Two 32″ 4k gaming screens – AOC AGON PRO vs ASUS ROG Swift

Cons

• The test sample has moderate uniformity
• HDMI2.1 ports have limited bandwidth
• HDR display is not great

At the end of 2020, 4k screens with 144Hz refresh rate were still so bad that a topic was opened on the forum with the title: ‘ Do 32″ UHD 120Hz+ screens exist? ‘. The past year brought a real boom of this almost every manufacturer announced one, most equipped with one or more HDMI 2.1 connections to be able to use them optimally with the latest consoles.In general you pay about 1000 euros for such a screen. That’s certainly not cheap, but doable compared to the first-generation 4k144Hz screens, which cost more than double.

Last autumn we already paid attention to 27″ and 28″ screens with these panel properties at Tweakers, but the somewhat larger 32″ monitors are perhaps even more interesting; the high resolution is combined with a spacious panel surface. sharp and large screen in front of you that is also potentially very good for office work and image editing. In this review we look at two new 32″ challengers: the AOC AGON PRO AG324UX and the ASUS ROG Swift PG32UQ. Both come from their manufacturer’s most luxurious product line, but where ROG Swift monitors have been in the shops for years, AGON PRO has yet to make a name for itself. At 1049 euros, the AOC challenger is 50 euros more expensive than the ASUS monitor, which, however, is less widely available,

Like most other monitors with these features, AOC and ASUS displays have a panel from the IPS family. They are not quite the same panels; ASUS has reportedly shopped with supplier AUO, while AOC relies on a copy of Innolux. ASUS’ display can display brighter highlights, judging by VESA DisplayHDR600 certification rather than a DisplayHDR400 logo at AOC, and also supports a wider color gamut thanks to a quantum dot layer in the backlight.

AOC AGON PRO AG324UX: appearance and features set

A gaming monitor is generally more strikingly designed than a ‘normal’ screen, something AOC has taken to heart when designing its new series. Like ASUS’ ROG series, all displays announced so far have roughly the same design, and the AGON PRO AG324UX is instantly recognizable with its angular lines. Although the attachment between the upright and the panel is via a series of guide rails on the inside of the leg, as with other monitors with height adjustment, AOC has placed a kind of bracket around the attachment point for decoration. Just like the handy carrying handle at the top of the leg, it is bright red in color. At the back on both sides of the panel are angular stripes that you can light up in all colors by the RGB LEDs. some colors swear quite by the accents on the leg, so in that sense AOC’s pronounced red-black color theme may be less successful.

As with many gaming monitors, the rectangular stand rests on a tripod, the front legs of which are rather wide. A large part of the large leg is made of metal, which makes the screen feel heavy and solid. A slightly less high-quality impression is made by the extendable hook for your headset on the side of the screen, made of shiny plastic. In the middle between the front legs is a small projector, with which you can project a logo of your choice on the table. Previous ASUS ROG screens also had that feature, but the PG32UQ did not. In addition to 130mm height adjustment, swiveling, tilting and rotating the screen are also possible.

The connectors on the AGON PRO AG324UX face down. In addition to a connection for the unfortunately separate power supply, you will find two HDMI 2.1 ports and a DisplayPort 1.4 connection. The HDMI ports support bandwidth as low as 24Gbit/s, as do recent Gigabyte monitors such as the M28U and M32U. By means of display stream compression, a 4k signal at 120 or 144Hz can still be squeezed through the port without visible loss of quality, but the PS5 does not support this technique. Thus, with that console, you are limited to 4:2:0 color compression at 4k/120Hz display, where part of the color information in the signal is discarded. This is not disturbing in our opinion when playing games.

In addition to video connections, the AG324UX has a set of audio jacks for microphone and headphones, handy if your headset uses two separate cables. There is also a USB 3.0 hub with four ports that you can connect to the PC via a USB-B cable, but also via the USB-C connection on the screen. We see more and more game monitors with this handy connection for laptop users, with which you can also send an image to the screen via the same port and charge the laptop. AOC has added no less than 90W Power Delivery, as much as the better office monitors. That will not be enough for a powerful gaming laptop, so you have to keep using the adapter. Like the Gigabyte M32U, the AGON PRO AG324UX features a kvm switch with its two separate USB upstream connections,

The OSD of the AG324UX can be controlled via the joystick, seen from the front right behind the panel. However, AOC also includes a wired, hockey puck-shaped remote control called QuickSwitch, which is similar to the one you could find on BenQ screens before. Standout options in the bright red menu include DTS and TruVolume HD for sound enhancement in the audio menu, which also includes a simple equalizer. Via the game menu it is possible to have the HDMI ports work at 144Hz instead of 120Hz. Also in that section is a motion blur reduction feature . It is a lot less extensive than with ASUS and does not work with FreeSync.

ASUS ROG Swift PG32UQ: appearance and features set

The ASUS ROG Swift PG32UQ is related to the ROG Swift PG32UQX, which we discussed earlier on Tweakers. Technically, there are quite a few differences between the two models (see box) and even if you look at the outside, it becomes clear that the PG32UQ is a somewhat more sober model. For example, the most remarkable external feature of the PG32UQX is missing: the monochrome OLED screen in the lower bezel, on which you can display your own animated logo. The leg is also designed more simply, without the ribbed bronze accents and the RGB-illuminated logo at the top. The OSd is operated with a series of buttons and a joystick on the right side, as with most ASUS monitors, instead of with a handy central rotary knob as with the PG32UQX.

Although the design of the PG32UQ is less exuberant than that of the PG32UQX, it is still a striking appearance. The back features a transverse stripe, different textures and a huge shiny ROG logo that of course features RGB lighting. The whole thing is a bit busy. ASUS has used a bit more plastic around than AOC; only the tripod at the bottom of the foot seems to be made of metal. Yet this screen also feels sturdy, perhaps even sturdier than the AG324UX. When adjusting, it is noticeable that the screen of AOC wobbles a bit more than that of ASUS. Incidentally, the PG32UQ has the same adjustment options as the AG324UX, minus the possibility to rotate the screen to portrait orientation.

The connections on the ROG Swift PG32UQ are hidden behind a cover, with the hole in the foot for cable management being slightly higher than on the AG324UX. If you are annoyed by loose cables, this screen makes it easier to hide them neatly out of sight. Like AOC, ASUS has also opted for a separate power supply, where you will find the same combination of two HDMI 2.1 ports and one DisplayPort 1.4 connection. At ASUS, the HDMI ports have the maximum bandwidth of 48Gbit/s, so you can connect to HDMI 2.1 peripherals without any problems or limitations. The PG32UQ also only has a 3.5mm headphone jack, which is not suitable for a microphone, and a two-port USB 3.0 hub, which can be connected to the PC via a USB-B cable.

ASUS’ uncluttered menu includes the usual options, such as displaying a reticle or frame rate counter. In the game menu you can set the HDMI ports to 120 or 144Hz, which is also possible with the AG324UX. What you can’t do with AOC is overclocking the screen further when it’s connected via DisplayPort; after activating the menu option, the counter at ASUS only stops at 155Hz. ASUS continues to focus on comprehensive motion blur reductionfunctionality: a flashing backlight that produces sharper moving images. As with the VG28UQ1LA we discussed in the earlier 4k roundup, you can use mbr on the PG32UQ in combination with FreeSync or G-Sync, which ASUS calls ‘ELMB sync’. There are also settings to adjust the length of the flash and the synchronization between the panel refresh and the flash. Via a handy menu you can choose which part of the screen should be the sharpest.

Response time and input lag

We’ll start the discussion of the test results with what a gaming monitor is all about: the speed at which the panel responds. To this end, we measured twenty transitions between black, gray and white at the maximum refresh rate of each screen: 144Hz for the AGON PRO AG324UX, 155Hz for the ROG Swift PG32UQ. For the video accompanying this article, we initially accidentally measured the PG32UQ at 144Hz, which is why the figures differ slightly. We measure screens for the optimal overdrive setting, which offers the best balance between speed and disruptive overshoot. With the PG32UQ this is Level 4, while the AG324UX is best set to Medium.

Below we compare the displays to other 4k/144Hz monitors we’ve tested before, including the 27″ models from our earlier roundup, the much larger Gigabyte Aorus FV43U and the Philips Momentum 559M1RY. The Philips Momentum 329M1RV and Gigabyte M32U are two direct competitors with the same screen size.

When using the optimal setting, the AGON PRO AG324UX is clearly faster across the board than the ROG Swift PG32UQ, which, like the PG32UQX, is one of the slower screens in this overview. However, AOC’s monitor is slightly slower than the Gigabyte M32U. With the PG32UQ there is one transition that lasts considerably longer than the 6.5ms that each image remains on the screen. That is quite remarkable because in the measurements we did for the video in this article at 144Hz, the screen turned out to be fast enough for every transition.

With the AOC monitor, the slowest transition takes only 3.9ms and the average is also a lot lower, at 3.1ms instead of 4.7ms. That does provide a little bit of extra overshoot, but still not so much that it leads to disturbing artifacts. With the Philips Momentum 329M1RV, just like the Gigabyte M32U faster than the screens of AOC and ASUS, the overshoot on the optimal setting is getting a bit out of hand.

Also when it comes to input lag, AOC ASUS is the boss. It doesn’t matter much. If we send a 1080p/60Hz signal to the monitor, which we did for the graph above, the image appears 2ms later on the ROG Swift PG32UQ. With a 1080p/120Hz signal, the input lag is 4.7 to 5.3ms, still in favor of the AGON PRO AG324UX.

Brightness, Contrast and Color Rendering (SDR)

Looking at the brightness and contrast when displaying ‘normal’ SDR material, it is noticeable that the minimum brightness on the two screens is higher than average, beyond 80cd/m². That’s not ideal if you’re gaming in a very dark room. For brighter rooms, both screens offer more than sufficient maximum brightness, even if it seems a bit mediocre in the comparison below. Some screens in this segment can be really bright. The contrast is around the usual value for ips of about 1000:1, with AOC’s screen slightly better and ASUS’ model slightly worse.

In keeping with the promises of both manufacturers, the PG32UQ clearly offers the brightest highlights in HDR, with maximum brightness that is almost twice as high as the AG324UX. A positive point with both screens is the color reproduction in HDR, which belongs to the better models in this (expensive) test field. However, there is still something to criticize about the reproduction of especially saturated colors. With the PG32UQ, the color coordinates are not quite in the right place, while the AG324UX lacks hardware; we arrive at a DCI-P3 color coverage of more than 85 percent and that is not enough. Both screens fall short most when it comes to displaying high contrasts that give HDR material its impact. As the 4×4 checkerboard test shows, they simply cannot. Even the PG32UQ is therefore no more than ‘hdr-ready’.

Uniformity and viewing angles

Finally, we briefly look at the uniformity, viewing angles and energy consumption of both screens. To start with the first part, we note that the ROG Swift PG32UQ suffers more from brightness decrease in the corners, while the AGON PRO AG324UX shows more color differences across the screen. The screen is greener at the top and purple at the bottom. This is of course a snapshot of the samples we tested. Our copies certainly do not rise above the average when it comes to black uniformity, with visible clouding in the corners in both cases. We had hoped for more, especially given the suggested retail price of both screens.

The IPS panel provides advantages in terms of viewing angles. The AG324UX outperforms the ROG Swift PG32UQ in that regard, which is quite disappointing for an IPS screen, especially when it comes to horizontal viewing angles.

With their relatively large 32″ panel with a high pixel density and refresh rate, the two screens consume more than the average monitor, about 43W, set at a brightness of 150cd/m². These monitors are also not very economical in standby.

Conclusion

While 27″-4k monitors with a high refresh rate were rare until recently, you could search for a long time for 32″ copies. Since the middle of last year, there is now finally some offer in this segment. While the features of most monitors don’t vary very much – IPS-like panels are widely used – there really is something to choose from due to the different designs, as the two monitors in this article show. With the AGON PRO AG324UX, AOC focuses on the combination of gaming and laptop use with the handy USB-C port with powerful Power Delivery, while the ASUS ROG Swift PG32UQ boasts a very wide color gamut, brighter HDR and a more extensive feature set for gaming. .

With prices around 1000 peaks, monitors with these features are still few and far between. You can actually expect a perfect screen for those kinds of amounts. While the color rendition in sRGB mode on both monitors is indeed excellent, the AG324UX has to manage without the ability to change the brightness, while in our opinion the PG32UQ could have used more color modes for the other color spaces covered by the panel. . The imposing hardware now remains a bit unused, unless you start calibrating yourself. Contrast, viewing angles and uniformity do not survive on both screens, with the PG32UQ also failing when it comes to response times. The AG324UX makes more haste, but is still beaten by the Gigabyte M32U. The duo also knows how to match this on most other test items, including the color reproduction in sRGB mode, where Gigabyte, just like AOC, has added a handy USB-C port with kvm functionality. The M32U is clearly cheaper than the AGON PRO AG324UX and ROG Swift PG32UQ. You have to value the design or the specific extra features of both screens in this article to prefer them.

In conclusion, a more general drawback of the new generation of 32″-4k/144Hz screens: the invariably disappointing HDR display. That is only logical given the technology used, but it makes the expensive monitors less future-oriented. and an OLED television in the house for almost the same amount, on which HDR films and games come into their own much better.