First 1440p 240hz monitor! Lenovo Y27gq

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Vega
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Re: First 1440p 240hz monitor! Lenovo Y27gq

Post by Vega » 15 Oct 2019, 12:11

Ya read those 1ms "IPS" have atrocious contrast ratio. You are also right on the "dark boost" setting, seems pretty worthless on the Lenovo.

BlurBoss
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Re: First 1440p 240hz monitor! Lenovo Y27gq

Post by BlurBoss » 15 Oct 2019, 13:23

Honestly, out of all the monitors I've tested (including 144 Hz 4K IPS) Lenovo Y27gq-25 showed the best picture quality! It shows as little motion blur as 1080p 0.5 ms screens (without ULMB). The most pleasant monitor to game on!
BenQ XL2546, i9-9900K @ 5.0 GHz, RTX 2080 Ti, 32GB (2 x 16GB) 3200 MHz CL14 RAM, Asrock Z390 Phantom Gaming-ITX/ac.

Methanhydrat
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Re: First 1440p 240hz monitor! Lenovo Y27gq

Post by Methanhydrat » 17 Oct 2019, 14:16

I am on the edge of giving this one a try, but I have heard a lot of bad things about the fan noise. It would be great if one of you could elaborate on that. I am not crazy sensitive to this kind of thing, but it would definitely be hard choice for me if it is too loud.

Also, how does this compare in terms of colors and contrast to the better IPS panels, for example the Asus ROG PG279Q, which I have right now? I read somewhere that the Y27gq is not too bad for a TN panel.

BlurBoss
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Re: First 1440p 240hz monitor! Lenovo Y27gq

Post by BlurBoss » 17 Oct 2019, 16:05

I can't hear the fan when my mITX desktop is turned on, the monitor is less noisy than my Corsair H100i v2. However, when I turn off my desktop, the fan is still running and that is very annoying. I read on LTT forum that some guy was able to remove that behavior by turning on Deep Sleep mode in OSD, but mine came with Deep Sleep enabled anyway. The monitor also come with 135W power supply which is a lot for a monitor, even 2 times bigger Samsung C49RG90SSI pulls 100W.
I never seen Asus ROG PG279Q, but had similar Aorus AD27QD for a week and it actually looked worse than Lenovo Y27GQ-25. Also Lenovo has MUCH better motion handling, so the result is all the games are more enjoyable, at least for me.

I can also spot enemies with this monitor faster than on other eSports monitors, due to high brightness, contrast and resolution.
BenQ XL2546, i9-9900K @ 5.0 GHz, RTX 2080 Ti, 32GB (2 x 16GB) 3200 MHz CL14 RAM, Asrock Z390 Phantom Gaming-ITX/ac.

Vega
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Re: First 1440p 240hz monitor! Lenovo Y27gq

Post by Vega » 17 Oct 2019, 16:51

The fan noise is over-rated IMO. I mean if you are in a dead silent room you may be able to pick it up. My fan turns off just fine after my computer shuts down and the monitor has been in sleep mode for a bit.

Methanhydrat
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Re: First 1440p 240hz monitor! Lenovo Y27gq

Post by Methanhydrat » 18 Oct 2019, 15:01

This sounds very intriguing. Since motion clarity is the main thing I am after, I just ordered the monitor and will try it out hopefully within the next few days. Thank you both for the clarification.

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Re: First 1440p 240hz monitor! Lenovo Y27gq

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 18 Oct 2019, 16:17

BlurBoss wrote:Honestly, out of all the monitors I've tested (including 144 Hz 4K IPS) Lenovo Y27gq-25 showed the best picture quality! It shows as little motion blur as 1080p 0.5 ms screens (without ULMB). The most pleasant monitor to game on!
Not surprised!

I was damn impressed at Lenovo when I saw the Y27gq.

At CES 2019, the 1440p TN 0.5ms 240Hz was one of the best TN panels I had laid my eyes on. It even looked preferable to some of the lesser-quality IPS panels I've played on, well within the venn diagram of IPS/TN quality overlap. The Lenovo is a specimen worthy of mythbusting the the bad name of TN.

Glad you seem to agree!
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Re: First 1440p 240hz monitor! Lenovo Y27gq

Post by A Solid lad » 19 Oct 2019, 05:27

That's nice to hear Chief!
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Methanhydrat
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Re: First 1440p 240hz monitor! Lenovo Y27gq

Post by Methanhydrat » 20 Oct 2019, 09:51

For a TL;DR jump to the conclusion at the bottom.

I got the monitor yesterday and spent a decent amount of time trying it out in several different games. I could only get the variant with speakers and paid roughly a 1000 Euros, including VAT. Below are my initial impressions. Please bear in mind that because this is my first modern TN panel, I cannot really say anything about the difference to other high-end monitors with low response times. Also, even though I would consider myself an enthusiast, I am by no means up-to-date on all the technical aspects of current panels. So expect this to be a less technical and more practical description.

I will primarily compare the monitor to the ASUS ROG PG279Q, which I have used for the past few years.

Unboxing And Assembly

The monitor came in a very simple brown box, as they are typical for many Lenovo products. I found it kind of pleasant that they completely refrained from using all typical hallmarks that are usually present everywhere to show that something is indeed a Gaming product made for serious Gamers. This is also true for the monitor itself, which has a very nice simple and sleek design. The build quality is also excellent. While other monitors like the PG279Q often have stands made out of a lot of plastic, the Y27GQ comes with a sturdy metal one, which makes this thing stand rock solid on the desk. Unfortunately, the stand is so big, that I had to move the monitor back a little, because it didn't quite work with my previous setup.

The assembly was simple and included nothing out of the ordinary. I would like it though, if more manufactures would use an approach similar to the PG279Q, where the monitor can be stored in the box without the need for any assembly at all.

Setup

I initially had some trouble getting the colors to not look weird. The original configuration was too bright for my taste and showed a somewhat washed out image. I then tried the "Relative Gamma" setting with a value of +0.3, which brought the image a lot closer to the PG279Q. I am pretty sure this is still not optimal yet and with a little bit more tuning may even surpass the ASUS monitor in terms of colors. This was the point where I definitely wished that there was a proper review with recommended settings, done by people who know what they are doing. For the PG279Q I just used a tweaked set of settings from the TFTCentral review and it looked great.

The OSD is controlled by the typical four buttons in front of the bezel, which are definitely a lot more fiddly to use than the little joystick on the back of the PG279Q. Although you usually don't use the OSD that much after the initial setup anyway, it still is a step down from the ASUS monitor in this regard.

Another problem was that Windows did not provide a proper driver for the monitor out of the box and instead detected it as a 'Generic PnP Monitor', which prevented G-Sync from being turned on in the Nvidia control panel. Contrary to the PG279Q, where the usage of G-Sync is shown by the red power LED, with the Y27GQ you have ensure that the the OSD indeed shows 'Nvidia G-SYNC MODE' instead of 'Normal Mode'. However, this was easily fixed by manually installing the official driver from the Lenovo page here.

Game Impressions

After fixing the colors, the first game I tried was Quake Live, and yes, this is a new level of smooth! Playing it at a perfectly capped frame rate close to 240 is just an awesome experience. The PG279Q is already a great monitor, but here you can clearly see the differences in reaction time and refresh rate. Where before on fast turns enemies would turn into a green blur, now they remain crisp and clearly distinguishable from the background. As great as it is, I have to stress though, that for a game with simple visuals, such as Quake, there really is no "magical" experience. If you already have a decent 144hz monitor, you can somewhat extrapolate what you would get with the Y27GQ.

Another game that I was really looking forward to try out was Rainbow Six: Siege. Because I didn't get to upgrade my CPU yet, I have this currently locked to 120 FPS and I was really curious to see how much games benefit from the faster panel when not taking advantage of the 240hz refresh rate. And damn, this is where it is obvious that the quality differences are not just because of the higher refresh rate of the Y27GQ alone. Since there is a lot more graphical detail in Siege compared to Quake, the difference in clarity is much more apparent. Textures, objects and enemies that used to be blurry when running and peeking around corners are now crisp and easy to distinguish from the environment. It is also way easier to follow what is going on when multiple things happen at the same time. Additionally, the game also feels a lot smoother, despite running on the same frame rate as before. Overall, this is a significant improvement both from a visual as well from a gameplay point of view.

I also tested multiple other games, which showed a similar improvement in quality.

Just out of curiosity, I also tried a little bit of Ion Fury. Funnily enough, the modified Build engine of that game has trouble maintaining a stable frame rate above 170 on my system. I want to say that even this kind of game benefits from the screen, because it makes the pixel art style more clear, but to be honest I am not sure without having a direct comparison. But it definitely also looked great.

The Speakers

I didn't pay much attention to the speakers at all before ordering and expected them to be integrated ones, similar to many other monitors. However, the speakers are actually part of a separate module, which has a gap in the middle so it can be assembled to the bottom of the stand. Using the module is entirely optional and the package also includes a cap to close the top opening, so the module can be used as a stand-alone. Contrary to what I assumed, the module does not use the DP or HDMI audio signal, instead it has to be connected to the monitor, which then has to be connected to the PC via USB. This is because the module is actually a dedicated USB sound card, including a headphone jack.

Since the speakers of most monitors, including the ones from the PG279Q, are usually terrible, I was kind of astonished to find out that these ones are actually quite decent and deliver clear audio up to a comparatively high volume, albeit being a little weak on the bass side. This was a very pleasant surprise, since there are some occasions from time to time where I can't or don't want to use headphones. Whether they are really worth what Lenovo charges extra though is hard to say.

The Fan

Finally, I have to somewhat disagree in regards to the noise of the fan, which for me is clearly noticeable and, in my opinion, is the main downside of the Y27GQ. Even though I don't have a silent setup, it definitely exceeds the noise of my PC when on the desktop. If you are a person that is sensitive to noise, this might be a deal breaker for you.

However, when gaming, the noise actually blends in with everything else that is coming from the PC and is much less obvious. Additionally, since the kind of PC that is able to take full advantage of this monitor is difficult to get silent anyway, I think most people interested in it will not be bothered by it too much. Still, I wouldn't might if they were able to mitigate the issue at least a little bit.

Conclusion

I was looking for an upgrade in terms of image clarity and reduction in blurriness, while not losing too much in terms of colors compared to the PG279Q. I also wanted to keep the WQHD resolution, which pretty much ruled out most/all previous monitors in this category, which were usually restricted to 1080p and/or 144hz. In this regard, the Y27GQ is definitely an improvement on all fronts. The fan noise is a bummer, but I think I can live with it considering the benefits of the screen.

BlurBoss
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Re: First 1440p 240hz monitor! Lenovo Y27gq

Post by BlurBoss » 20 Oct 2019, 14:04

Methanhydrat, that's a great review! Thank you very much for that. Lenovo Y27gq-25 is amazing monitor indeed! It doesn't come close to long awaited heavily advertised "1ms" LG 27GL850 in terms of picture quality and motion handling. I'm going to try out Lenovo Y27gq-20 next week. I really miss OSD crosshairs on that monitor and ULMB. Maybe at least future HP Omen X27 would have that? Vega said that they are using the same panel, but I see listings on another site are different:
Lenovo Legion Y27GQ - 27” 1440p 240Hz 0.5ms G-SYNC
HP Omen X27 - 27” 1440p 240Hz 1ms 90% DCI-P3, HDR, FreeSync 2
Methanhydrat, since you play Rainbow Six: Siege at 120 Hz and Quake Live at ~237 Hz (you enabled G-Sync, right?) do you see increased lag in R6 compared to QL? Any disadvantages sticking with 120 Hz mentioned in this thread viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4914 ? Please keep us posted, I would really love to read about your thoughts on the monitor in 1 week, 1 month and 1 year (or 6 months:)).
BenQ XL2546, i9-9900K @ 5.0 GHz, RTX 2080 Ti, 32GB (2 x 16GB) 3200 MHz CL14 RAM, Asrock Z390 Phantom Gaming-ITX/ac.

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