ASUS ROG Swift OLED PG27AQDM monitor review: pricey yet satisfying
Table of Contents
The ASUS ROG Swift PG27AQDM is an OLED monitor released in 2024 that is targeted specifically at gamers, with its 240Hz maximum refresh rate making it ideal for fast-paced online shooters that need quick reaction times. The inherent benefits of OLED panels when it comes to response times also help with this aim, as well as the superb contrast ratio these screens bring.
The 27-inch OLED gaming monitor space has become increasingly competitive over the last couple of years, and though these products still come with a fairly hefty asking price, they're becoming more accessible to your average consumer.
Take a gander below to see how this display held up in our testing and whether or not it earns a place in our best 27 inch monitor and best gaming monitor guides.
- Refresh rate: 240Hz
- Response time: 0.8ms
- Screen Size: 27″
- Resolution: 2560 x 1440
If you're willing to pay extra to take the leap to an OLED panel, the PG27AQDM is a great option for those after a 27-inch gaming monitor. It does all the basics as well as you'd expect, with most of the negatives (text clarity and a limited peak SDR brightness) being limitations that apply to all OLEDs and not just this one. We would have liked to have seen HDMI 2.1 support for console users, particularly considering its gaming focus, as well as FreeSync premium, rather than just the basic version, however in terms of image quality it is a very nice display.
- 240Hz refresh rate
- OLED panel has fantastic contrast ratio
- Excellent response time & motion clarity
- 100% sRGB coverage & high color accuracy
- Great HDR performance
- Peak SDR brightness low as with other WOLEDs
- Text clarity could be better
- Only comes with basic FreeSync
- Lacks HDMI 2.1
- Not the cheapest
Pricing & availability
At the time of writing, the ASUS ROG Swift PG27AQDM is available for around the $749 mark, which is about standard for an upper-mid-range OLED gaming monitor with these specs, although by the standards of 27-inch gaming monitors generally it is pretty expensive – the price you pay for an OLED panel.
Design & specifications
The 240Hz WOLED panel on this monitor has an anti-glare matte coating of a moderate strength, which minimizes screen glare whilst reducing the vibrancy slightly compared to a glossier screen. The screen is surrounded by a very thin bezel, which minimizes visual obstruction at the edge of the image and is nice to see. The one exception to this is the small protrusion at the bottom of the monitor with the light-up ROG logo that has the OSD controls around the back. These controls consist of two buttons and a joystick, which work quite nicely.
The PG27AQDM is a fairly nice-looking monitor. We like the sleek, board tripod design of the silver stand, and the ROG RGB logo, which projects downwards onto the desk, is a nice touch if you're into that sort of thing – although the ‘lens piece' with the logo on does fall off quite easily, at least on our model. Besides this one area, though, the overall build quality was good.
The adjustability of the monitor is solid with a tilt of -5° to +20°, a swivel of ±30°, height adjustment of 0-110mm, and a pivot either way of 90°. If you want, you can also remove the stand for a 100x100mm VESA mount (with an adapter included in the box).
Unlike some competing 27-inch gaming models – like the Cooler Master GZ2711 (another OLED screen) or the MSI MAG 274QRF QD E2 – it lacks both USB-C power delivery and a KVM switch, neither of which is particularly important on a gaming monitor, but are nice extras for productivity use on the side. In a similar vein, there are no speakers on the monitor whatsoever, but given these are invariably poor quality on most monitors, it's no great loss.
The selection of ports is okay, though the lack of USB-C is a bit of a bummer. The two HDMI ports are also limited to HDMI 2.0 so the display isn't ideal for console gamers, as it restricts the use of some features like VRR to reduce screen tearing.
OSD, features, settings & warranty
The OSD is the same that you get across all ASUS ROG products, and is a fairly easy-to-navigate system that's reasonably well laid out. You get your usual OLED care and pixel refresh settings, along with lighting control for the RGB and color calibration settings.
As has been the case with competing OLED monitors we've tested in the same price bracket, ABL (Automatic Brightness Limiter) is activated at all times in SDR mode, with no way to disable it, which means you may notice the peak brightness dip at times.
There are eight different visual presets to choose from under ‘Gaming > GameVisual' with ‘Racing' being the default option when you first turn on the monitor, and one of the better ones for general use and gaming. There's also an sRGB preset for better color accuracy if you're doing productivity work, which we'll discuss more further down the page.
The monitor comes with native FreeSync of the basic variety (i.e. not Premium) and has G-Sync compatibility.
The monitor comes with the standard 3-year warranty (though given ASUS' track record with these in recent years, you might want to double-check the terms).
Screen testing & performance
Color gamut
As you can see in the results above (and below), the ROG Swift OLED PG27AQDM showed an RGB gamut coverage of 99.7% (effectively 100%), as well as 94.2% DCI-P3 and 87.2% Adobe RGB coverage. This effectively precludes it from any serious color-accurate work in the latter two spaces, but is a great result for the sRGB space.
Color accuracy, contrast, gamma & brightness
In the table below you can see the results recorded for each of the monitor presets that we tested. For each we recorded the white point, black point, contrast ratio, average deltaE*00 (a measure of color accuracy), gamma, and brightness. The top row of the table shows what are considered the ideal values for each of these readings, though to an extent this is just from a technical standpoint: ultimately whichever one you think looks better is the one you should use.
| Preset | White | Black | Contrast | Average deltaE*00 | Max deltaE*00 | Gamma | Brightness |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IDEAL | 6500K | 0/m² | infinity:1 | 0 | 2.2 | ||
| Racing | 6604K | 0.0 cd/m² | infinity:1 | 2.76 | 2.11 | 188.52cd/m2 | |
| Cinema | 9549K | 0.0 cd/m² | infinity:1 | 4.19 | 2.21 | 225.73cd/m2 | |
| FPS | 6636K | 0.0 cd/m² | infinity:1 | 6.99 | 1.92 | 242cd/m2 | |
| sRGB | 6567K | 0.0 cd/m² | infinity:1 | 1.24 | 2.66 | 2.12 | 170cd/m2 |
The best result overall was ‘sRGB' mode, which scored very well in almost every metric, although it was slightly too low in terms of gamma score. With an average deltaE*00 score of 1.24, this sRGB preset is sufficiently accurate for professional color grade work, being significantly lower than the 2.00 threshold required for this sort of work.
‘Racing' scored the next best, and it's probably the preset we recommend people use most of the time. As you'd expect from an OLED panel, the contrast ratio and black point were effectively perfect under every preset. The results for ‘Cinema' and ‘FPS' were pretty poor in terms of white point and average deltaE*00 score, respectively, though these are meant to be stylised options, rather than accurate ones.
The maximum SDR brightness that we recorded was 260cd/m2, which was achieved by turning the brightness to 100% under the sRGB preset; given the effects of ABL though, the display did not maintain this for very long. By the standards of most monitors, this isn't particularly bright, and means the monitor isn't ideal for working in brightly lit environments; given most OLED panels cap out at around the 200 nits mark, however, by OLED standards, it's actually pretty good. The lowest brightness we recorded was 23.54cd/m2 at 0% under the same sRGB preset, and at 39% brightness we recorded 120cd/m² (the approximate value for natural light).
When we turned on HDR mode, the peak brightness recorded in a 10% size window on the screen (the standard typically used when measuring the highlights a display is capable of in HDR) maxed out at 921cd/m2, which is a solid result.
Panel uniformity
In our test for panel uniformity, we look at the consistency of the luminance and color replication across the whole display. The screen is divided into a 5×5 grid, with the middle segment acting as the reference point from which every other sector is tested for variance.
A variance below 1.00 shows up as green, which is the ideal result, being imperceptible to the naked eye. Yellow represents a greater degree of variation between 1.00 – 3.00, although the lower end of this range this is still unlikely to be discernible to the untrained eye, and doesn't necessarily mean the display can't be used for color accurate work. Greater variance is more of a problem, and shows up as red.
As we can see from the above table, the PG27AQDM scored very well, with every segment besides the bottom right corner showing up as green. Based on this, the monitor could definitely be used for professional-grade color-accurate work, although it should be noted that not every unit of this monitor might score quite as well – the ‘panel lottery' means there can be some variation even within the same model.
Viewing angles
As you'd expect from a WOLED panel, the PG27AQDM has excellent viewing angles, with very little detectable color shift to the naked eye when you view the screen from the sides, right up to the 180° mark.
Gaming performance
We tried out the ROG Swift monitor across our usual variety of games to see how it performed: Cyberpunk 2077, Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Doom Eternal, and CS2. In short – it did very well.
The color vibrancy was good (although not quite as nice as on a glossy panel), and the performance in darker scenes was as excellent as you'd expect from an OLED panel – with detailed rich blacks. We did find ourselves wishing for a higher peak brightness at certain points though.
The 240Hz native refresh rate was very nice for those faster-paced moments – ideal for competitive online play, as was the terrific 0.03ms response time, which effectively doesn't get any better than this. Motion clarity at the native refresh rate was great, with ghosting being barely perceptible in both gaming scenarios and during the Alien UFO test.
FreeSync removed the majority of the screen tearing when enabled, but we did still experience it in fast-paced scenes.
General performance & productivity
The ROG Swift OLED PG27AQDM is first and foremost a gaming monitor, however, most gamers will also use the same screen for general productivity purposes, so dual-use functionality should also be considered.
Although the display has a couple of USB-A ports and one USB-B, the lack of a USB-C port is a bit disappointing as is the lack of power delivery.
Text clarity isn't the best either, with the usual issues of text fringing you get in most OLED screens, plus the additional slight graininess due to the Anti-glare matte finish, although this is obviously a benefit for productivity in terms of the glare reduction. SDR brightness is not the best as mentioned, although this will be an issue you face with any OLED screen, so if you need to operate in brighter environments we'd recommend an IPS or Mini-LED screen.
Color accurate work within the sRGB gamut is very possible given the good color accuracy under the sRGB preset, plus high panel uniformity.
ASUS ROG Swift OLED PG27AQDM
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