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The monitor had a range of ‘LowBlue Mode’ settings. These were fairly easy to access and vary in their effectiveness. The most effective mode, ‘Reading’, was not quite as strong in its blue light reduction as we’d like but was still fairly effective. It’s a setting which we used for our own viewing comfort in the evening but not for specific testing beyond the setting itself. More specifically, we used our ‘Test Settings’ with this applied over the top – you can make further manual adjustments to colour channels with a ‘LowBlue Mode’ active if you like, potentially making it more effective. Lowering brightness as well is very helpful in cutting blue light exposure. Cutting out blue light as much as possible in the hours leading up to sleep is useful as it’s an alertness signal used by the body to keep you awake and it disrupts sleep hormones. A very solid and ergonomically flexible design and a decent HDR implementation as far as VESA DisplayHDR 400 goes The images below are macro photographs taken on Notepad with ClearType disabled. The letters ‘PCM’ are typed out to help highlight any potential text rendering issues related to unusual subpixel structure, whilst the white space more clearly shows the actual subpixel layout alongside a rough indication of screen surface. This model uses a light matte anti-glare screen surface with a slightly rough surface texture. This offers good glare handling and preserves vibrancy better than some matte screen surfaces, whilst avoiding a heavy or ‘smeary’ graininess to the image or a layered effect of graininess. There is instead a light ‘misty’ graininess apparent when observing lighting content, so this doesn’t appear as smooth as on some screen surfaces (including the 31.5” variant of this panel as seen on the likes of the AOC AG322QCX). Most VA models, aside from those using this panel, are known to use smooth surface textures that are free from any readily observable graininess. So we would’ve preferred to have seen panel manufacturer Samsung employ a similar screen surface here. In case your FPS drops below 48FPS, LFC (Low Framerate Compensation) takes over and forces the monitor’s refresh rate to run at double or triple the frame rate for less tearing/stuttering. The monitor also includes a Dynamic Contrast setting called ‘DCR,’ but since there’s no local dimming, it’s not as effective as possible. It reacts well to changes in scene brightness but tends to be a bit too bright for mixed content. We prefer manual brightness control where local dimming is absent. Free-Sync and G-Sync Compatibility
VSync is configured in the ‘Gaming’ section of ‘Radeon Settings’, where it is referred to as ‘Wait for Vertical Refresh’. You can either configure this globally under ‘Global Settings’ or for each game individually. The default is ‘Off, unless application specifies’ which means that VSync will only be active if you enable it within the game itself, if there is such an option. Such an option does usually exist – it may be called ‘sync every frame’ or something along those lines rather than simply ‘VSync’. Most users will probably wish to enable VSync when using FreeSync to ensure that they don’t get any tearing. You’d therefore select either the third or fourth option in the list, shown in the image below. The final option, ‘Enhanced Sync’, is a relatively new addition to the driver. This is an alternative to VSync which allows the frame rate to rise above the refresh rate (no VSync latency penalty) whilst potentially keeping the experience free from tearing or juddering. This requires that the frame rate comfortably exceeds the refresh rate, not just peaks slightly above it. We won’t be going into this in detail as it’s a GPU feature than a monitor feature.The AOC AG273QCX is an affordable 27″ 1440p 144Hz gaming monitor with 1ms MPRT, FreeSync 2, DisplayHDR 400, and plenty of additional features. Our suggestions regarding use of VSync also apply, but obviously you’re using Nvidia Control Panel rather than Radeon Settings to control this. The setting is found in ‘Manage 3D settings’ under ‘Vertical sync’, where the final option (‘Fast’) is equivalent to AMD’s ‘Enhanced Sync’ setting. You’ll also notice ‘G-SYNC Compatible’ listed under ‘Monitor Technology’ in this section, as shown below. Make sure this is selected (it should be if you’ve set everything up correctly in ‘Set up G-SYNC’). The lighting brings nothing to the experience, and you'd be better off setting a specific color or just turning it off altogether. It's a shame since more manufacturers are now looking at ambient lighting, using in-game and on-screen content for showcasing color around the display. It's not a deal breaker, however. The full capability of the monitor including the 144Hz refresh rate, Adaptive-Sync (includes AMD FreeSync 2) and HDR can be leveraged via DP 1.2+. HDMI 2.0 also supports these features, except for Adaptive-Sync on Nvidia GPUs (‘G-SYNC Compatible Mode). Standard accessories include a DP cable, HDMI cable and power cable, although this may vary between regions and retailers.
The TN panel does mean that you’ll need to be sat head on to the display to get the right viewing angle, and the colour accuracy could sometimes be a little off. FreeSync Premium Pro is supported but there’s no Nvidia G-Sync and the Vesa Display HDR400 isn’t the best you can get either. Gaming features include the Game Mode picture presets (FPS, RTS, Racing, and three ‘Gamer’ customizable profiles), Shadow Control and Game Control (color saturation and gamma curvature adjustments), Overdrive (Off, Weak, Medium, Strong), Dial Point (custom crosshair), Low Input Lag Mode, and Frame Counter. It’s also worth noting that the AG237QCX features one of the heaviest, most rugged stands I’ve ever encountered. Once it’s in place, it’s downright hard to move unless you use the handle built into the top behind the monitor. It’s height adjustable with a 110mm of range and features a +/- 30-degrees of swivel for sharing your screen with a neighbor. AOC AGON 3 AG273QCX Gaming Monitor – Testing and GamingBy doing so, you will eliminate all screen tearing and stuttering as long as your FPS (Frames Per Second) is within the VRR range. Finally, thanks to the screen resolution of 2560×1440 pixels, the 27″ AOC AG273QCX has a pixel density of 108 PPI (pixels per inch), which means you’ll get sharp details as well as plenty of screen space without having to use scaling. Setting the overdrive option to ‘Boost’ enables the Motion Blur Reduction technology. You cannot use MBR and VRR at the same time.
Viewing angles aren't bad, and I experienced no issues with light bleed or on-screen artifacts. The low response time and excellent support for gaming also make sure you'll notice very little in terms of lag in-game. If you're gaming, this display was made for you. Some users may wish to use the monitor at a lower resolution than the native 2560 x 1440 (WQHD). Either for performance reasons or because they’re using a device (such as a games console) that doesn’t support the full native resolution. The monitor provides scaling functionality via both DP and HDMI. It can be run at resolutions such as 1920 x 1080 (Full HD) at up to 120Hz and use an interpolation (scaling) process to fill the pixels of the screen up. If you’re connected via HDMI 2.0, the monitor also supports an upscaled 3840 x 2160 (‘4K’ UHD) signal at up to 60Hz. This will be useful if you’re using a games console which supports that resolution but not the native 2560 x 1440. To ensure the monitor rather than GPU is handling the scaling process, as a PC user, you need to ensure the GPU driver is correctly configured so that the GPU doesn’t take over the scaling process. For AMD users that are using this monitor, the driver is set up correctly by default to allow the monitor to interpolate where possible. Nvidia users should open Nvidia Control Panel and navigate to ‘Display – Adjust desktop size and position’. Ensure that ‘No Scaling’ is selected and ‘Perform scaling on:’ is set to ‘Display’ as shown in the following image. A moderately effective ‘Low Blue Light’ (LBL) setting. This provides a fairly significant reduction in the strength of the blue channel and lowers blue light output from the monitor. The image appears warmer than the factory defaults and a green tint is introduced. This green tint isn’t extreme - your eyes adjust to it fairly readily given some time. As usual, if you’re running the monitor at 2560 x 1440 and viewing 1920 x 1080 content (for example a video over the internet or a Blu-ray, using movie software) then it is the GPU and software that handles the upscaling. That’s got nothing to do with the monitor itself – there is a little bit of softening to the image compared to viewing such content on a native Full HD monitor, but it’s not extreme and shouldn’t bother most users.Note that when using HDR and 10-bit color depth, the refresh rate is limited to 120Hz at 1440p due to the DisplayPort 1.2 bandwidth limitation. We used a small tool called SMTT 2.0 and a sensitive camera to compare the AG273QCX’s latency with a screen of known latency. To help maximise accuracy, over 30 repeat readings were taken. Using this method, we measured 6.15ms (a little under 1 frame @144Hz) of input lag. There was no measurable difference with ‘Low Input Lag’ enabled in the OSD vs. ‘FreeSync’ set to ‘On’ in the OSD. This value is influenced both by the element of input lag you ‘feel’ (signal delay) and the element you ‘see’ (pixel responsiveness). It indicates a fairly low signal delay which shouldn’t bother most users. Unfortunately, we don’t have the means to accurately measure input lag with FreeSync active in a variable refresh rate environment or with HDR active in an HDR environment. Fairly low input lag and a 144Hz refresh rate to give a good ‘connected feel’, and Adaptive-Sync working for both AMD and Nvidia users to get rid of tearing and stuttering from frame and refresh rate mismatches It has a QHD screen, which means it has excellent sharpness and clarity. This makes it great for gaming and office work, as you can see the text clearly without zooming in. The monitor has a slight curve, but isn’t very noticeable since the screen isn’t too big.
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