AOC AG275QX 1440p 170Hz IPS Gaming Monitor Review

SPECS

This is AOC’s new AG275QX, a 27 inch 1440p 170Hz IPS gaming monitor with a standard LED backlight. It’s quoted as both FreeSync Premium and G-SYNC Compatible, DisplayHDR 400 rated, and even boasts a 1ms GtG response time. It comes equipped with two DisplayPort 1.4 ports and two HDMI 2.0 ports meaning it’s limited to 144Hz over HDMI. The adaptive sync range is the standard 48Hz to either 144Hz for HDMI or 170Hz for DisplayPort. You’ll also find a 4 port USB 3 hub on the back, complete with the yellow charging port.

As for the stand, that’s pretty standard – pun intended. It’s a tri-leg design which is decently stable and doesn’t take up much space on your desk surface. It’s fully adjustable in all the usual axes, including rotation for portrait mode if you’d like. You’ll also find the joystick style switch on the back for the OSD control. The menu is well laid out, with almost all the options you’ll want to tinker with under the “Gaming” tab. Here you’ll find the game modes I’d personally leave off, and importantly the overdrive modes. 

RESPONSE TIMES

That brings us nicely onto the response time results. AOC claims, quite prominently, that this is a 1ms GtG monitor. And, sure, you can make this change colours in 1ms – but calling this a “1ms monitor” is like saying your car can stop in an instant… because you drove it into a brick wall. On the “Strong” overdrive mode, you end up with more overshoot than actual picture. Seriously, the panel takes over 2 frames to come to a rest with how much overshoot this mode pushes out. It’s not an enjoyable experience to view this even in real time.

Happily the “Medium” mode is much, much better. It averages more like 5 or 6ms depending on how you want to measure it, but that’s considerably better than the horror show that the “Strong” mode offers. It’s one of the most consistent panels I’ve tested, and is certainly a good experience while playing. It does have a touch of overshoot in a couple of the transitions, but to the eye is pretty hard to notice. I’d call it good enough for sure. And of course these were all measured with the new OSRTT PRO unit I’ll soon have available over on OSRTT.com – make sure to drop your email in the mailing list to be notified when that’s available very soon!

INPUT LAG 

As for input lag, AOC seem to have improved their scaler boards for this model, as my Time Sleuth reported just 1.8ms of on display latency. That’s hardly the lowest I’ve seen, but it is considerably less than all of their previous 1440p models I’ve tested which ran at more like 5 to 10ms instead. NVIDIA’s LDAT also backs that up with a very respectable 19ms of total system latency in CSGO – a pretty low result from my testing. 

BRIGHTNESS

Brightness is one area where the AG275QX doesn’t exactly excel. AOC claims this has a peak brightness of 400 nits – but the highest I could measure was a hair over 200 nits. Maybe in its HDR mode, on a single pixel it might reach that, but for SDR content you are going to be stuck with half the advertised brightness. I would say though that for normal use, especially for night time gaming like most of us end up doing, 200 nits is still plenty. Sure, this isn’t your next pro HDR gaming display, but for standard content and colours, this is fine – but could be better for sure.

COLOURS

Colours though, that’s a standout point here. Make sure you don’t enable any of the game modes though as they oversaturate the colours to a worrying degree – but the standard “off” mode not only covers over 90& of the DCI P3 spectrum, but does so with great accuracy. It sat at just over a DeltaE of 1, which is well below the human eye threshold of 2 making this a great out of the box experience. I’d say this is a good option for content creation on the side too.

CONTENT

As for content consumption, I had a pretty good time with it. While in the studio the bright lights made me wish for a brighter display, but in standard use I enjoyed it. It’s obviously nice and crisp as you’d expect a 27 inch 1440p display to be, while still being vibrant and colour accurate. Everything from nature documentaries to gameplay clips looked great, so no real complaints there. Obviously if you were after a great HDR viewing experience, I’m afraid you’ll have to look elsewhere.

GAMING

Of course this is a gaming monitor, so how does it fair for gaming? In short – pretty well. While it isn’t the fastest panel in the world – both in refresh rate and response times – it’s more than good enough for casual gamers looking to sit down and enjoy any number of game genres with it. It’s smooth enough, and in the medium overdrive mode I’d say that it’s fast and sharp enough for even fairly fast paced games. I wouldn’t say it should be your next pro esports display, but if a normy like me wanted to fire up CSGO or Warzone this wouldn’t be a bad shout. 

THOUGHTS

So, what do I think of this? Well for the price tag, which is remarkably cheap for one of AOC’s AGON monitors, I’d say it isn’t a bad shout. My normal go-to recommendation at this sort of class, Gigabyte’s M27Q, is currently either out of stock or the price is jacked up, so compared to its available price rivals… I’d be pretty happy with this. Sure, the brightness isn’t quite as bright as I’d like, but IRL you’ll struggle to need much more than this offers. Sure, it isn’t a 1ms response time monitor – but 5 or 6ms is perfectly adequate especially at this price tag. 

I also have to give AOC a bit of extra credit as they’ve redesigned their packaging to eliminate almost all of the plastic bags and unrecyclable foam, instead opting for cardboard cartons and impact protection. If they can replicate this to all their monitor packaging, this is an excellent step forward in reducing the amount of wasted plastic cluttering the world (and our bodies). Great job – and other companies, please take notes.

So, should you buy one? Well, if you can find a Gigabyte M27Q – especially the new -X model which runs at 240Hz instead – I’d say grab that instead. If not, this is one the most featured, best performing panels I’ve tested at this price point, so sure, why not!