- Overall
The Aorus CV27Q combines an immersive screen with competitive-grade speeds and the brand’s signature touch to bring you a unique gaming monitor. This model sits a tier lower than the excellent Aorus AD27QD when it comes to pricing, but it still includes the Tactical Display features found on the latter. Let’s find out if the Aorus CV27Q can offer a surprisingly good overall performance which matters more than anything else
Aorus CV27Q Specifications
- Screen Size: 27 Inches
- Resolution:2560 x 1440 QHD
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Panel Technology: Vertical Alignment (VA)
- Refresh Rate: 165Hz
- Response Time: 4 ms
- Contrast Ratio: 3000:1 (Static)
- Brightness: 400 cd/m²
- Speakers: No
- Stand: Height -Yes
- Stand: Tilt – Yes
- Stand: Swivel – Yes
- Stand: Pivot – Yes
- VESA Compatibility: Yes (100 x 100)
- Connectivity: HDMI 0x 2, DisplayPort 1.4 x 1, USB 3.0 x 3, 3.5mm Jack x 2
- Dimensions (W x H x D): 24.17” x 20.95” x 10.24”
- Weight: 15.43 lbs
Design and Features
The Aorus CV27Q takes a simpler aesthetic approach than the AD27QD without forgetting about the brand’s gaming DNA. The monitor sports a clean, black chassis that doesn’t look over-aggressive, but timeless. The display area is bezel-free on three sides, so you don’t have to worry about plasticky distractions while enjoying your game.
Build quality for the Aorus CV27Q is, as expected, excellent thanks to its premium finishes and materials. There are no noticeable cosmetic defects on the body such as uneven seams, gaps, or unpolished edges. The device feels solid even if its lighter than some models we’ve held, so you shouldn’t worry about breakages with regular use.
The rear part of the Aorus CV27Q’s chassis has noticeable decorative enhancements that the aesthetically meticulous will love. The brushed accents are a nice add-on, but what stands out is the pair of RGB strips shaped into wings. You can control only control this feature with Gigabyte’s RGB Fusion to change the colors and themes.
The Aorus CV27Q comes equipped with a bevy of extra features, so accessing them can be a pain for some. Thankfully, there is a centrally-located OSD joystick right under the bottom bezel. Navigating the various sub-menus is a breeze, plus it’s great that you don’t have to fumble and press the wrong button while playing in the dark.
There is also a good number of connectivity options on the Aorus CV27Q’s connectivity panel. You get dual HDMI 2.0 slots and DisplayPort 1.4 for inputs and a trio of USB 3.0 slots for accessories and peripherals. There is also a headphone and mic input on the rear which has a specialized noise cancellation feature that comes in handy when your audio gets fuzzy.
You also get a fully-adjustable stand that lets you tilt, swivel, and adjust the height according to your needs. The boomerang-shaped base provides excellent stability, but it does eat up a lot of space. You can, of course, swap this part out with a VESA mount, but we feel that it’s only necessary if you are planning on a triple head setup.
Display and Performance
The Aorus CV27Q sports a 27-inch VA panel with a 2560 x 1440 resolution, 165Hz refresh rate, and 4ms response time which can be boosted to 1ms. The backlight hits 400 cd/m2 while the contrast is rated at 3000:1 as expected from a VA Panel. The display has a sharper 1500r curve which makes it seem that it wraps around you and covers your peripherals.
QHD is a perfect fit for 27-inch monitors since the PPI is higher than the usual, but the screen isn’t overly sharp. Games look clean enough to not need anti-aliasing, but you also won’t require scaling to read a wall of text. The tangible benefits of a curved screen also start at this size, making the Aorus CV27Q a very attractive proposition.
The Aorus CV27Q’s VA panel produces excellent color coverage which slightly exceeds 100% of the sRGB gamut and around 88% for DCI-P3. This gives the monitor a slight visual upgrade when HDR is active since there is an added color-pop that gamers will appreciate. Color accuracy needs some improvement since the default DeltaE reached 3.05, but I can be tweaked down to 2.25 if you have a colorimeter.
Color temperature is also cooler than the ideal 6500K, but we don’t think the slight bluish tint on whites is annoying. In fact, it lessens the warmth which many dislike while working on documents or browsing. Gamma sits at 2.3 by default and 2.26 when calibrated, so there was really nothing the colorimeter could do to improve it.
The contrast ratio on the Aorus CV27Q is very strong, reaching as much as 3900:1 if brightness is set to around 30%. The screen’s black luminance is also at a superb level, giving us the inky blacks and excellent visibility in dark scenes from titles such as Control. HDR mode also gives a noticeable pump to this characteristic which is considerably noticeable compared to other pseudo-HDR monitors out in the market.
You can’t compare this monitor’s HDR performance to top-tier monitors like the PG27UQ obviously since it doesn’t have a FALD backlight installed. We think that’s the only real weakness of DisplayHDR 400 monitors since many of them can provide upgraded colors. But then again, FALD units will surely quadruple the price of this monitor which will stray it away from its target market.
Another aspect of the Aorus CV27Q which could concern some users is its mixed panel uniformity. The corners have some shifts in color and contrast which become noticeable when you view a black image or some very dark scenes. This can change between unit to unit, so make sure you can return yours if it suffers from very bad clouding issues.
The Aorus CV27Q’s pixel responsiveness is quite good once you’ve engaged its overdrive feature. Setting the Aim Stabilizer feature to its Speed setting cleans up the blurs and ghosting born out of the VA panel’s characteristics. However, some blurs and artifacts will still persist, but we think its forgivable since you get richer colors and amazing contrast levels in exchange.
The Aorus CV27Q is a FreeSync 2 gaming monitor, but it also works with G-Sync compatibility for Nvidia GPU users. This capability is excellent to have both Nvidia and AMD have very capable cards for a monitor like this. Input lag, on the other hand, sits at 13ms via the HDMI slot, making the monitor responsive enough for most types of play.
Thoughts on the Aorus CV27Q
The Aorus CV27Q is an excellent 1440p monitor if you are after a feature-rich and well-designed package that doesn’t disappoint. The curved screen produces attractive visuals despite a few innacuracies, while the monitor’s signature features add a layer of improvement for your gaming needs. This model has a noticeably better HDR performance compared to its competitors making it even better at immersive gaming.
There still are some flaws such as the Aorus CV27Q’s panel uniformity and the expected weaknesses of VA panels. Input lag is also slightly higher than most, but we don’t think the majority will notice the difference. Over all, this product is a solid upgrade if you want to step up to 1440p and its a more practical choice than the AD27QD.
About the Author:
Paolo is a gaming veteran since the golden days of Doom and Warcraft and has been building gaming systems for family, friends, and colleagues since his junior high years. High-performance monitors are one of his fixations and he believes that it’s every citizen’s right to enjoy one. He has gone through several pieces of hardware in pursuit of every bit of performance gain, much to the dismay of his wallet. He now works with Monitornerds to scrutinize the latest gear to create reviews which accentuate the seldom explained aspects of a PC monitor.
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