Acer already makes some of the best high-end gaming monitors, and now it’s planning to push its screens forward in 2017.
Above: Asus’s similar 4K G-Sync HDR 144Hz monitor.
The company revealed the new Predator X27 yesterday. This is a 27-inch 4K display that features a refresh rate of 144Hz as well as G-Sync HDR. That short spec list should make this one of the most impressive-looking monitors you can buy for gaming. With the X27, Acer joins Asus and its ROG Swift PG27UQ in making 2017 one of the best years yet for upgrading your monitor.
While Acer and Asus dropped multiple gorgeous-looking 4K G-Sync displays last year, they were missing some key features. Most notably, HDR and 144Hz are huge additions in the latest models. In my opinion, the wider color gamut and faster refresh rate are more important than 4K in some cases. And by getting those features all packed into one monitor, Acer is doing a lot more to justify the inevitably high price of the X27.
In January at the Consumer Electronics Show, Acer revealed its plans for a 4K monitor running at 144Hz. But now it’s adding G-Sync with the X27. This means that the company’s newest display is capable of an ultra-high resolution while simultaneously refreshing 144 times per second. G-Sync ensures that screen tearing is at a minimum even if your processor is struggling to render 4K scenes at 144 frames per second. And finally, HDR will enable high-dynamic-range colors and illumination on Acer’s newest panel.
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Both the Acer and Asus monitors are due out later this year, but neither company has announced a price or release date. But with all of this technology, you should probably expect to spend roughly a mortgage payment or more to get one of these futuristic displays.
But the high-end gaming monitors were already more than $1,000 last year, and you were missing out on features like HDR that are going to make an immediate and significant impact on picture quality. So while the amount of money you’re probably going to have to pay isn’t going to change, buying a monitor in 2017 will get you a noticeably better return on that investment.
