I’ve been gaming on a 27-inch 4K OLED monitor for the past week, and it’s glorious

A 27-inch 4K OLED gaming monitor is a big deal. Samsung just announced its own version, and we’ll likely see more at CES. Based on what Asus has told me, I’m one of only a few reviewers who’ve been gaming on one of these new monitors for the past week or so. I’m talking about the Asus ROG Swift PG27UCDM, and the sharpness it brings is incredible to play on.

But before I continue gushing — a caveat.

This isn’t a full review of the monitor. This is a preproduction unit — it literally arrived at my door in an unmarked white box — so there still could be changes. Asus tells me that just about everything is set in stone as far as the hardware goes, but I’m not doing extensive brightness or color testing just yet. I’ll give you some impressions, but there’s a good chance Asus will have a firmware update or two between now and when the monitor actually releases, so I don’t want to lead anyone astray.

But even with that caveat, the ROG Swift PG27UCDM is shaping up to be one of the best gaming monitors you can buy based on the one I’ve seen so far.

An exciting form factor

Let’s address the “world’s first” claim here right away. I first heard about this panel last year at CES, but at the time, it wasn’t available in any monitors. Now, it is, and the panel is a combination of different form factors and features that we’ve seen on other monitors up to this point.

It’s a 4th-gen QD-OLED panel from Samsung Display. It’s a continuation of the generation of displays we’ve seen over the past year, with better panel longevity, according to Samsung. It joins a 27-inch 1440p panel running at 360Hz, which I saw on the Alienware 27 QD-OLED, and a 32-inch 4K panel running at 240Hz, which showed up on the MSI MPG 321URX. This one splits the difference with a 4K resolution, 27-inch size, and 240Hz refresh rate.

This isn’t some crazy new milestone in the world of OLED gaming monitors, but it’s a panel that I know a lot of folks have been asking for. I still think a 32-inch monitor is the best size for 4K, at least from a pixel density perspective, but there are a lot of reasons to want a 27-inch display with a 4K resolution.

You’re getting higher pixel density, for starters, but more importantly, 27 inches just makes more sense in some cases. Maybe you don’t have a lot of extra desk space, or maybe you play a lot of competitive games where smaller screen sizes are more manageable. Or maybe you just prefer a 27-inch monitor. Regardless, this kind of display, despite not being revolutionary, hasn’t existed before.

And it works. You’re getting a density of 166 pixels per inch, which is extremely sharp. It’s really hard to overstate the difference in sharpness between 4K on a 32-inch monitor and 4K on a 27-inch monitor, but let me try. Think of when you wake up on the weekend and step outside for the first time. Your eyes adjust, you look up and see the trees, and they look impossibly sharp. You can see the individual branches and leaves, even way up in the air, and it feels hyperrealistic. That’s the best way I can think to describe what it’s like using the PG27UCDM for the first time.

I spent most of my time with the monitor playing Path of Exile 2 because I’m hopelessly addicted to it, and it looks incredible. Especially with a game like this, it’s almost like there’s too much detail to fit on this size of a screen all at once, but somehow, it works.

A new feature set for 2025

Thankfully, this isn’t just a new panel. Asus actually has a lot of extra goodies to make this display feel like a monitor worthy of being an early 2025 release. First, you’re getting the full array of features that we’ve seen from Asus over the past year. That includes the expansive OLED Care Pro feature set, as well as Asus’ Extreme Low Motion Blur, or ELMB.

That’s the name Asus uses for Black Frame Insertion, or BFI. Basically, this inserts a black frame between each refresh for better motion clarity, particularly at lower frame rates like when you play on a console. ELMB actually wasn’t working on my preproduction unit, though previous Asus displays like the ROG Swift PG32UCDM have come with some severe limitations on the feature, including a locked 120Hz refresh rate, no HDR, and low brightness.

You also get Asus’ Display Widget Center, so you can control all of the aspects of the monitor with your keyboard and mouse, and Asus even packed in a new automatic firmware update feature for the display — very handy. Finally, you get Dolby Vision and HDR10 support, which you can toggle in the on-screen display (OSD).

That’s all expected, but there are some new things here, too. The most interesting is what Asus calls the Neo Proximity Sensor, which picks up whenever you’re close to the screen. Basically how this works is that the screen will automatically shut itself off when you’re not sitting in front of it after 1, 5, or 10 minutes. When you return, the screen automatically wakes itself back up.

And it works flawlessly. You can set a maximum distance, or set it to dynamic distance if you’re prone to rocking back and forth in your chair like I am. Regardless, the screen returned within no more than a second or two every time I sat down at the monitor. I really do love this feature, and I hope it’s something Asus carries forward in its other gaming displays.

Also new is DisplayPort 2.1. Yes, Asus finally has a gaming monitor with DisplayPort 2.1, and with the full 80 Gbps signal so you can run 4K at 240Hz without Display Stream Compression (DSC).

It joins two HDMI 2.1 ports, along with a USB-C input with 90 watts of power delivery. Those aren’t new, but they’re good to note nonetheless. As usual, Asus includes a USB hub built into the display with three USB ports. I’m not sure what kind of USB ports these are, actually, but if the PG32UCDM is anything to go by, they should be USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports.

I already said I’m not allowed to give hard numbers yet, and you probably wouldn’t want those anyway given that there will be some firmware tweaks before release. But I’ll say this much. I did some preliminary color and brightness testing, and things are looking very good. That really shouldn’t come as a surprise, though. I’ve reviewed a ton of Asus OLEDs at this point, and they’re kind of the cream of the crop when it comes to brightness and color accuracy.

An exciting start to 2025

The PG27UCDM is already a fantastic start to 2025 for gaming monitors. I suspect it won’t be the “world’s first” for long, but that really doesn’t matter. This display is incredibly sharp, and it’s the perfect showcase of how Asus continues to evolve the feature set on its monitors beyond the standard fare.

One big lingering question for me is pricing, however, especially in the face of the PG32UCDM and similar 32-inch 4K OLEDs that we’ve seen over the past year. They’ve fallen from around $1,300 to $1,000 or even $900 in some cases, so I really don’t have high hopes for the PG27UCDM if it’s over $1,000. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Although I still prefer a 32-inch display at 4K, the PG27UCDM is definitely challenging my position. It’s been great playing Path of Exile 2 and Marvel Rivals on the smaller display, taking in all of the details I need to at once. I don’t prefer it for those more cinematic experiences like Silent Hill 2, but to each their own. Regardless of preference, there’s no denying this is one impressive gaming monitor.