing than my old TN. That much is perfectly obvious. So, adding all this up together makes for a really nice upgrade from where I was at. I am slightly bothered by a yellow tint on the lower half of the screen, but I can live with it.

 

[Termie]

Keep in mind I only played with it a little bit last night, so my overall impressions are still being formed I guess. I only tested BF4 and my old monitor is 1080p @ 120hz TN, so I am used to high refresh.

75fps looked and felt really bad, regardless of Gsync. This surprised me and will cause me to investigate and play around with it more. I don't remember 75fps looking that crappy, but then again, the frame rate was very unstable and performance kind of sucked because my 2GB cards were choking to death with my old 1080p settings (Ultra + 4xAA). So i'll check it out later.
At higher FPS, Gsync added a kind of "completeness" to the image. It certainly felt nice to have no tearing and the image was just solid and uniform. I like that, but to be honest I didn't see a big difference in motion clarity over a standard 120hz screen without Gsync. Again, with more usage my opinion may change.
I have only a couple hours experience with it and I did notice a smoother feel to the game once the FPS was higher, but not having Gsync wouldn't be a huge deal IMO, mostly because if your FPS is low to begin with, the experience will suck anyways. I think a gamer is much better off with simply having high FPS and 120+hz. Gsync is the icing on that cake, but its just the icing. Its not the whole cake.
Now, colors and image stability are far better on this thing than my old TN. That much is perfectly obvious. So, adding all this up together makes for a really nice upgrade from where I was at. I am slightly bothered by a yellow tint on the lower half of the screen, but I can live with it.

This is really good to know. A lot of reviews have talked about how Gsync improves low-FPS situations. That's probably true, but it sounds like it's not a cure for low FPS.

Your comparison to the 120Hz monitor is also relevant for those folks who are wondering about using this monitor in the future with non-Nvidia cards. Sounds like the high FPS, combined with IPS, make it a worthwhile monitor regardless of G-Sync. Of course it could be cheaper without Gsync, but honestly, probably not that much cheaper. A good 1440p IPS monitor typically costs $500-600, and that's at 60Hz. 144Hz has always added about $100-$150 to any monitor, long before G-Sync came along.

Frankly, I've been spoiled by my Asus 144Hz TN monitor and my Dell 27" 1440p IPS. I can't game anymore on the Dell, and could never do work on the Asus, but both are great at what they are intended for. The Acer XB270HU seems to combine the best traits of each into one monitor. Definitely on my list.

Appreciating all the user feedback here, both good and bad.

 

[moonbogg]

This might be a stupid question, but do I need to do anything special to enable Gsync properly? I enabled it in the Nvidia control panel but I didn't do anything in the BF4 settings. I thought I read somewhere that you need to enable Vsync in the game. Also, is there a monitor driver I'm supposed to download? Noob questions but they are coming from noob, so meh.
I can't wait to get back to this thing tonight. I miss using it already. I want to try different games with different lighting characteristics etc etc. Fun new toy for sure.

 

[Rakewell]

This might be a stupid question, but do I need to do anything special to enable Gsync properly? I enabled it in the Nvidia control panel but I didn't do anything in the BF4 settings. I thought I read somewhere that you need to enable Vsync in the game. Also, is there a monitor driver I'm supposed to download? Noob questions but they are coming from noob, so meh.
I can't wait to get back to this thing tonight. I miss using it already. I want to try different games with different lighting characteristics etc etc. Fun new toy for sure.

No monitor driver needed, and the GSYNC settings (both settings) in the nVidia control panel are global - vsync should be set to disabled in games, but I don't believe that's necessary, as the gsync is global.

IMPORTANT -Just make sure you enable 144hz in windows: Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Display\Screen Resolution, then Advanced settings, monitor tab. (There's no monitor change setting like the ASUS ROG.)

Enjoy! I'm totally loving mine.

R

 

[Xed]

@moobnogg

I've noticed some games I have to alt-tab out of and back into for gsync to actually work properly (even tho the light on my monitor says it is) and the latest driver completely broke it.

 

[Deasnutz]

@moobnogg

I've noticed some games I have to alt-tab out of and back into for gsync to actually work properly (even tho the light on my monitor says it is) and the latest driver completely broke it.

Which light? Is the blue light supposed to turn on when Gsync activates? Mines on all the time.

 

[Muadib]

Which light? Is the blue light supposed to turn on when Gsync activates? Mines on all the time.

I think he means on the ROG.

 

[Xed]

I think he means on the ROG.

Yea, sorry, meant on the Swift. It turns red when g-sync is supposed to be working.

 

[moonbogg]

Just to report, there is nothing wrong with the screen being yellow. Its color shifting in the vertical plane. Below eye center whites are darkened. Above eye center whites are clean.

I compared Gsync to ULMB. I think Gsync is better than ULMB. ULMB does create an impressive and surprising CRT like experience on the desktop when moving windows around, but while playing a game, the screen tearing causes abnormalities that defeat the effect of ULMB's motion clarity. I think the experience is smoother and nicer when using Gsync with high frame rate. If it were possible to use both at the same time, then you'd have an experience that closely matches that of a CRT experience IMO.

 

[Xed]

Well mine arrived today. Colors are better than the Swift (and viewing angles of course). The ips-glow isn't bad and just minor backlight bleed along the top left but 7 dead pixels is a bummer (2 bottom left, 2 top left, 1 top right, 1 bottom right, 1 center-ish). I'll give it a whirl in games in a bit but it's getting exchanged regardless.

March 2015 build.

 

[moonbogg]

Well mine arrived today. Colors are better than the Swift (and viewing angles of course). The ips-glow isn't bad and just minor backlight bleed along the top left but 7 dead pixels is a bummer (2 bottom left, 2 top left, 1 top right, 1 bottom right, 1 center-ish). I'll give it a whirl in games in a bit but it's getting exchanged regardless.

March 2015 build.

Can you do something? Can you go to google.com or any all white, or mostly white page and carefully look to see if the lower half of the monitor is a slightly brown tint, or check for white color uniformity? I'm still not convinced my panel isn't screwed up lol. Actually you can check this forum page. Keep your eye on some text at the bottom, and scroll it up while focusing on the text and you can see if the color tint changes as the text moves up the panel. This is driving me insane.

 

[Gryz]

If you want to test single colors on your monitor, this is a nice webside to do so.
http://deadpixelbuddy.com/
Click on a color (white in this case). And then hit F11 to go full-screen.

 

[imaheadcase]

Anyway to make it so windows will power down the other 2 monitors i have when i don't mouse over to them? I don't like turning them each off when i want to watch a movie..
Seems like this would be something already in drivers in this day and age.

 

[Xed]

Can you do something? Can you go to google.com or any all white, or mostly white page and carefully look to see if the lower half of the monitor is a slightly brown tint, or check for white color uniformity? I'm still not convinced my panel isn't screwed up lol. Actually you can check this forum page. Keep your eye on some text at the bottom, and scroll it up while focusing on the text and you can see if the color tint changes as the text moves up the panel. This is driving me insane.

I tried to replicate your issue but didn't notice any brown tint on the bottom half or the text problem. It did show me that my Swift had way too much red going on though =)

 

[moonbogg]

I tried to replicate your issue but didn't notice any brown tint on the bottom half or the text problem. It did show me that my Swift had way too much red going on though =)

Thanks for doing that. It might be time to start playing the panel lottery. I chatted with Acer support and they had me doing all sorts of stuff like unplugging the monitor and holding the power button, then plugging it back in. They want me to try another computer and blah blah blah. What a waste of time.

 

[Xed]

Thanks for doing that. It might be time to start playing the panel lottery. I chatted with Acer support and they had me doing all sorts of stuff like unplugging the monitor and holding the power button, then plugging it back in. They want me to try another computer and blah blah blah. What a waste of time.

No problem. I hope you get a panel that is issue free. I think I am going to ride the Swift another year and see if second generation versions improve these flaws (and maybe someone will add a polarizer).

 

[njdevilsfan87]

If there's going to be some big improvement for the second generation of G-Sync (if even such a thing is planned), I imagine it will be the ability to run G-Sync and ULMB simultaneously.

Example : 85fps minimum threshold. Below that, revert to G-Sync only, with a very low monitor brightness (say 20%) that matches almost identically to a high brightness in ULMB mode, making the transition from ULMB+G-Sync and G-Sync only seamless. I imagine such a monitor would be very rare, as the panel itself would have to built and calibrated perfectly for this to work properly.

Oh, and hopefully the panels are a bit more reliable...

 

[moonbogg]

OK, I have a legit update to my situation. I am using a new panel. I will called it from newegg today. Here's the situation. My issue is gone with the new panel, so that's great news. Whites look white at the bottom of the screen, but the issue is not 100% gone. I see it again, to a much lesser degree this time, and in a different pattern.
This time, the brown tint appears in two large stripes going across the screen. This is a faint, subtle effect that is that same effect my old one had, but that old one was severe and concentrated on the entire lower half of the panel. I can live with this new one easily. I do have a tiny dirt spot under the screen in the lower right, but no dead pixels, so I can live with this.
But I have discovered that there is some inconsistency somewhere in the manufacturing or assembly process that is resulting in some non-uniform color reproduction, and the dimming effect happens in patterns that are not consistent from panel to panel, and the effect is worse on some than others.
I read one other poor guy who complained about this effect on the left side of his panel, but no one had much to say because this is more rare than bad pixels and dirt which is what everyone is looking for as well as back light bleed. I have almost no bleed, which is awesome.
Anyway, its not a perfect panel and still has a slight tinting issue, but nothing like before and at least I know for certain now that this was not a viewing angle phenomenon playing tricks on me. I'm driving the old one back to the newegg will call center and submitting an RMA for refund.
Good luck everyone.

EDIT: Damn this is so much better. I can't believe I was about to just keep that piece of defective crap. Jesus, be careful people and don't settle if you suspect something is wrong. My God Acer, what the hell.

 

[bowler484]

It's simply unreal the number of bad monitors people are getting.

It's almost like Acer underestimated demand and tried to get them assembled at a second source.

Dead pixels, backlight bleed are understandable. But the number of people with dirt or dust visible under the panel makes me seriously question what Acer is thinking.

 

[3DVagabond]

Sounds like 2nd rate panels. I'm sure that 99% of their customers will never even know. At this point I would consider a different brand/model monitor.

 

[birthdaymonkey]

It's simply unreal the number of bad monitors people are getting.

It's almost like Acer underestimated demand and tried to get them assembled at a second source.

Dead pixels, backlight bleed are understandable. But the number of people with dirt or dust visible under the panel makes me seriously question what Acer is thinking.

This is par for the course in 1440p displays. I tried and returned 8 Dell, Viewsonic, and Asus monitors for backlight bleed, dead pixels, dirt under the surface, crosshatching, and other weird defects. This was almost two years ago. Their business model seems to be to send out second rate panels and bank on the fact that most consumers aren't fussy enough to send them back. It's too bad that the manufacturing hasn't gotten better, but I imagine margins are pretty thin.

 

[moonbogg]

The gray on the left is brownish compared to the gray on the right. Its not the best picture, but it decently represents the uniformity issue of this panel. Is this acceptable in your opinion?

 

[sakete]

The gray on the left is brownish compared to the gray on the right. Its not the best picture, but it decently represents the uniformity issue of this panel. Is this acceptable in your opinion?

Well it depends on what you use it for. For color critical work such as photography I wouldn't deem that acceptable. For most other usage scenarios it really depends on whether it bothers you or not.

 

[moonbogg]

Well it depends on what you use it for. For color critical work such as photography I wouldn't deem that acceptable. For most other usage scenarios it really depends on whether it bothers you or not.

I use it for gaming and general purpose stuff, and yes, it bugs the absolute crap out of me. I just don't know if I can keep returning monitors for stuff like this. This is my second one and I have no faith that a third will be free from these issues. But maybe it will.
I guess what I am wondering is, does this issue seem to be within what is generally accepted as normal or properly functioning. Is this common on monitors? Do people just live with this dirty screen effect? Is this the standard that modern panels are held to?