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00:00Hi guys welcome back to the Tech Chap. Now I'm fortunate enough to have two of the
00:05best monitors you can buy right now sitting on my desk. We've got the Asus
00:09PG27HQ and the PG279Q. They're both 27 inches 2560 by 1440 and support
00:17high refresh rates. We've got 144 and 165 Hertz respectively and also they both
00:22support G-Sync and NVIDIA 3D Vision. The main difference though is the type of
00:25panel they use. On the left the 279Q uses an IPS or in-plane switching panel
00:30whereas on the right the 278Q uses a TN or twisted pneumatic panel. So with
00:35both monitors set to the same brightness contrast and color settings let's start
00:39with the differences in color. You can see the TN on the right has a sort of
00:43cooler pinkish tint perhaps to the whites whereas the IPS on the left
00:46produces a more natural warmer white. With Photoshop open there is a marked
00:50difference between the gray colors with the IPS producing darker more uniform
00:54colors compared to the slightly washed out grays of the TN. If we take a look at
00:58the picture of the mountain landscape and if you focus on the sky at the top
01:01the difference is quite noticeable. They are producing very different shades of
01:05blue. But which is correct? Which is more accurate? Well surprisingly both of these
01:09monitors have true 8-bit panels which means they can both display up to 16.7
01:14million colors. This is actually quite rare for a TN panel as most only have a
01:186-bit color depth and use a technology called frame rate control or dithering
01:22to simulate more colors and match the depth of true native 8-bit panels. So
01:26with an 8-bit panel the PG27HQ is one of the best TN monitors you can buy and
01:31it also means we're getting a good proper fair comparison between a great
01:34TN and a great IPS monitor. However it also means that since most TNs aren't as
01:38good as this one and do use 6-bit panels and dithering there will be a bigger
01:42difference a bigger gap if you will in color accuracy and quality between those
01:46TNs and a good IPS. Now according to the guys at TFT central who have fancy
01:51spectrophotometers and colorometers and things both monitors are excellent in
01:55terms of color accuracy but surprisingly the TN model scored better with an
01:59almost perfect sRGB color score which is incredible for a TN monitor and even
02:03beat the IPS which was a few percent out of the gamma and Kelvin targets. So
02:08what's going on here if both monitors are excellent why can we still see a
02:11difference in the color? Well let's look at the contrast ratio which is the
02:14difference between the darkest black and the whitest white that the monitor can
02:18produce. Now Asus claim that both monitors can produce a 1000 to 1 static
02:23contrast ratio but we can't take their word for it. So in tests at 50% brightness
02:27we found that the IPS one actually had a contrast ratio of 1129 to 1 versus 994
02:33to 1 on the TN. So the IPS does have a better contrast and therefore can
02:37produce deeper blacks and richer whites. In Fallout 4 for example you can see the
02:41IPS on the left looks much better with deeper blacks and greater contrast
02:44compared to the slightly more washed out flat look of the TN. So while
02:48contrast is one difference the bigger issue is with the viewing angles. While
02:52the PG278Q here is excellent like all TN monitors it does suffer from pretty
02:56terrible viewing angles. So in order to film this TN versus IPS comparison I
03:00positioned the camera between the two monitors which are sat side by side but
03:04even that was far enough away from the center of the TN monitor to distort the
03:07colors. But if you're sitting in the perfect sweet spot looking straight on
03:10at the TN it's fine but any deviation to the side you know above or below you
03:15either get pinky purple or yellow hues and you lose all that color accuracy.
03:19Just look at this.
03:35But what does it really matter if it's yellow from the side or purple from the
03:39top? That's not really where you look at it normally. Well of course it's a bigger
03:41issue if you've got a TN display on a laptop or a tablet since they are mobile
03:45devices and you're going to like more likely view them from different angles
03:48but on a desktop monitor you're pretty much always going to sit dead center of
03:51it anyway. But if you do look at it a few degrees off center it really does alter
03:54the color quite significantly. So I think most creative professionals and
03:58photo and video editors will want to stay clear of TN panels. For everyone
04:02else though assuming you do sit right in front of it and you do buy a good
04:05quality TN monitor like this one it can still look great particularly in games.
04:09If the TN and the IPS weren't side by side I think you'd struggle to see the
04:13difference. So we've established we can have color accurate TN models even if
04:16the 8-bit TN panels are a bit rare but their viewing angles do let them down.
04:20But there is more to the story though. What about response times? One of the
04:23biggest selling points of TN monitors is they have a lower or shorter response
04:28time which is how long it takes for a display's pixel to go from either black
04:31to white or more commonly gray to gray which is described as G2G. Companies will
04:35claim a monitor like the PG278Q here has a one millisecond response time and
04:40of course shorter response times help reduce things like ghosting which is
04:43particularly obvious in fast-paced games where you see blur on moving objects. But
04:48what companies rarely tell you is the monitor's input lag which is also known
04:51as the signal processing delay which is basically the delay between clicking a
04:54mouse or pressing a button on the keyboard and seeing what you've
04:58pressed happen on the screen. This is what gives you the feel of lag
05:01rather than the potential ghosting effect you get with longer response
05:04times. The trouble is though monitors could have super fast one millisecond
05:08response times but a relatively high 20 maybe 30-40 millisecond input lag for
05:12example. So you need to know both times to get a good idea of how responsive the
05:16monitor is going to be. Tests have shown that this TN monitor actually had a
05:19combined response time and input lag of about four milliseconds where
05:23surprisingly the IPS had a lower combined lag of 3.25 milliseconds. But
05:28even though the IPS appears to be slightly faster in this combined test in
05:31reality you really couldn't tell the difference between these two monitors.
05:35You just simply wouldn't be able to tell the difference between three or four
05:37milliseconds it's too insignificant. But remember these are two of the best
05:41monitors you can buy and obviously every monitor is different so if you're on the
05:45fence between IPS and TN and you're worried that going for the IPS will
05:48result in more lag or more ghosting just do a little research and check what the
05:52monitor's real-world average response time is and importantly the input lag is
05:56before you come to a decision. One issue that does plague IPS monitors though is
06:00what they call backlight bleed or IPS glow which is often seen in the corners
06:04of the monitor. It can be anything from sort of just a trivial little bit of
06:08light in the corners to a full-on distracting brightness all around the
06:12screen. It's a bit of a lottery as well because you could buy the same one twice
06:15and one has really bad light bleed one has almost none it's sort of a issue
06:18with the manufacturing process. There are lots of benefits to IPS monitors but
06:21backlight bleed is something you just have to put up with for now at least it
06:24just comes with the technology. Now let's round this up by talking about the
06:27features and prices. One of the big reasons to go with a TN is you can get
06:32models that support 120 and even 144 Hertz refresh rates. This makes
06:36everything from opening files on a desktop to playing games feel faster and
06:39look way smoother. If you've ever used a high refresh monitor and gone back to a
06:43basic 60 Hertz one after you know it's a pretty big difference. The good news
06:46though is that IPS monitors have caught up so now there's a decent amount of
06:50high refresh IPS monitors too like this one. The Asus PG279Q is IPS and
06:56supports up to 165 Hertz refresh rate which puts the 144 Hertz on the TN here
07:01to shame although you couldn't really tell the difference between that. It's
07:04not just refresh rates either the IPS monitor also supports G-Sync and Nvidia
07:073D Vision just like its TN brother so we don't have to choose between a boring
07:12old professional 60 Hertz IPS monitor or a gamer focused high refresh rate G-Sync
07:17TN monitor anymore. We can get the best of both worlds for a price. As I say the
07:22Asus rep told me that these monitors are sold side by side. The 9Q isn't
07:25necessarily the sequel to the 8Q and even though there are some cosmetic
07:29changes the 9Q has a 21 Hertz faster high refresh rate and it's also got
07:35built-in speakers. Aside from that they're basically identical. The biggest
07:38difference is that the 9Q is IPS and the 8Q is TN. So what's the price
07:43difference? How much extra are we paying for IPS? Well right now on Amazon the TN
07:46model is about £520 or $675 whereas the IPS is £695 or $800. Is it really
07:54worth paying an extra £175 or $125 for IPS? Well that's up to you. In fact the
08:00idea of paying £520 in the first place even for the TN monitor is probably
08:04kind of ridiculous for most people anyway. But for me though if I was going
08:07to spend that sort of money I would probably bite the bullet and go for the
08:10top-end 279Q for the IPS display because I use my monitors for work and
08:15for gaming so I do appreciate IPS when it comes to video editing and color
08:20correcting and photos. But what about you? Let me know in the comments where you
08:23stand on the IPS vs TN debate and whether you'd pay the extra to get an
08:27IPS monitor. So I hope you found this TN vs IPS comparison with the ASUS PG278Q
08:32and the ASUS PG279Q if I can get my long-winded monitor names out
08:38the way. I hope you found it useful. You can find links to both these monitors in
08:41the description below. Thank you very much for watching guys. Please do like
08:44and subscribe and I'll catch you again right here on the Tech Chap.