I’ve tested a few esports-tier gaming monitors over the past couple of years — all touting refresh rates comfortably in the hundreds of hertz and offering smoothness unlike anything I’ve seen before.
But all of them have been based on TN IPS panels that may be super fast, but don’t necessarily have the motion clarity to match. Enter the $1,099 Asus ROG Swift OLED PG259QWS ACE (baffling name, I know), the world’s fastest OLED esports monitor with a 720Hz refresh rate.
As it turns out, that shift to OLED is utterly groundbreaking for motion clarity, and it actually helped me play better at Counter-Strike… Crazy, I know, but let me explain.
Supercharged clarity
I know the main allure of OLED has always been the color and contrast ratio — that’s always been my thought process anyway. But by moving away from the flickering of IPS display technology and drastically upping OLED's pixel response time, it is almost like watching a picture move rather than a screen.
The PG259QWS features a staggeringly low 0.02ms response time, which preserves motion clarity as I’d never seen before. Even my fastest flick-shots didn’t make the game smear.
That is all thanks to this TrueBlack Glossy Tandem 1080p WOLED panel that solves the compromise between raw speed and visual fidelity. It delivers a flash flood of color with a 99.5% DCI-P3 color gamut and deep, inky blacks, plus a peak 1,700-nit brightness, while staying sharply detailed in every challenging situation.
Popping shots off at distance got a whole lot easier with the AWP without using the scope, thanks to this panel!
The cheat code — Position Sensor
Now, when it comes to playing competitively wherever you are, one of the biggest friction points isn’t just frame drops or picture smearing — it’s the ergonomics. When a player sits down at a tournament desk, whipping out a tape measure to recreate the exact millimeter-perfect monitor angle of a home setup is rather stressful.
But this is where Asus’ clever work comes in: the Position Sensor. Basically, using real-time monitoring, you can get a readout of the exact height, angle, and your distance to the screen. It’s one of those small features that’s incredibly critical to getting the best performance in-game.
A gamer’s verdict
For the casual player, 720Hz is absolute overkill. But for the top 1% of competitive players chasing motion perfection, Asus has just set a new gold standard.
For the rest of you, there are cheaper OLED options, including the ROG Strix OLED XG259QWPG for $699, which reduces the refresh rate and cuts the cost. But to this player’s eyes, I have to applaud Asus here — this is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.
Follow Tom's Guide on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds.
More from Tom's Guide
