AOC AGON PRO AG324UX Review

The wide variety of gaming monitors is extensive and each one conforms to our specifications as well as our own taste. Playing at high resolutions has a price and I was willing to pay it. On this occasion our friends from AOC have sent us the AGON PRO AG324UX 4K UHD 31.5 Inches at 144Hz.

The family AGON PRO It has an older brother and with a 4K resolution this monitor promises to give the best gaming experience both visually and a bit competitively. Not all 4K monitors support a 144Hz refresh rate and the few that do exist come at an extremely high price. This premium gaming monitor comes to give us an excellent way to see things when playing with its coarse way of being configured and of course its aesthetics.

The 1440p resolution horizontally is the new high-mid-range standard and in reality the demand is much higher at the level of specifications on our PC but we really must know a little more about the terminologies, since we cannot say that 1440p is 2K or what 4K it’s four times larger than 1080p and I’ll explain why.

when we say resolution 2K we refer to screen resolutions that have a horizontal size close to 2,000 pixels. The resolution 2560×1440 pixels it is not 2K itself and it is not twice 1080p, on the contrary 2560×1440 pixels It has been 2.5K (for the 2560 horizontal) compared to the screen size. In the case of our current monitor that is called 4K it’s because the native resolution (3840×2160 pixels) is almost the approximate 4,000 pixels and that is why at a commercial level it is called that way.

Therefore, in the case of 1080p it is not such a bad resolution since it is 1920×1080 pixels, which is then 1.9K, only that the vertical pixels are smaller and the image, so to speak, is too wide, losing its appearance, which makes us see things a little more blurry and lack of sharpness (fewer pixels). This terminology was born thanks to the cinema that in order to create a standard since the films are cut horizontally decided to name the resolutions of this type.

Knowing this little concept, we are going to know the specifications of this monitor and of course see what comes inside this huge box (at the end of this video you can see the unboxing as well):

• Screen Size: 31.5 Inches
• Screen Size: 80cm
• Display style: Flat
• Panel treatment: Anti-glare (AG)
• Panel resolution: 2560×1440 pixels
• Resolution Name: UHD
• Aspect Ratio: 16:9
• Panel Type: IPS
• Nit Brightness: 350
• Backlight Type: WLED
• Refresh Rate: 144Hz
• GTG response time: 1ms
• MPRT response time: 1ms
• Static Contrast Ratio: 1000:1
• Dynamic Contrast Ratio: 80M:1
• Angle of vision (CR10): 178/178
• Display Colors: 1.07 Billion
• HDR: Display HDR 400
• Synchronization Technology: Adaptive Sync (compatible with AMD and NVIDIA)
• HDMI port: 2 HDMI 2.1 ports
• DP Port: 1 DP 1.4 Port
• USB-C port: 1 USB-C port up to 90W

Inside the box comes:

• HDMI: 1 HDMI 2.1 8K Cable
• DP: 1 HDMI Cable DP 1.4 8K
• USB-C to C/A cable
• Power adapter: Yes
• OSD keyboard
• 1 swivel base with logo projection
• manuals

Knowing all these details we go to the most basic. Previously I had my monitor 1440p at 240Hz and I decided to switch to this 4K as my main screen to which many wondered, do you feel the difference? The answer is no, the visual difference between the two resolutions is not a big deal, although it is noticeable as the screen is larger (before it was 27 inches, now 31.5 inches) Yes, it is obvious that the handling of the larger dimensions and of course the colors, because it is a screen with more pixels, is much better.

A larger screen gives many advantages to carry out any task on a day-to-day basis and not only to play, although obviously I know that they also want to know about that. For a long time I played at 1080p resolution, then and more recently I found myself playing at 1440p with the same screen size until I could test 4K or 3840 pixels in front of my eyes. At the time of writing the review there is not the slightest regret at a visual level compared to the previous one, although let’s be honest, the competitive quality decreases not only because I have a lower refresh rate but also because the demand when playing is much higher.

The advantage of this monitor is the 1ms response rate, something that comes at a huge cost on large screen monitors like this and with these resolutions. The mix of pixels and refresh rate makes the monitors even more expensive in addition to the technology that is included. No matter which way you look, performance will always struggle but for this reason I chose to move to a higher resolution as my RTX 4080 GPUs is designed for these high resolutions together with me i9 13900K CPU. This mixture makes the resolution 3840×2160 pixels either 4K easy to handle even in the most resource demanding games.

games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II they have an average demand but when it comes to increasing the rendering and having a higher resolution to feed the performance dropped considerably but nothing compared to the 144Hz that I need to fill. This all really fits together beautifully, games like war simulator Squad (which usually demands a lot) does the same, an average of 120 to 130 fps I can achieve on each map, nothing above what I really have at the refresh rate level but a considerable drop.

Mentioning the video card above, remember that this monitor is compatible with Adaptive Syncwhich means that it also has compatibility with NVIDIA G-Sync so I don’t have to worry about anything. This concept is overrated since really the work of Adaptive Sync It is what its name indicates, adapting to the type of graphics to what really if the game shows us 55 FPS we will see that same amount on our screen, the opposite of AMD Freesync which is obviously designed to work directly with the hardware of AMD and the same goes for NVIDIA.

At the end of the day and during all my tests, both in all the games I have on my PC and even on my PS5 console, I did not find any lag in the images, no “ghosting” in which the image leaves a trace or anything blurry at all. competitive level but quite the opposite, the image was well above my expectations and really the visual experience is superior to playing at 1440p, as I mentioned before the difference is not much but I feel much better also knowing that I am getting the most out of all my hardware

This monitor has built-in 8W speakers with DTS audio, which like my other AOC AGON Pro AG274QG monitor sounds just as clear without any issues overall. In terms of aesthetics, we also have RGB on the back and something that caught my attention is an additional RGB on the lower front that points to our desk. Lately I’m not a fan of lighting on PC except for my keyboard or mouse but I must say that this function is quite attractive and can be modified by the menu that comes with the integrated monitor or by using the AOC software that can be downloaded from the same page. .

Other functions can also be modified in this same software from the PC or the remote control that comes with the monitor. The best mix that exists with this monitor is the IPS screen showing all those colors and the inclusion of HDR 400 which, although I personally don’t use it in most cases when it comes to seeing a good cinematic in a story game falls like ring on the finger The screen is extremely colorful and with all those configuration options, it only remains to say that they give us so many ways to configure everything to our liking together with the comfort of our eyes.

The biggest advantage of this monitor is not all that I have mentioned itself. Those two HDMI 2.1 ports are the ultimate addition to these monitors. The advantage is really extreme and this technology specially designed for current generation consoles (Xbox Series X or PS5) is here to stay. This port is incredible since it allows you to transfer the same resolution that DisplayPort uses on PC but through HDMI. When using the monitor on PS5, you can notice that great change and the full use of the console in general, both visually and at the response time level, which is still the minimum. If you want to know more about this topic, very soon I will write an editorial about the advantages of this type of monitor.

Something important that this monitor brings along with the AOC software called G-Menu is that we can choose a synchronization when running a game so the monitor settings will change according to the visual profile that is configured. Something like the same thing that keyboards do with RGB lighting or the DPI configuration of Gaming Mouse, AOC has the ability to make us choose the profile so that when the game is launched, for example Warzone 2.0, the profile of FPS colors that gives me more clarity to identify the enemies. The same can happen if I decide to watch a video, the profile that helps the visual image for videos to look even better will be chosen and so on.

In conclusion

COC continues showing us that at the level of premium monitors knows how to do its thing and continues to be unsurpassed in terms of the quality of the product on offer. This AGON Pro AG324UX proves that you can combine so many good things without really hurting anything. With a wide range of connection options such as HDMI 2.1, DP 1.4 and a high-powered USB-C along with other fast-charging USB ports, we know that this monitor is ready for anything. Its visual quality makes colors really look as they are, without leaving aside that touch that only a resolution of 3840×2160 pixels can offer us. The 144Hz refresh rate makes me keep the competitive side alive along with the 1ms response time. Finding something wrong with such a perfect monitor would be a crime, but 31.5 inches is the perfect size not only for content creators and gamers, but for anyone who wants to have a good image when gaming. This review was carried out with a copy provided by AOC.