The Good, the Bad, the Ugly – Gigabyte AD27QD Review
Gigabyte has just launched this, their new 1440p, 144hz, Freesync gaming monitor. It’s called the AD27QD – catchy, I know – and it’s a 27 inch, 10 bit (not really) IPS panel, and in this video we are going to cover what Gigabyte got right in designing their first gaming monitor, and what needs to be improved for their second. Lets jump into it.
Let’s start off with what they got right. This thing has some real headline features, 1440p 27” is, for me anyway, the perfect combination of sharpness and pixel density, followed by an Innolux IPS 10bit panel that has a 1ms moving picture response time and seriously impressive viewing angles, both side to side and the normally more tough top and bottom angles. This, coupled with it’s 144hz refresh rate makes this one killer gaming monitor.
It really leans on it’s gaming focus, with it’s OSD Sidekick app, which when connected via the USB 3 hub on the back, works as the monitor’s menu system. It’s got some killer gaming features, including a customisable crosshair, dashboard to show vital system stats, gaming counter and timer which can be activated and interacted with via customisable hotkeys from in game.
It’s also a DisplayHDR 400 certified monitor, with Freesync for a smooth gaming experience – and thanks to NVIDIA’s new driver, will soon be Gsync certified too so both AMD and NVIDIA GPU owners can pick this up and enjoy a smooth, responsive gaming experience.
I/O wise, it’s got all you’d need with 2 HDMIs, a DisplayPort, a USB 3 hub and headphone and microphone jacks that in conjunction with the OSD Sidekick software give active noise cancelling with the 3 built in microphones, so if you find one of these in say a gaming cafe, this can be the perfect choice for clear callouts to your teammates.
The included stand is adjustable to the moon and back, with 26° of tilt, 40° of swivel, 90° of rotation to put it in portrait mode, and a full 130mm of height adjust. You can also easily remove the monitor from the stand to reveal the VESA 100×100 mount on the back too which is great to see. It’s also got customisable RGB elements built into the back, so you can make it extra stylish – and can be controlled through the new RGB Fusion 2.0 which now works with literally and Gigabyte RGB product from your motherboard, to your mouse.
Gaming on this is a joy, especially for fast paced FPS games like CS:GO, where you get crisp detail, but fast response times and smooth fluid gameplay at all times. It’s crosshair was actually something I found on certain weapons like the AWP in CS:GO actually helped my accuracy, if not all the time….
So, that’s the good, now the bad…
The “10 bit” panel, is actually only 8bit + FRC. It’s still a tad better than standard 8 bit, but it isn’t 10 bit, and they shouldn’t be so blatantly lying about it. Oh, and that 95% DCI-P3 spectrum figure they quoted? Well the best I could get was 84%. That’s not to say that 84% is actually bad, it’s actually pretty good, but it’s not 95%.
Moving onto the OSD Sidekick, it’s a nice idea, but they’ve completely removed the monitor’s menu system barring the basic input switching, mode selecting and turning it off that are still build in. This would be alright, if it didn’t have to be plugged in via USB to a Windows PC – so if you wanted this for your linux system, good luck adjusting anything but input!
That would still be ok for most, if the software didn’t crash or break frequently. The monitor has an “aim assist” function which is basically just black frame insertion every 10 frames to help the panel catch up when at 144hz, but I could barely get it to work, with several restarts, enabling and disabling freesync and changing the refresh rate a lot to get it to turn on.
And now for the ugly…
First one is the lesser of the two evils as it can be corrected with the included VESA mount – that is, the stand is unnecessarily complex and wobbly to all hell. The 3 axis of freedom knuckle they have connecting the stand to the monitor which provides lower than average swivel along with a loose connection from the stand to the monitor mean it shakes a lot. It wasn’t a horrific problem while gaming, but i wasn’t going at it like I normally would and I’m on a pretty sturdy desk. Something to improve for next time definitely.
And finally, the worst offender… the panel’s response time. With my GH5 doing my usual 180FPS capture, and the UFO Test frame skipping mode, it’s pretty bad. The black to white response time here looks to be between 5 and 10ms, which is one of the worst I’ve seen. As you can see, almost every frame shows 3 of the boxes on the grid somewhat lit. The perfect score here would be 1 single box lit, and the average is 1 box lit with next or last box half lit.
With that said, it’s not something I saw all that much while gaming, but when you are spending £550 or $600 on a monitor, you want the best, and this panel doesn’t seem to be it.
To give some context, I’ve got an Asus PG279Q on my desk right now, so I’m no stranger to high refresh rate IPS 1440p adaptive sync displays, and it’s not much better on the response time front, but it’s also 4 years old, so I’d have hoped display tech would have improved since then!
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