MSI Optix MPG27CQ WHQD 144hz Curved Monitor Review

Testing & Methodology

Hardware

For the bulk of the visual testing, we will be using the Datacolor Spyder 5 Elite. A great piece of hardware that sits on the face of the monitor to analyse essential technical attributes of the panel.

Here you can see the testing setup deployed for each monitor review:

• Motherboard – Gigabyte AORUS Gaming 9
• CPU – Intel Core i9-7900X
• RAM – Crucial DDR4 2400MHz Quad-Channel 32GB
• CPU Cooler – Noctua D15S with dual fans
• Graphics Card – Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti
• Power Supply – BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 850 Watt
• Main Storage Drive – Toshiba OCZ VX500 500GB
• Chassis – Lian Li T80 Test Bench
• Operating System – Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit

Software

• Datacolor Spyder 5 Elite bundled software
  • Colour Gamut
  • Brightness levels
  • Contrast Ratios
  • Colour uniformity
  • Brightness Uniformity
  • Colour Accuracy

Testing monitors can be very subjective to personal tastes, so a written analysis is not the best way to convey the results. By using the Spyder 5 Elite, the bundled software allows us to use visual graphs to analyse the results. The tests will be taken at two key settings, calibrated and uncalibrated. Uncalibrated is the ‘out-of-the-box’ scenario, which is typically what most users tend to use as entering the screen settings can seem rather daunting. Calibrated tests will be taken after finding the optimal settings through tests with the Spyder 5 Elite. These are, in testing scenarios, the best possible settings for the monitor and for the user; however, you might find a different setting to be better for you.