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Almost a year on from our review of the ASUS ROG PG32UQX, today we have assessed the PG32UQ (non-X) model, designed to offer a 4K/144Hz gaming experience at a much more palatable price tag.
By ditching the mini-LED setup and hardware G-Sync module, ASUS has been able to offer the PG32UQ for £849, compared to an asking price of over three grand for the PG32UQX. Granted, that does mean the HDR experience is much less impressive, but if you want the core 4K/144Hz gaming experience and aren't too fussed about HDR, then you are saving a lot of cash with this lower-end model.
Of course, it's still not cheap so we would expect excellent image quality, and thankfully the PG32UQ delivers. It's gamut coverage, brightness levels and out of the box colour accuracy are all superb, and in fact this is one of the most colour-accurate displays I have ever tested – it barely improved at all once manually calibrated, as the factory calibration was so impressive.
The PG32UQ still boasts DisplayHDR600 certification too, so it's not like it's been completely neutered in that department. I would personally prefer to play in SDR however, as the 16 edge-lit dimming zones don't really do it for me, and I could visibly spot these LEDs changing in certain game scenarios which was a bit distracting.
The main weakness for this panel however, has to be the response times. Using the OD 4 mode, we saw relatively slow response times, but with very little overshoot. OD 5 was able to speed things up significantly, but that the cost of a lot of visible overshoot. I would have liked to see more fine-tuning here, as I am certain there could definitely be a better middle ground between those two modes – something a user-configurable overdrive setting would address (as we saw with the Eve Spectrum).
How much of a problem this will be for you does depend. If you're an ultra-competitive online gamer, you probably weren't considering a 4K panel to begin with, and for slower paced RPG-style games I don't think the slow response times matter as much. The only other 32in 4K/144Hz screen I've tested is the MSI MPG321UR-QD, and that isn't much faster at all.
If you can live with that, then the ASUS ROG PG32UQ is a very solid gaming monitor. It hasn't quite wowed me, but it's definitely a strong contender for your money if you are in the market for a larger, high refresh-rate 4K screen.
We found it on sale for £849 from Curry's HERE.
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Pros
- 4K resolution, at 144Hz, looks great on the 32in panel.
- Seriously impressive out of the box colour accuracy.
- Gets nice and bright.
- Low latency.
- Official G-Sync Compatible certification.
- Two HMDI 2.1 ports.
- Less eccentric design than the PG32UQX.
Cons
- Not the fastest – user-configurable overdrive would have been a good addition here.
- Edge-lit dimming zones don't add much for HDR.
KitGuru says: It's a solid 4K/144Hz gaming monitor, we just would have liked to see more control of the overdrive settings to fine-tune the experience. At the moment, response times are a bit on the slow side.
