Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsFinally, I can ditch the TN panels for competitive gaming! Sony GDM FW-900 CRT in LCD form factor?
Reviewed in the United States on December 4, 2019
Many years ago I owned a Dell Ultrasharp 23" 60hz panel. It had beautiful, vibrant colors thanks to the IPS panel. I was able to play competitive Counter-Strike on it (reported an input lag of 0.6ms! 0.6!!) while also doing graphic design work due to the terrific color accuracy.
But monitor technology was changing and soon enough 120hz and 144hz panels came out. I still wanted to play at a high competitive level in Counter-Strike:Global Offensive, but unfortunately at the time the lowest input lag 144hz monitors were all TN panels. So I had to give up any hobbyist graphic design work. But the BenQ monitors I owned were excellent for CS:GO and using Blur Busters' BENQ Utility tool, you could control how much strobing and crosstalk was displayed on your monitor. The only trade-off is the more strobing at a higher refresh rate, the less luminance the panel emits.
Earlier this year I purchased an LG 27GK750F-B 27" 240hz panel. While this wasn't a huge leap from 60hz to 144hz, it was still enough to be noticeable. While the panel itself had decent color reproduction and no dead pixels, the firmware was broken. You had to download a Custom Resolution Utility application in order to "overclock" the monitor to force it into the correct refresh rate. While this monitor for the most part ran well at 240hz with Motion Blur Reduction turned on, there would be black artifacts from the monitor that would come up from time to time, or microstuttering, and so forth. It seemed that the frametimes could not match up with the display output which would cause the stuttering to occur sporadically. Needlessly to say it was an extremely frustrating experience. There were some "workarounds" to try to keep it stable for awhile before it would act up again. LG never bothered to issue a firmware update after repeated requests on their company's message board.
So I decided to never purchase an LG brand monitor again after the lack of firmware support and pretty much delivering a monitor that didn't function as advertised.
But then I heard about these 240hz IPS monitors on the horizon. I usually frequent the Blur Busters website for the best gaming monitor recommendations. And the owner of the site posted he had calibrated the motion blur reduction of this new ViewSonic panel, and that the strobing at 120hz reminded him of the motion clarity and color of the holy grail of CRT monitors: the Sony GDM FW900.
I owned the Sony GDM FW900 about 5 years ago and it truly deserved the reputation as being the best CRT monitor ever made. (Only the Artisan eclipses it by a hair with photography use). So to hear about an IPS panel that can look as good with the motion clarity of the FW900 had me very excited.
And yep I can say, while not exactly as bright as the FW900 in blur reduction mode (there will be more brightness in the next firmware version I am told), nor having those inky blacks (there is that IPS glow) it is the closest thing I'll get to that CRT in an LCD. Just superb. I no longer miss having the FW900 which is an incredible achievement. For purists, yes this is still an LCD panel and there is just something about the way CRTs present an image that even the highest end LCDs can't match. It is a total shame CRTs were killed off. However I think with the XG270, with the blur reduction enabled, and 99% sRGB/IPS colors, it considerably closes the gap. The FW900 is dead, long live the FW900!
The motion blur reduction in 240hz (it's 241hz in Windows), while there is crosstalk at the bottom, manages to run without a hiccup playing CS:GO, Rocket League, Overwatch, etc. (all games can be set at 240FPS or higher). I am not detecting any input lag when I'm playing CS:GO, in fact it might even be faster than the LG panel I bought earlier. There's no microstuttering or tearing to be had. (I have a RTX2080Ti card and my CPU is i9-9900k.)
The G-Sync option is amazing and here you obviously get much more brightness than you do the motion blur reduction. I actually find G-Sync with Ultra low latency and VSYNC enabled to be pretty good with CS:GO. If you really want to shave off those miliseconds, obviously keep the G-Sync off but I might actually stick with it. For other games that aren't CS:GO, I will probably use G-SYNC and maybe dial down the refresh rate to 120hz since it's difficult for most modern games to hit 240FPS consistently.
The sRGB color temperature setting in the OSD provides the best preset colors IMO. Of course you can adjust it as you wish.
Also the monitor and stand feel very well built, doesn't seem cheap.
TL;DR - Time to throw away your TN panels and upgrade to an IPS panel if you want both motion clarity and color accuracy. I could not be happier. This appeals to me as a serious competitive CS:GO player who occasionally does ESEA to regular casual games. I love having the flexibility of having settings for competitive use and for eyecandy, where I couldn't get that with my BenQ panels.
Highly recommended!
Great job ViewSonic!
