FreeSync on the cheap
We’re calling it now - the days of Nvidia's proprietary G-sync technology are numbered, and displays like the new G2770PF prove why. At a tad over $500, it shows how AMD’s competing FreeSync standard can match the quality of Nvidia's solution at a much less painful price. And with Intel recently announcing its support for Adaptive-Sync, the tech that FreeSync is based upon, G-sync seems even less relevant than ever. However, AOC has had to make a couple of rather severe compromises to deliver such a high-speed display at this price range.
Looking at the specs on paper, this appears to be a rather impressive gaming monitor. Measuring a large 27 inches across the diagonal, it’s also capable of a top refresh rate of 144Hz. The official FreeSync range is 35Hz to 144Hz, but our review sample had an earlier firmware with a bottom limit of 45Hz. Thankfully this issue will be fixed for all retail units, giving this display one of the widest supported FreeSync refresh rates. This is a rather big deal, as earlier FreeSync panels had a narrow supported range of refresh rates; once the screen fell outside of that range, FreeSync would be disabled, falling back to good old fashioned V-sync on or off, depending on what the user selected. However, like all FreeSync displays, once the frame rate falls below 35Hz, the screen will revert to V-sync; it's here that Nvidia’s G-Sync tech has the advantage, as it doubles, triples or quadruples frames to try to maintain a smooth image. In practice though, both solutions start to show visible stuttering once the framerate drops below 40 to 45 frames per second, so even G-sync’s benefit here isn’t that usable.
This screen is also equipped with a 1ms response time, and includes pixel overdrive to limit motion blur at high frame rates. We tested this in a number of different games and found game blur to be basically non-existent. Given the price, we’re very happy with the monitor stand, which can be widely adjusted in terms of pivot, swivel, tilt and height, making it a cinch to set up ergonomically. AOC. If only the On Screen Display was as good - a series of physical switches on the bottom of the screen and a confusing layout make navigating the various options rather painful to say the least. Serious colour aficionados will find the lack of calibration options disappointing, with only the basics included - red, green, blue, along with simple gamma settings.
On paper it all sounds pretty good, but plugging in the display reveals the first major issue - a native resolution of just 1920 x 1080. When spread over such a large panel, the limited number of pixels is an obvious problem, with pixel structure easily visible. Whether it's reading text on the desktop or resolving a detailed image in Star Wars Battlefront, the grainy look of the screen is very disappointing in this day and age of ultra-high resolution screens. We’re afraid that 1080p just doesn’t cut it in panels over 24 inches...
We’ve been spoiled by a glut of IPS panels of late, and this superior screen technology is even being used in gaming displays. Sadly this AOC display uses a TN panel, and the flat, lifeless colours are immediately obvious. No matter how we adjusted the various colour options, colours failed to pop like they do on an IPS panel. At least the contrast performance was acceptable. Interestingly AOC claims a wide viewing angle of 178 degrees, which is typically the domain of IPS - we’re not sure it's quite that wide, but it is surprisingly good for a TN panel.
While we love the FreeSync compatibility, high refresh rate and affordable price of this panel, it’s sadly let down by extremely average image quality. The combination of low resolution with flat colours makes it hard to swallow, but perhaps it’s because we’ve been spoilt by so many excellent IPS panels of late. If all you care about is high frame rate gaming on a budget, you won’t find anything more affordable at this size, but be aware it comes with some severe compromises. Bennett Ring
KEY SPECS
27” TN Panel • 1920 x 1080 • 144Hz • FreeSync compatible (35Hz to 144Hz) • DisplayPort 1.2a. DVI-I, D-Sub and HDMI 1.4a