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This is the first 4K/Ultra HD resolution monitor that Kitguru has looked at. It is based around a Sharp IGZO panel and measures 31.5 inches. The PQ321QE is a plain looking monitor, comprising a black matte plastic body and it seemed to attract dust quite easily over the last week in our labs. For those interested, the screen weighs a whopping 13.5 kg.
In the flesh, this screen is noticeably bigger than the Dell 3011U or Apple Cinema HD screens which normally grace our testing equipment. Adjusting to the 3840×2160 resolution took me a little time, even though I was regularly using a 30 inch 2560×1600 panel.
The Asus PQ321QE also features a pair of tiny speakers which are handy if you have nothing else at hand. The sound is weedy and lacking in bass although surprisingly they do reproduce voices rather well.
Along the side of the panel are the menu buttons which are traditional mechanical switches, rather than touch sensitive flat panels. ASUS supply a little sticker which you can attach to the front of the screen on the bezel. This is optional, if you feel it ruins the appearance. Just be prepared to fumble around regularly if you are adjusting the screen.
The monitor stand took me around 5 minutes to assemble, not because it was difficult, but ASUS are using little ALLEN head screws for connection to the base and then to the monitor. These are really awkward to bolt in place, especially as ASUS only supply a tiny little driver with the screen. Once assembled however it feels as if it could withstand some serious abuse. It is height adjustable and can be rotated left and right. If you want to use it in portrait mode then you need to bolt the stand to the screen at a 90 degree angle.
On the left side of the screen is the power connector alongside a power switch. This cable shown in the image above connects to an external power supply.
For those of you expecting multiple inputs, such as HDMI and DVI then you may be disappointed. The PQ321QE is DisplayPort only, although this is the only connector that supports the native 3840×2160 resolution. Alongside this are an audio in and out connector.
We wanted to show you how easy it is to read the menus, even with white windows and text behind the onscreen interface. We actually found that most of the default settings were spot on, which is very uncommon.
Initially, we were only able to get 24hz or 30hz refresh on the monitor with both AMD and Nvidia graphics cards. Within one of the submenus is a setting called ‘DisplayPort STREAM'. When changed, the PQ321QE has to reboot, taking a couple of seconds.
By changing this from SST (Single Stream Transport) to MST (Multiple Stream Transport) the refresh options changed to 50hz and 60hz.
The image above is a screenshot taken from a browser window opened to the full size of the screen. It will give you an idea of just how big the 4K resolution is.
Below is a video created by ASUS detailing how to set up the ASUS PQ312QE Monitor.
[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_B53D32q5m0′]
You seem to have put dBa rating on power consumption by mistake 😛
Awesome, thanks – very very interesting!
Just an amazing card, can’t wait for the custom coolers + OC editions
Impressive performance, I can’t even get that at 1080p with my system :p
I want a 4K monitor badly, but I can only stretch to £2,000 savings. waiting patiently for this one to drop next year. fingers crossed!
Nice review, very interesting to see how things go in the future. I prefer gaming on consoles recently, but PC’s are miles ahead, lets be honest about it.
£3k for a monitor? holy crap on a stick. awesome though to drool over. I think this makes more sense long term for people as using three monitors needs such a massive desk it isn’t practical. a single monitor with super high resolution is the way forward.
Do you find some of the textures on older games look really nasty though? I bet only the latest games with tight afflliation with AMD or NVIDIA look great. Which reminds me, I need to get that batman game soon!
Did you really put 6 expensive pieces of hardware on your carpet? ..for photo purposes?
That’s fairly outrageous. Your negligence puts me at a loss for words.
@ jjj – the cards with the slot directly on the ground are actually resting on a small clear plastic sheet. The other cards are side ways on the floor, and as you might imagine the plastic coolers won’t self destruct if they touch a carpet. We appreciate your concern, but we weren’t going to bill you, don’t panic.
I was actually looking for a review on this and its just what Ineed
Amazing to see such a useful article and some idiot complaining about negligence (probably owns a HD7770 and has some serious jealousy issues!), Shame his loss for words didnt translate into his hands moving away from the keyboard.
Good review, got a lot of useful info from the results. GTX Titan is very good at this res, im sure the 6GB of memory helps in some games too.
Lovely indeed, want that monitor for sure!
well that was a great read, thanks. Wish I could afford the 290X, any news on the 290 pricing or release date yet? please?
Wow, even the 280x outperforms the GTX780 in many of the tests. It’s still early days for 4K gaming though, but definitely something I look forward to.
all the benchmarks i’ve seen so far Nvidia outperform Amd in low resolution, but as resolution increases beyond 1920×1080 ,AMD GCN outperforms Nvidia , even R7-280x pulls close to gtx 780 ,so $300 amd card matching $650 Nvidia card, wow.seems like AMD GCN is why superior to NVIDIA kepler.
just a 7970 GHz edition card notting more!
I did not take jjj comment too seriously. Provided me with a nice dose of laughter.
I’m not 100% on this but I’m pretty sure these aren’t the first AMD cards to offer crossfire without bridges… The bridges are almost an achilles’ heel anyways.