As 2022 trundles on, more and more high-refresh-rate gaming monitors with 4K resolution are raising the bar. While 4K gaming at high refresh rates used to be a slow, jittery, flickery experience, panel advancements like Rapid IPS are making it smoother and more gorgeous. You may be tempted to overlook plain IPS in favor of the exotic new quantum dot technology seen in displays like the $1,299.99 Alienware 34 QD-OLED and the $899.99 MSI Optix MPG321UR-QD. But new entries like the Asus TUF Gaming VG28UQL1A ($799) show us that IPS still has a few tricks left up its sleeve.
TUF Gaming Stays True
The Asus TUF Gaming VG28UQL1A is a 28-inch monitor with UHD (3,840-by-2,160-pixel) resolution and a 144Hz refresh rate, built around a Rapid IPS panel. Though the TUF brand is generally associated with Asus' budget-friendly monitors, gaming laptops, and accessories, the use of Rapid IPS brings the VG28 well into midrange pricing for a 4K gaming monitor.
The VG28UQL1A is mounted on a small, square metal stand with three options for adjustability: a tilt of -5 to 20 degrees, left and right swivel from -15 to 15 degrees, and 4.72 inches of height adjustment. The monitor also pivots 90 degrees between landscape and portrait mode, though we'd recommend looking for something more budget-friendly if you're seeking a second display.
The back of the TUF, characteristically, is minimally styled with no RGB stripes or other flair to decorate the sleek black plastic.
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Along the back right of the display you can access the VG28UQL1A's full set of features, many of them clearly catering to one crowd: console gamers. From the addition of variable-rate refresh (VRR) to Extreme Low Motion Blur (ELMB), many of the available settings are intended to compensate for the lack of customizability in console graphics settings, rather than adding to the experience to which PC gamers have long been accustomed.
Give that this is an ostensible "budget" model among 4K-resolution, high-refresh-rate gaming panels, we were surprised to see how many ports Asus stuffed into this display. The TUF has no fewer than four HDMI ports. (Just how many devices do they think we're hooking up to one display?) Plus, you get two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports, next to a 3.5mm headphone jack for use with the HDMI audio pass-through, as well as a mic-in port and an audio combo jack.
Testing the VG28UQL1A: IPS Hangs TUF
As mentioned, this 4K monitor features a Rapid IPS panel with a native refresh rate of 144Hz. (There's no refresh-rate overclocking support.) We put the TUF Gaming VG28UQL1A through our standard gaming-monitor tests using a SpyderX Elite spectrometer and its companion Datacolor software. Here's what we saw...
Testing the display in its default picture mode with an SDR signal, the panel managed a peak brightness of 310.8 nits (just above its rated 300) and a black level of 0.37 nit, which works out to a contrast ratio of 840:1. That's OK for a gaming monitor, but falls short of Asus' claimed 1,000:1.
HDR testing returned a max brightness of 433.5 nits, again topping the monitor's HDR 400 rating. Time for some color gamut and accuracy runs:
The TUF's results of 100% coverage of the sRGB gamut, 82% of Adobe RGB, and 87% of DCI-P3 (shown above) are well under what we consider the monitor's closest competitor, the MSI Optix MPG321UR-QD. If you want more vivid color for both games and content viewing, the Optix will do a better job for only $100 more.
Coming off those so-so color coverage results, the Asus posted a surprisingly on-point Delta E average of 0.98 in color accuracy testing.
With a bit of tuning, we suspect that teal accuracy could be brought down considerably, making the Asus quite accurate in the right circumstances.
Media and Gaming Performance
With quantitative testing out of the way, we moved onto our subjective content and gaming evaluations. In HDR, our 4K Costa Rica test footage (output at 4K to match the monitor's native resolution) looked fine, but frankly my eyes are still recovering from the beauty that was burned in last week when testing the MSI Optix.
AAA games like Red Dead Redemption 2 looked quite good in both HDR and SDR, though again not as good as the MPG, and the difference was greater than I'd allow for the Asus' $100 lower price. Games like Forza Horizon 5 that support native HDR and Elden Ring, which uses Auto HDR, also looked good but not great.
Speaking of snappiness, we test input lag (the amount of time between when a monitor receives a signal and the screen updates) with an HDFury 4K Diva HDMI matrix. Given a 144Hz test signal, the VG28 proved to be another Rapid IPS panel that hit the limits of our hardware, with lag registering as under 1.95 milliseconds.
Finally, to see how that low input lag felt in action, I tried a few rounds of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Valorant, and Overwatch. It's clear from both this gaming session and my previous one with the MSI Optix that many of the concerns that 1080p and 1440p multiplayer gamers have traditionally had about 4K responsiveness are disappearing. Sure, a 1080p panel with 390Hz refresh will give you a better shot in the rankings than a 144Hz high-res display, but the gap is getting tighter by the year.
Budget Branding Confuses the 4K Issue
The Asus TUF Gaming VG28UQL1A is a bit of an odd duck. Budget-friendly, high-refresh 4K gaming isn't yet a thing, but in terms of discounts, this monitor is technically less costly than other choices in the category that meet the same specs.
But viewing the TUF as a direct competitor to the recent Editors' Choice award-winning MSI Optix MPG321UR-QD, the quantum-dot writing is on the wall. While the MSI Optix is only $100 more for its cutting-edge QD-IPS panel, the Asus is stuck with lower contrast, lower brightness peaks, and overall poorer picture quality.
If your budget has a hard ceiling of $800, the TUF Gaming VG28UQL1A will serve just fine as a snappy, responsive 4K monitor with strong color accuracy. But if you can find the MSI Optix in stock and can spare the extra cash, you'll find it does everything the TUF does but quite a bit better.
While Asus' Rapid IPS-based TUF Gaming VG28UQL1A is a fine gaming monitor, its release is overshadowed by the latest quantum-dot panels.
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