OLED monitors and DP2.1 UHBR20

[vnb]

I had the hardest time searching online for a 1440P High Refresh Rate OLED Monitor (480HZ+)

What i was looking for was a DP 2.1 UHBR20 monitor.

Last week, i said fuck it and ordered a MSI MPG271 QR X50 QD-OLED 500Hz monitor and i was pleasantly surprised to see that MSI implementation was top notch.

What do i mean by that? Something that no review EVER MENTION. Let me explain :

So essentially you have a RTX 5000 series? native DP 2.1 UHBR20 everything works as expected, so cool, woohoo! But what about everyone else now? Those that doesn't own a RTX 5000 series?

Let's take for example a 9070XT that does have DP2.1 but limited to UHBR13.5

Well on every OLED monitor i tested so far the monitor will detect that it is not UHBR20 but UHBR13.5 and will immediately revert you to a DP1.4 which is limited to 240Hz NO DSC and forces you to use DSC with anything above 240Hz (still on DP1.4).

Well here comes the GENIUS of MSI that worked around this. Basically the monitor stays on DP2.1 on the 9070 XT (UHBR13.5) and will lower the bits as you go higher in the refresh rate (So 10 bit for anything up to 360Hz, 6 bit for 480Hz, 6 bit for 500Hz, etc) all of this with no DSC!! You still want to have 10 bits on those high refresh rates? no problem you enable DSC and you get 10 bit 500Hz, easy peasy.

While on the ASUS ROG Swift PG27AQWP-W that i returned, you can only enjoy DP2.1 on RTX 5000 series, because it is the only consumer GPU series with native UHBR20. It works like all or nothing. You have DP 2.1 but UHBR13.5 like Radeon 7000 and 9000 series ?
Too bad you will be limited to DP1.4, what a dumbass decision from ASUS man. Then you have Gigabyte with their AORUS FO27Q5P where you can't even disable DSC, lmao wtf...

In summary :

If you disable DSC

on the PG27AQWP-W you can only chose 60Hz, 120Hz, 270Hz
On the MSI MPG271 QR X50 you can chose 60 Hz, 120Hz, 240Hz, 360Hz, 480Hz, 500Hz

Every other OLED monitors on the market acts like the ASUS, what MSI is doing is unique, and no reviewer fucking bother to mention it!

Monitor vendors, please take notes from what MSI is doing.

Peace out.

[Dalek]

Every other OLED monitors on the market acts like the ASUS, what MSI is doing is unique, and no reviewer fucking bother to mention it!

It's a very niche thing that most people won't know about in general. Most people will not notice a difference between DSC on and off.

I haven't tried an A and B test for comparison so I can't speak to it.

What differences have you noticed between DSC on and off?

[vnb]

Every other OLED monitors on the market acts like the ASUS, what MSI is doing is unique, and no reviewer fucking bother to mention it!

It's a very niche thing that most people won't know about in general. Most people will not notice a difference between DSC on and off.

I haven't tried an A and B test for comparison so I can't speak to it.

What differences have you noticed between DSC on and off?

I somehow agree that this is a niche thing that very few people know. Actually, i have never seen 1 single review on the internet where anybody mention this, why? I have read dozens and dozens of reviews and watched a couple dozens videos too -- Literally never mentioned once.

When i bought my ASUS ROG Swift PG27AQWP-W and saw that it was limited to 240Hz 10bit or 270Hz 8 bit with DSC off i thought it was normal, and all monitors are like this. I tested a few Asus, LG and Samsungs OLED Monitors and they were all like this.

It was until i tested the MSI MPG271 QR X50 that i saw the monitor still allow you to be in DP2.1 even with a UHBR13.5 GPU like the 9070XT while every other monitor would simply revert back to DP1.4 because it is not the full bandwidth (UHBR20), thus limiting you to 240Hz with DSC off, what a dumb thing to do...

The weirdest thing is that MSI never mentioned this. It is not mentioned in the manual, nor on the website; imo it should be mentioned because it is a very strong point for someone that wants to avoid DSC.

Also when you throw 1000+ USD on a monitor like the ASUS ROG Swift PG27AQWP-W, it should gives you the maximum array of possibilities, which in this case, it does not... Very sad if you ask me.

Side note : those big tech reviewers, and websites that receive monitors for free from those brands, they should up their game a lil bit and test with multiple type of GPU (not only RTX 5000 series)... lazy bastards!

[Dalek]

It is not mentioned in the manual, nor on the website; imo it should be mentioned because it is a very strong point for someone that wants to avoid DSC.

That's really strange that it hasn't been documented or mentioned. Maybe you are one of the first to discover it. Maybe the MSI model was an intended design, maybe not? Who knows. Either way, a cool discovery. I can't say I've heard of this feature in any other monitor, but I'm happy to be corrected if this isn't anything new.

Side note : those big tech reviewers, and websites that receive monitors for free from those brands, they should up their game a lil bit and test with multiple type of GPU (not only RTX 5000 series)... lazy bastards!

If DSC was a much bigger issue for people then they would probably test it more thoroughly. But unfortunately, because it's so niche, reviewers won't go into depth with such a thing, but that being said - if it's not even mentioned in the manual, the product page/list of features (or really anywhere) then the reviewers probably don't know about it either.

The only thing that's irked me are reviewers downplaying how awful the lack RGB subpixel layout is on OLED monitors - which gave me a lot of eye-strain.

Also when you throw 1000+ USD on a monitor like the ASUS ROG Swift PG27AQWP-W, it should gives you the maximum array of possibilities, which in this case, it does not... Very sad if you ask me.

I agree, the more expensive a monitor is, the better features and options it should have. Sadly you don't always get what you pay for when it comes to paying the top price. That's why competition is great.

[vnb]

The question i have is more like why all monitors fall back to DP 1.4 if you are not using a DP 2.1 UHBR20 capable GPU ?

Radeon 7000 and Radeon 9000 series does have DP 2.1 but UHBR13.5. The only consumer GPU series with UHBR20 are RTX5000 series.

RTX 3000 and RTX 4000 are on DP1.4

So, to me this means that ALL OLED vendors just Program their firmware for Nvidia like this : No UHBR20 detected? -> means not rtx5000 gpu (only nvidia gpu with DP2.1) So let's fall back to DP 1.4 ( RTX 4000, 3000, 2000, etc).

However this move fucks up the people with Radeon 7000 and Radeon 9000 series that DOES HAVE DP2.1 but UHBR13.5

The only OLED Vendor (to my knowledge) that had this figured out is MSI. Because it will not dumbly revert back to DP1.4 if UHBR20 is not detected, like all other OLED monitors....

It will stay on DP2.1 and offer you all the array of possibilities + squeeze as much bandwidth as possible even with a UHBR13.5 GPU.

This is so crazy to me, how a giant like ASUS (#1 Oled vendor by a large margin) hasn’t figured this out yet. HOW????

Just a sad reminder that Panel manufacturers wrote their firmwares just thinking about Nvidia GPUs.