Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsAcer Nitro XV273K Pbmiipphzx 27" UHD 3840 x 2160 IPS
Reviewed in the United States on November 18, 2019
Spectacular detail, colors, "speed". Best monitor I've ever spent time with. I made the jump to 4k a couple of years ago, and Windows wasn't particularly high DPI ready. but managed to deal with it. I most recently came from a 26" LG, this 27" is a beast, I have to keep it a bit further away during gaming sessions. Since I've only spent the weekend with it, I may decide on some alternate settings, but for now 4k, 120hz, HDR is the gaming route. As in any 4k environment you typically want to turn down all graphics settings that try and make lower resolutions look better, ie turn off anti-aliasing (AA). The jump to 120hz doesn't tax my gtx1080 & ryzen 7 any more than 4k@60hz.
HDR: games that support it have mind blowing detail, and no discernible hit to GPU performance. Windows however (windows 10, 1903), is the village idiot at the gaming party. It is reminiscent of windows 95 and alt tabbing from a full screen game to a higher res desktop, long pause of blackness. Basically _any_ SDR element causes the entire display to switch between HDR and SDR, and it is a painful switch. Want to change your volume? that lovely stupid volume level on the top left that you can't get rid of in windows 10 is SDR...so the display will go black while windows shows you the volume level, then goes black again to go back to your game. If it wasn't so much better looking I would disable HDR, but it is, so I'm trying to deal with it.
144hz: You need two DP cables (and probably a vidcard that will support it) between vidcard and monitor. Then you need to get into the monitor OSD and find "144hz mode" and enable it. You do not get HDR mode in conjunction with 144hz mode, it is one or the other. I found my system unstable using 144hz mode. Sometimes it was just an innocuous cycling searching for input that a powercycle of the monitor would fix. Sometimes it was a system hang. The difference between 120hz and 144hz is negligible to my eyes, while the difference between 60hz and 120hz is of course amazing. I suggest 120hz for the stability, and HDR.
In the box were two good DP cables. My previous cable, which I thought was good, would not carry 4k@120hz, though it did suffice for the second cable in 144hz mode. If you find you cannot get 4k@120hz, try swapping cables.
VESA mount has a funky bracket shim, but it works.
There is a blue LED bar on the bottom of the monitor. I haven't decided if I like it or not. I can't find an option in the OSD to turn it off though. There is (windows at least) software from acer that presumably lets one adjust all the OSD options from the comfort of your desktop.
I would prefer it did not have speakers, and I would just use the mini jack pass through for headphones,. Now I have to be careful I don't wake up the household if the headphones pop out, or the bluetooth headphones go dead. But it does have speakers, and they of course are monitor speakers. Not the worst I've heard.
I set the brightness in the OSD, but I am now seeing that with HDR enabled, the brightness setting is greyed out. It is a tad bright but the blacks are quite black.
I'm curious as to how dual displays will play out with HDR on one, and not the other, but that will have to wait for another weekend.