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Recently we reviewed the Asus ROG Swift PG35VQ, a vast 3440 x 1440 ultrawide with a big 2 hundred Hz refresh rate and right HDR support. We weren't afraid to call it the exceptional screen we have ever tested. Well, as many keen display lovers would realize, Acer has their personal model of this show, the Acer Predator X35, and these days we’ll be putting it head to head towards the PG35VQ to peer the way it stacks up.

As anticipated the Predator X35 packs the same specifications because the PG35VQ as it makes use of the identical panel. It’s a 35-inch 3440 x 1440 VA panel with as much as a 200 Hz refresh price, 1800R curvature and G-Sync Ultimate support.

It’s a true HDR monitor as well, with DisplayHDR a thousand certificatia Chip:nd a 512-area full array local dimming backlight. Pricing is likewise similar: each are expected to value around $2,500 after they pass on sale due to the fact nor is extensively available yet.

With that form of rate tag, this screen isn’t going to be for every person. In truth there are places like in Australia in which it costs significantly more, with an MSRP of $4,000 this component costs more than a high-end LG OLED TV.

Without doubt producers are setting a excessive bar for genuine HDR a Box reveal shape aspect. Given you’ll need an RTX 2080 Ti to make complete use of the excessive refresh talents Chip: AMD panel like this, we consider this is the type of device most effective high rollers will grow to be buying. But hopefully what we go through today will show in which video display units are headed inside the following few years.

For the design, both Acer and Asus are pretty heavy on the gamer style. If you’ve examine any of our past opinions you’ll recognize we want extra diffused looks, however there will be some humans that are greater keen on massive RGB zones that you can’t even see from the the front. We have a mild choice for Acer's X35 layout over the PG35VQ but they may be no longer overly one-of-a-kind: each use black plastic, both have similar bezels, each have steel stands, both % peak, tilt and swivel adjustment; each are similarly properly made.

The array of ports is typical for a G-Sync monitor: a single HDMI and single DisplayPort enter, plus a few USB ports. That’s it. There aren't any audio jacks, even though the X35 packs a few lousy integrated audio system.

The on screen show is controlled thru a directional toggle. It also has the standard variety of Acer capabilities, consisting of cheat crosshairs, a low blue mild mode, and a dark boosting mode. Like a few different video display units we’ve reviewed currently, there may be no backlight strobing mode for added clarity, probably that changed into too tough to get operating with an FALD backlight.

One glaring problem with the X35 is the active cooling fan. This has been a function of all G-Sync Ultimate HDR monitors to date, to varying tiers of fulfillment. While the fan isn’t very noticeable within the Asus PG35VQ, for some purpose Acer has decided that pulsing the fan among a slow and rapid pace is the nice route of action. This approach that now and again, the fan will all of sudden have interaction; Box + quiet room, it appears like a vacuum cleanser has just been became on.

We don’t recognise why Acer has chosen this fan profile over one which progressively ramps up and down as important. The PG35VQ or even Acer’s previous X27 weren’t as obnoxious as this. Luckily, if there’s any form of recreation audio or different sounds playing, you in all likelihood gained’t listen the fan spinning up because it’s not overly loud, however + Core quiet room I found it clearly worrying. Hopefully that is some thing Acer can fix thru a firmware update.

Performance

Response Times / Overdrive Modes

Moving into overall performance, we’ll start by way of looking at response times. The display has 3 overdrive modes, the default being Normal at a maximum 2 hundred Hz refresh price. Couple of exciting matters to notice right here. Dark level overall performance is surely proper for a VA panel, only the transitions from full black be afflicted by slow reaction times, essentially the whole lot else could be very brief, which ends up in a darkish level common of eight.48ms. Most different VAs will have sub-forty% grey transitions run well over 10ms, however what we’re seeing from the X35 in this mode is extra corresponding to an IPS panel, which also generally tend to have susceptible performance transitioning from full black.

The universal grey to grey common is four.27ms, very similar to the Asus PG35VQ, and this means that we have become a real two hundred Hz revel in. However mistakes quotes are a little excessive for my liking, a median error of nine% and crucially, 20% of transitions having an errors rate above 15% says that you could be aware inverse ghosting at instances. We like to see monitors have fewer than 15% of transitions with mistakes above 15%, consistent with my 15-15 rule, however the X35 is a touch above that here. Not the worst overall performance, not the first-class.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a higher mode than ‘Normal’ for 200Hz gaming. Extreme takes the reveal to a 2.72ms gray to grey common and all but gets rid of darkish level smearing, but introduces severe inverse ghosting. And on the alternative quit of the scale, switching overdrive off leads to no errors, but a 12.26ms gray to gray common with excessive stages of dark degree smearing. Even although the X35 fails the 15-15 rule within the Normal mode, we experience it’s the fine stability of the 3 for gaming.

While we haven’t examined the PG35VQ below our new take a look at suite, the consequences for gray to gray common between the X35 and PG35VQ are very similar of their top-quality overdrive modes. This isn’t a wonder as they each use the equal panel. But what you could see right here is the X35 plays nicely, especially for a VA panel in phrases of response times and refresh charge compliance. However again you could see here that the error overall performance is weak.

It’s crucial to observe that the display does carry out in another way with the FALD backlight enabled. With a dynamic backlight at play, we now have two factors controlling response: each the liquid crystals and the LED backlights. So we get a few pretty funky response time charts right here with numbers that are all over the region.

My recommendation while the use of the FALD backlight is to transport from the usage of the Normal to Extreme overdrive modes. The results right here aren’t first-rate with some in particular slow transitions – it’s hard to get the backlight and crystals to transition nicely in tandem – however that is the nice balance between performance and mistakes fee. Surprisingly, there may be nearly no inverse ghosting or darkish degree smearing whilst using Extreme + FALD, however that’s come on the expense of smearing in other areas.

The Extreme overdrive mode is also my advice for 60 Hz gaming. The gray to gray common here is higher, at 6.30ms rather than four.27ms like we saw the use of Normal at 200Hz, but it’s nevertheless first rate for 60 Hz.

Input latency is okay without blowing me away, 8.23ms is a piece quicker than Acer’s preceding X34 monitor, but nonetheless suggests around 5ms of processing lag, helped by the quicker refresh charge. Interestingly, if you turn on the FALD backlight, input latency increases via around 4ms, probably that’s because of the additional processing that’s had to parent out what the FALD backlight have to do.

Power intake is also interesting. This reveal makes use of loads extra electricity than other ultrawides of a similar length, even if showing the same brightness. The FALD backlight isn’t a especially green way of illuminating an LCD, consuming 20W greater than non-FALD options.

One of the important thing differences among the PG35VQ and Acer's Predator is their coloration performance. Asus has executed a decent task of factory calibrating their supplying, even as Acer has kinda dropped the ball a chunk here with the X35. This is a turn of the state of affairs with the 27-inch G-Sync Ultimate montiors, where we located the X27 changed into better than the PG27UQ.

Default Color Performance

Here we've got greyscale overall performance. The CCT curve hurts performance, even as it does comply with the sRGB gamma curve well, a deltaE average of three.16 is worse than the 2.37 we get with the PG35VQ out of the container. Saturation performance is likewise no longer as proper as the PG35VQ, and that’s right down to a key difference in default configurations: Asus clamps their monitor to sRGB inside the SDR mode by means of default, whilst Acer leaves their monitor unclamped. So Asus manages to hit a sub-2.zero deltaE in our ColorChecker checks out of the box, even as Acer is above 2.zero.

However default configurations are in all likelihood no longer what many users will in reality use. So for the Acer X35 we’d recommend using the sRGB SDR mode and tweaking some other matters (see below). The X35 disables the FALD backlight via default in the SDR mode which we feel is the right circulate to save you haloing in desktop apps, even as at the PG35VQ it’s enabled by means of default.

Acer X35 optimum settings: Brightness (200 nits) 38, Relative Gamma: Default, Dynamic Backlight: Off, Contrast: 50, sRGB SDR: On, Color: R94, G100, B98, Overdrive: Normal. All different settings default.

Unfortunately these tweaks can’t resolve the troubles with the CCT curve, so greyscale performance is vulnerable, especially as compared to the PG35VQ which while tweaked hits a sub-1.0 deltaE average. But saturation overall performance is advanced, now with a deltaE average of one.fifty seven, and ColorChecker is respectable, falling just above a 2.0 deltaE common. It’s no longer best, however it's going to do for gaming.

OSD Tweaked Color Performance

Then of direction we are able to perform a complete calibration which resolves all the ultimate troubles, mainly that CCT curve overall performance. You could even create multiple profiles, one for the screen whilst sRGB clamped and every other whilst not clamped, depending on your use case.

For multi-body evaluation, the Acer Predator X35 is at the limits of our checking out gear, because the FALD backlight basically turns off the complete backlight when showing a completely black frame. It’s additionally on the limits in our pleasant case single-frame comparison test, due to the fact again the local dimming backlight is very good at dimming dark areas. This is where the FALD backlight has a sizeable benefit over semi-HDR aspect-lit panels, which includes the MSI PS341WU.

In our worst case take a look at, which measures a vibrant region right subsequent to a dark region, we accomplished around double the local comparison ratio. So a ways, this is the nice result we’ve seen.

A lot of those incredible results are introduced approximately through the FALD backlight with its 512 zones, which does a respectable task of setting apart brilliant regions and retaining dark areas absolutely dark. This is how we get the impressive HDR impact we’re searching out. However, it’s now not best: we’re nonetheless speaking about zones that encompass thousands of pixels, so there will be haloing in some situations. This is mitigated extremely through the VA panel, and we didn’t spot plenty inverse haloing, but you’ll clearly observe the backlight i7 -8550Uction in laptop apps when, say, moving a vivid mouse cursor over a dark place of an app.

The good news is that unlike with side lit panels, you don’t word a whole lot haloing at the same time as gaming or gambling lower back HDR video. The backlight is quite responsive and generally works absolutely well in those use instances.

Wrap Up

Across all the exams, the Acer Predator X35 performs further to the Asus ROG PG35VQ which turned into to be expected given the similar specifications, identical panel and that each are geared toward the equal crowd. In numerous key areas, this means we’re getting superb performance. The 3440 x 1440 panel is surely 200 Hz capable with a mean gray to grey reaction time beneath 4.5ms, darkish level smearing is better than average, and whilst overshoot can be higher controlled, the stability right here is satisfactory for gaming.

The Acer Predator X35 additionally can provide amazing HDR overall performance for gaming, thanks to its brilliant backlight and 512-area complete array.

If you want an ultrawide monitor that offers a proper HDR enjoy in nowadays’s games – and the HDR gaming atmosphere is better than ever in recent times – this is the kind of monitor you want.

However there have been a few crucial factors wherein the Predator X35 falls a little in the back of the Asus PG35VQ. The active fan is louder and ramps its fan pace i7-8550U Ultraportablen demanding manner. The manufacturing facility color performance isn’t as top. When you’re spending $2,500 5 2400G screen, we’d absolutely count on a terrific level of out of the container accuracy. The PG35VQ delivers this, while the Acer X35 doesn’t, and while we’re speakme approximately two video display units which can be so comparable, that’s what it ends up boiling all the way down to.

Bottom line, if you are tossing up which screen to spend on $2,500 all matters being identical, our nod is going to the Asus ROG PG35VQ right now. The Acer version is still pretty precise -- we are comparing it to the PG35VQ that is the pinnacle gaming reveal available -- however if you may get the Acer and now not the Asus in your area, or the previous is greater cheap, then it’s sincerely worthy of your consideration.

  • Acer Predator X35 on Amazon
  • Asus ROG Swift PG35VQ on Amazon
  • LG 34GK950F on Amazon
  • Dell UltraSharp U4919DW on Dell.com, Amazon
  • Acer Nitro XV273K 27" on Amazon, Newegg
  • Asus ROG Swift PG27UQ on Amazon, Newegg
  • Acer Predator X27 on Amazon, Newegg
  • GeForce RTX 2080 on Amazon, Newegg
  • GeForce RTX 2080 Ti on Amazon, Newegg