Author: Adam Simmons

Date published: November 3rd 2019



27” models with a 2560 x 1440 (WQHD) resolution and high refresh rate offer exactly the sort of experience many gamers are after. The ViewSonic XG270QG hits this sweet spot, sweetening the deal with a generous colour gamut, Nano IPS panel and support for Nvidia G-SYNC. The full fat version, that is, with the integrated G-SYNC module. We put this ELITE gaming monitor through its paces, seeing how it performs in our usual suite of tests. Gaming is naturally a key focus of ours, but we also look at the broader desktop experience and movie watching as well.





The monitor uses an LG Display Nano IPS (In-Plane Switching) panel with support for a 165Hz refresh rate, 2560 x 1440 resolution and 10-bit colour (8-bit + FRC dithering). The ‘Nano’ designation for the IPS panel refers to an enhanced phosphor coating used to enrich the colour gamut. A 1ms grey to grey response time is specified, an aspect of the specification which as usual you shouldn’t pay too much attention to. Some of the key ‘talking points’ for this monitor have been highlighted in blue below, for your reading convenience.





Screen size: 27 inches

Panel type: LG Display Nano IPS (In-Plane Switching) LCD

Native resolution: 2560 x 1440

Typical maximum brightness: 350 cd/m²

Colour support: 1.07 billion (8-bits per subpixel plus dithering)*

Response time (G2G): 1ms

Refresh rate: 165Hz (variable, with G-SYNC)

Weight: 7.7kg (including stand)

Contrast ratio: 1000:1

Viewing angle: 178º horizontal, 178º vertical

Power consumption: 90W (high brightness)

Backlight: WLED (White Light Emitting Diode)

Typical price as reviewed: Not available ($675.99 USD MSRP)



*The G-SYNC module doesn’t support 10-bit colour output, although the panel supports internal processing (dithering). Dithering stages at the panel level are complex and can still be used regardless of the signal bit depth as a sort of ‘enhancement’. Very few users should concern themselves with this, simply be aware that if you’ve got a 10-bit workflow you won’t be able to use a 10-bit signal.





The monitor offers a ‘stealthy’ appearance, a subdued aesthetic rather than an ostentatious ‘gamery’ aesthetic. This is shared with other models in the ELITE series. The stand base combines black powder coated metal for most of the upper surface with a brushed black metal front section. The design of the stand base is sleek – with the base components being broad but low to the desk. The monitor offers dual-stage bezels, including a reasonably slender panel border that’s flush with the rest of the screen and a slim hard plastic outer component. Including both components, the bezels are ~8mm (0.31 inches) at the top and sides. The bottom bezel is thicker with the panel border almost entirely hidden by the matte black plastic bezel – ~25mm (1 inch). A set of detachable shading hood wings are included, referred to as ‘Sight Shields’. These are designed for privacy during competitive gaming environments where other gamers are sitting beside you, making it far more difficult or impossible for them to see the action on your screen. It’s easy to attach or detach these wings and adjust their angle.





The OSD (On Screen Display) is controlled by a central joystick, facing downwards beneath the ‘ELITE’ logo on the bottom bezel. There’s a small ‘diagonal slit’ style power LED towards the bottom right of the bottom bezel, running diagonally upwards. This glows blue when the monitor is on and amber when it enters a low power state (signal to the system is lost). The video below runs through the OSD and also shows the ‘ELITE RGB’ lighting feature of the monitor. This lighting feature includes a hexagonal ring of RGB LEDs at the rear and 10 RGB LEDs on the underside of the monitor. This can be controlled using various software utilities, as detailed on this page and in the video.





From the side the screen is reasonably slender, 21.5mm (0.85 inches) at thinnest point and lumping out towards the stand attachment point. The monitor has quite a robust stand neck, with this plus the stand base offering a solid footing. The stand offers good ergonomic flexibility with quite smooth adjustments; tilt (5° forwards, 20° backwards), height adjustment (120mm or 4.72 inches), swivel (45° left, 45° right) and pivot (90° clockwise or anti-clockwise rotation into portrait). At lowest height, the screen clears the desk surface by ~90mm (3.54 inches) with the top of the screen ~460mm (18.11 inches) above the desk. The total depth of the monitor including stand is ~265mm (10.43 inches) with the screen a little over an inch behind the front edge of the stand base.





The rear of the monitor is mainly matte black plastic. Some key features to note here include a flip-out headphone hook towards the right (as viewed from the rear) and two further ‘hooks’ at the bottom of the screen, one either side of the stand neck. These are flip-down mouse anchors which keeps your mouse cable in place – if you like your mice with wires. They have a grippy rubber texture and small ‘teeth’ to grasp onto the mouse cable. The hexagonal ‘ELITE RGB’ ring as explored in the OSD video is another predominant feature at the rear, surrounding the stand attachment point. The stand attaches using a quick-release mechanism and can be easily detached to make room for an alternative 100 x 100mm VESA compatible solution. The stand neck has a cable-tidy loop towards the bottom, whilst there’s a K-slot to the right of the stand neck. The ports face downwards and include; DP 1.2a, HDMI 1.4, a 3.5mm headphone jack, 3 USB 3.0 ports (plus upstream) and a DC power input (external ‘power brick’). 2 x 2W integrated speakers are also included, with backwards-facing speaker grilles. These offer basic sound output. Better than quite a few integrated speakers and with decent volume, although some distortion at higher volumes and not the purest or most bass-rich sound. Quite usable and nice to have in a pinch.





The full capabilities of the monitor including the 165Hz refresh rate and G-SYNC capability can be leveraged on compatible systems via DP 1.2. The HDMI 1.4 port is there for compatibility with devices such as games consoles and is limited to 60Hz at the native resolution.





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 relatively smooth texture. This offers respectable glare handling, whilst diffusing light emitted from the monitor less than stronger matte screen surfaces. This offers better preservation of clarity and vibrancy, whilst avoiding an obvious grainy appearance to lighter shades such as white. There is just a very light misty grain to very light shades, avoiding anything close to a course grainy appearance or ‘sandy’ look.







As shown above, the monitor uses the usual RGB (Red, Green and Blue) stripe subpixel layout. This is the typical layout expected by modern operating systems such as Microsoft Windows and Apple MacOS. You needn’t worry about text fringing from non-standard subpixel layouts as a Mac user and don’t need to run ClearType as a Windows user – although you may wish to run through the ClearType wizard and adjust according to preferences. The subpixel layout and arrangement is normal and we had no subpixel-related concerns related to sharpness or text clarity on this model.





The XG270QG features various ‘GameMode’ presets; ‘Standard’, ‘Custom 1’, ‘Custom 2’, ‘FPS’, ‘Battle Royale’, ‘MOBA’, ‘Console’, ‘Movie’ and ‘Web’. The first 3 modes are fully customisable, whilst the remaining presets simply set things in the OSD to various values and block off access to some of the key controls (including ‘Dark Boost’ and ‘Response Time OD’). We’ll therefore mainly focus on the ‘Standard’ setting and some manual adjustments for the purposes of this table, the other settings are briefly shown in the OSD video. The table below includes gamma readings taken using a Datacolor SpyderX Elite colorimeter alongside general observations. Our test system uses Windows 10 and an Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti, with the monitor connected using the supplied DP cable. The monitor is left in its default ‘plug and play’ state without additional drivers or ICC profiles specifically loaded and was left to run for over 2 hours before readings were taken for this table. Assume any setting not mentioned here was left at default. The refresh rate was also set to 165Hz, although the refresh rate did not affect observations in this table. When viewing the figures in this table, note that for most PC users ‘6500K’ for white point and ‘2.2’ for gamma are good targets to aim for.

Straight from the box the monitor provided a bright and vibrant image. There was a slight warm and green tint, but this was easily correctable with a few OSD adjustments. Gamma tracking was very good and remained so following the adjustments made to our ‘Test Settings’. Various additional gamma modes are included and tracked appropriately to the given value. The gamma curve under our ‘Test Settings’ is shown below, sticking closely to the desired ‘2.2’ curve. Given the strong performance with OSD adjustment alone, inter-unit variation and the intended uses of the monitor, we won’t be providing any ICC profiles for this model or using them in the review.



Gamma 'Test Settings' The monitor also includes some Low Blue Light (LBL) settings. The most flexible of these is the ‘Blue Light Filter’ option, which can be set from ‘1’ (very mild effect) to ‘100’ (strongest effect) in single unit increments. Unlike some LBL settings, the green channel is weakened somewhat relative to the red channel – so the image appears warmer but doesn’t have a green tint. The eyes generally adjust to the warm tint quite readily and things appear better balanced than under LBL settings with strong green tints. Minimising blue light exposure in the hours leading up to bed is important as blue light serves as an alertness signal and affects sleep hormones. We also appreciated how easy it was to activate or deactivate the setting using the ‘Quick Access’ button (button to the left or joystick, as covered in the OSD video). We used this setting for our own viewing comfort in the evenings, although not for specific testing beyond that involving the setting itself.



Test Settings Our ‘Test Settings’ involved slight changes to colour channels and a significant brightness reduction using the default ‘CUSTOM 1’ preset as a base. The ‘Standard’ and ‘CUSTOM 2’ modes would work the same, provided everything is set up in the same way. For example, making sure ‘Dark Boost’ is disabled. Note that individual preferences and units of the same model vary, so these settings aren’t going to be optimal in all cases and are just a suggestion. We also set the monitor to 165Hz in Windows using the integrated ‘OverClocking’ function of the display. We’ve also included our preferred ‘Response Time OD’ setting below, just for reference. Assume any setting not mentioned, including ‘Contrast’ and ‘Gamma’, was left at default.





Gaming Settings= CUSTOM 1 Gaming Settings= CUSTOM 1 Response Time OD= Standard OverClocking= 165 Hz Brightness= 30 (according to preferences and lighting) Color Temperature= User Color R Gain= 98 G Gain= 97 B Gain= 100 Refresh rate (Windows setting)= 165Hz

Contrast and brightness Contrast ratios An X-Rite i1Display Pro was used to measure the luminance of white and black using various setting on the monitor, including those found in the calibration section. From these values, static contrast ratios were calculated. The table below shows these results, with bue highlights indicating the results under our ‘Test Settings’. Black highlights indicate the highest white luminance, lowest black luminance and highest contrast ratio recorded (ULMB deactivated). Note that ULMB was tested here at ‘100’ brightness and ‘70’ contrast. The highest and lowest available Pulse Width (PW) settings were tested. Assume any setting not mentioned was left at default, with the exceptions already noted here or in the calibration section. Monitor Settings White luminance (cd/m²) Black luminance (cd/m²) Contrast ratio (x:1) 100% brightness (Factory Defaults) 388 0.47 826 80% brightness 329 0.4 823 60% brightness 268 0.32 838 40% brightness 206 0.25 824 20% brightness 143 0.17 841 0% brightness 76 0.09 844 Gamma = 1.8 390 0.47 830 Gamma = 2.0 389 0.47 828 Gamma = 2.4 388 0.47 826 Gamma = 2.6 388 0.47 826 Color Temperature = Warm 319 0.47 679 Blue Light Filter = 100 301 0.44 684 ULMB @ 85Hz (PW = 100) 275 0.3 917 ULMB @ 85Hz (PW = 10) 27 0.03 900 ULMB @ 100Hz (PW = 100) 210 0.25 840 ULMB @ 100Hz (PW = 10) 23 0.03 767 ULMB @ 120Hz (PW = 100) 202 0.23 878 ULMB @ 120Hz (PW = 10) 21 0.02 1050 Test Settings 163 0.2 815

The average static contrast with only brightness adjusted was 833:1. This is a bit below the specified 1000:1, which wasn’t reached with any setting on this table (outside of ULMB where the figures lack proper accuracy due to rounding). Although not documented on the table, the static contrast was not affected by refresh rate. We came straight from testing the AOC 24G2(U) to this. The AOC has the highest static contrast we’ve seen on an IPS-type model (~1400-1500:1) and has slightly lower than usual ‘IPS glow’ to boot. We did notice the drop in contrast coming from that to this – although comparing to a model with ~1000:1 static contrast (like the XG2703-GS under our ‘Test Settings’) would yield a far more subtle difference. Under our ‘Test Settings’ the contrast only dropped slightly, to 815:1. The highest white luminance recorded was 389 cd/m², whilst the minimum white luminance recorded (ULMB disabled) was 76 cd/m². This gives a luminance adjustment range of 313 cd/m² without loss of contrast, with a fairly bright maximum but a minimum that some sensitive users would find too high.

The monitor includes a Dynamic Contrast setting called ‘Adaptive Contrast’. This allows the backlight to adjust (as one unit – no local dimming) to changes in scene brightness. The overall levels of dark and light on the screen. The luminance changes were subtle, with the user able to set brightness manually – the screen seemed to stick quite close to that level. There were some gamma changes with this mode active, too. Overall, we didn’t feel it provided anything beneficial and didn’t feel the gamma changes made were appropriate. The overall effect was quite subtle so most users wouldn’t really notice if it was active or not – we’d recommend just leaving the setting off.





PWM (Pulse Width Modulation)

The monitor uses DC (Direct Current) to dim the backlight and does not use PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) at any brightness level. This is consistent with all G-SYNC models. The backlight is therefore considered ‘flicker-free’, which will be welcomed by users who are sensitive to flickering or worried about the side-effects of PWM usage.





Luminance uniformity