Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

So, let's start out with the pros: - G-Sync. - 144Hz - ULMB - PWM-free - Fast pixel response times. Some of the smoothest gaming I've ever done... on an LCD anyway. The gaming on this thing was great (I had all monitors for a combined time of probably one-two weeks). ULMB is very noticeable when reading scrolling text/images (go to blurbusters and do one of their benchmarks) and definitely eliminates blurring. G-Sync is great for any game where you don't need utter elimination of blurring, but you want smoothness of gameplay (ie no stutter and tearing). It works beautifully in AC4. Now, let's get into the cons. Here are the cons: - Usual TN panel cons (I list those at the bottom) - Only one input. You're not doing any console gaming on this, ever. Unless it's through an emulator. - Various Nvidia driver problems. I occasional got "Signal out of Range", my screen just turning black, blue screens, and other various fun little things happening, especially on my first panel. - The anti-glare coating is bad. It's not as bad as the U2711 from Dell (which I returned because of the coating alone), but it is bad. ASUS should have used the Qnix anti-glare coating for this monitor, which was literally one of the most perfect balances I have ever seen. Oh, and the deal breaker: - QUALITY CONTROL!! - QUALITY CONTROL!! - QUALITY CONTROL!! (three lines for three trials) The con is so major and pissed me off so much across my THREE TRIALS at getting a decent panel that I believe this actually literally deserves to take off four stars. I only took off three because gaming on it was at least good. I was trying to get this as my birthday present (well, from me to me) and it has been nothing but frustration. Allow me to recount all three of my experiences (two are from Fry's one is from the one I just got from Amazon as my third try at this) Panel 1: This thing came with 2 messed up pixels and a very mediocre backlight uniformity... but okay, alright, I was willing to deal with that because I knew I had bad luck with LCD's in general. So, I stick with it. 2-3 days later, while I'm playing Payday 2 the backlight just starts flickering CONSTANTLY on me while I'm actually playing. I alt tab out and all of my text is fuzzy and messed up. I tried driver reinstalls and everything under the sun, nothing helps. I read on the ROG forums at ASUS, and someone else has the same problem. And if you go over there now, you'll see more and more panels are developing this issue after a certain amount of time. Luckily mine just happened early. Lesson learned: Make sure to burn your panel in early, especially if you're working off of a 15 day return policy. Just leave the game running. Panel 2: Even more noticeable stuck pixels (according to Wikipedia dead pixels on a TN are stuck white, so in reality it was probably a dead pixel). The backlight wasn't anything great. But okay, okay. I was willing to deal with this. But there's this annoying 1-2 inch "scar" in the backlight on the right side that's plainly visible on any straight background. Not just black, any straight background. Overall I couldn't see as often during gaming but I really just couldn't deal with it being there considering this it was going to be my daily driver. Lesson learned: Yeah, stuck pixels and backlight bleed isn't the worst that could happen to you (read about more on the ROG Forums, tons of fun to be had!). Panel 3: I just got this about an hour or two ago. I stopped counting at about 8 messed up pixels, but on a cursory scan I could see more. I estimate around 15. What panel grade is this? F-? Lesson learned: for panel defect count, the sky is the limit. This has been nothing but frustration. Now I know that most of the price premium is pretty much the extra features. None of it went into quality control. I mean I'm even willing to let the perfectionist inside of me be put aside for the greater good, but this is too much. Especially for an 800$ TN panel. It's back to my Qnix I guess, which is ironically better than any mainstream monitor I have ever bought. Oh, and here are the TN panel cons for those interested: - Mediocre horizontal viewing angles - Very bad vertical viewing angles (it might get you to stop slouching in that chair) - Although this is an 8 bit panel, the colors are still worse than on my 300$ Qnix (so was everything besides gaming performance, come to think of it). I'm really considering being the first 1 star reviewer because of how much this whole ordeal annoyed me. Oh, and if you need some photo evidence, I do have some of the first panel and the second panel. No shots of the dead/stuck/whatever pixels, because my camera can't really capture those. Unfortunately that means no shots of the one I got from Amazon. It's too late to get any, either as it is already on its way back approx 5 hours after I received it. Update: panel 4 (this time from Newegg). Two pixels with dead subpixels. Which is fine because for once that's all that's wrong... for now. I'll update as more things go wrong. Lesson learned: I'm not getting a perfect panel, ever...