ASUS PB287Q 4K Display Update – The 4K Ultra HD Monitor Gamers Have Been Waiting For?

ASUS showed off the PB287Q 28-inch display with a 4K ultra high definition (UHD) resolution at CES 2014 got some pretty good buzz going when they told the media that it would be out in Q2 for $799 or less. That isn’t really a bad price for a 3840×2160 display with a TN panel, blazing fast 1ms response time and 60Hz refresh rate. We recently got a chance to see this display in person and we still find ourselves impressed with what ASUS has done with this monitor. The ASUS PB287Q should work great as a PC gaming monitor, but we have a feeling that many other business users and prosumers are going to be interested in this display. We love the fact that this display can use a single DisplayPort cable and get 60Hz refresh rates (single stream transport) as it really reduces the tearing you get when gaming.

We were able to run several Ultra HD videos on the display and it looked superb when you were sitting right in front of it and even off at a fairly decent angle. ASUS wouldn’t give us any additional details when we were shown the display, but we know from CES 2014 that it has a 350cd/m2 brightness, built-in 2W stereo speakers, headphone jack, Picture-in-Picture and Picture-by-Picture support, SplendidPlus Video Intelligence technology and HDMI and DisplayPort video inputs.

We were able to fire up GRID 2 and see the ASUS PB287Q and see the monitor strut it’s stuff with a 1ms response time and 60Hz refresh rate. The new display will be able to swivel, tilt, pivot and the usual height adjustment feature. We aren’t sure if there is a VESA mount or not as the back of this panel was not using the finalized housing.

Here is a quick look at the pop up menu and as you can see we were running on a single DisplayPort cable in standard mode at 3840×2160 with a 60Hz refresh rate. You can also see ASUSs exclusive Splendid Plus viewing technology is also present.

This week, Samsung released the 28-inch U28D590D panel, that is interesting due to its relatively low price tag of $699.99 shipped and the fact that it too is a 4K@60Hz display that uses single stream transport (SST). This means that no tiling! It looks like the scaler vendors are finally ready for 4K/60 SST displays and we most certainly are. The auto-stitching MST tiles on the Sharp PN-K321 and ASUS PQ321Q 4K panels were finicky to say the least and we can’t wait to move over to one of these less expensive displays for gaming even though they use TN panels. ASUS didn’t confirm what panel or scaler that they are using on the PB287Q, but if we had to take an educated guess, we’d go with a Novatek scaler and a Chi Mei Optoelectronics (CMO) panel. We also think they will be price competitive with the Samsung U28D590D, so we can’t wait to see what final pricing will be.

ASUS informed us that the PB287Q is still on schedule and will be released very soon. We can’t wait to get this panel to give it a try in our labs!