is a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys. He spent 15 years editing the likes of CNET, Gizmodo, and Engadget.
We might have a new king of esports gaming monitors — one with fewer compromises than usual. Asus has just announced the ROG Swift OLED PG27AQWP-W at Gamescom 2025. Not only does it offer a 26.5-inch 2560 x 1440 QHD OLED screen at a blazing-fast 540Hz, it’s also a dual-mode panel that can switch to a practically unheard-of 720Hz refresh rate when you kick the graphics down to 1080p* resolution.
Asus may not technically have the fastest monitor ever made, as both Koorui and HKC have announced 750Hz 1080p monitors, but both of those have TN panels that won’t even begin to compete on color, brightness, and viewing angles. They’re from brands we don’t typically see in western countries, and neither lets you switch to higher resolution when you don’t need all the speed.
Image: Asus
Meanwhile, the Asus isn’t just OLED — it’s a tandem OLED panel that should dramatically boost HDR brightness and allegedly improve lifespan. It’s also got a glossy coating that could make its colors even more vibrant and its blacks even blacker than OLED tech can already afford, assuming you’re not playing in a room with glare (though Asus claims the coating minimizes glare “even in bright rooms.”)
Image: Asus
Here’s the part where I’d normally say “who needs 540Hz let alone 720Hz? Have you done the math and seen the diminishing returns?” Instead, I’m too busy gaping at Asus’ stunning new silver and translucent plastic design. Clear gadgets are near and dear to my heart, after all, and the skeletal silver really makes it stand out in a sea of black-framed panels.
Image: Asus
Unfortunately, we don’t have pricing or a release date yet, and I suspect it’ll cost a pretty penny because Asus chose that groundbreaking panel and did all that work to set it apart. Seeing more OLED monitor prices come down to earth would excite me even more than a new flagship like this.
Also, I would prefer a smaller stand to the huge three-blade propeller, but unfortunately, Asus does make you compromise to get that. The company’s also introducing a new ROG Strix OLED XG27AQWMG today with the same tandem OLED tech, but as you can see in the one-pager below, it’s a 280Hz panel that still relies on either HDMI 2.1 or DisplayPort 1.4’s DSC compression, rather than the flagship’s new DisplayPort 2.1a which boasts 80Gbps of bandwidth.
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