MSI Announces Optix MPG27C Monitor with PrismSync

[btarunr]

MSI and SteelSeries are proud to announce that thanks to their long-standing technology partnership, the newly launched Optix MPG series curved gaming monitors are now supported by SteelSeries Engine. Using the five RGB zones on the front of the monitor, gamers can easily program lighting effects in the SteelSeries Engine to notify them of in-game timers, stats, cooldowns or even Discord notifications.

Joseph Hsu MSI President said: "The integration of SteelSeries Engine with the Optix MPG Series Curved Gaming Monitors brings PrismSync Illumination and real-time game alerts which offer an even greater level of immersive gameplay." "MSI and SteelSeries are delivering a truly immersive experience to gamers," said SteelSeries CEO, Ehtisham Rabbani said, "SteelSeries is proud of the strong partnership that we continue to build with MSI and we are excited to bring the gaming community new types of immersive technology like this."



he new Optix MPG series will consist of two 27-inch monitors, the Optix MPG27C and Optix MPG27CQ. These mark the next level in MSI gaming monitors with a curved VA panel with an 1800R curve. Both models feature a 144Hz refresh rate and 1ms response time, and the MPG27CQ is equipped with a 1440p WQHD screen, while the MPG27C has a 1080p screen. The MPG27CQ was named a CES 2018 Innovation Award Honoree.

Together with a wide viewing angle of 178 degrees, less blue light and anti-flicker this gaming monitor is tailored for a perfect gaming day or night. The monitors can be swiveled, adjusted in height and tilted. Moreover, if you need a little help when playing games, the monitors even have a built-in FPS sight toggle on screen, so gamers can perfectly hit all of their targets.

Curved Gaming display
MSI's gaming monitors use a curved panel with a curvature rate of 1800R, which is the most comfortable and suitable for a wide range of applications from general computing to gaming. Curved panels also help with gameplay immersion, making you feel more connected to what's happening on screen. Moreover, playing games on multiple curved gaming monitors gives a great panoramic experience.

The smoothest game experience
The MSI Optix MPG series are equipped with a 144hz refresh rate + 1ms response time VA LED panel which has the most benefit in fast moving game genres such as first person shooters, fighters, racing sims, real-time strategy, and sports. These type of games require very fast and precise movements, so with an ultra-high refresh rate and fast response time monitor, you will be ahead of your competition.

Tailored for the perfect fit
The MSI Optix MPG series is built to enhance your gaming sessions to be as comfortable as possible. With possibilities to tilt, swivel, and change height, it's easy to change the position of the gaming monitor for maximum ergonomics and an optimal viewing experience. And with the built in FPS front sight toggle you can always draw a sight to secure your aim during battles.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Fatalfury]

What the purpose of RGB on a monitor??? other than distraction & hurting eyes
who the hell thought that rGB in front of a monitor was good Idea???

so that your eyes get blinded by the fancy running lights.. Good inovation

 

[RejZoR]

The RGB in front is supposedly programmable to show information via lighting. For example when your health goes to low numbers, they start to glow red or something. Or it can be programmed for time, changing color when certain time passes to let you know you had to reach that target with certain things (in RTS games). My ASUS monitor has similar feature, but it shows an actual countdown timer on OSD. If I understand this MSI thing right.

 

[R00kie]

What the hell's PrysmSync?

 

[jabbadap]

What the purpose of RGB on a monitor??? other than distraction & hurting eyes
who the hell thought that rGB in front of a monitor was good Idea???

so that your eyes get blinded by the fancy running lights.. Good inovation

RGB purpose for monitor!? Ahh, you were talking about some silly RGB lighting not the monitor's color space.

 

[Fatalfury]

RGB purpose for monitor!? Ahh, you were talking about some silly RGB lighting not the monitor's color space.

well, i see that it can act sort of a HP indicator, or Ammo Indicator but still, a premium price(100$+) for light bars for like 3 or 4 Games.. is not worth it..not to mention how many ppl would get used to RGB in front of the monitor...only as a distraction & not as a real feature

 

[Valantar]

What the hell's PrysmSync?

PrismSync = We omitted both FreeSync and G-sync, but really don't want you to notice.

 

[las]

PrismSync = We omitted both FreeSync and G-sync, but really don't want you to notice.

Gsync < ULMB + FastSync

Hopefully the MSI monitors have black frame insertion.

The 1440p version looks decent. Need a VA monitor for better contrast and blacks. My IPS is meh sometimes. TN is garbage.

Can't wait for MLED / OLED PC monitors...

 

[Valantar]

Can't wait for MLED / OLED PC monitors...

You're really pining for acute burn-in issues and your taskbar being constantly visible no matter what you're doing? Oh dear.

 

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

all you guys bitching about the RGB on the monitor cant even see past the usefulness of what the rgb lights can actually do for you in game.

It's pathetic really how much hate there is for the usefulness of this technology alone.

 

[Valantar]

all you guys bitching about the RGB on the monitor cant even see past the usefulness of what the rgb lights can actually do for you in game.

It's pathetic really how much hate there is for the usefulness of this technology alone.

I see the utility somewhat, but I'm not optimistic for its long-term value. I'd assume this would lose all software support in a year or two at best, and then turn into useless blinkenlights. Otherwise, I suppose a "low ammo" or "special attack ready" indicator light might be useful in a lot of games.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

What the hell's PrysmSync?

not what it sounds like in monitor land, it syncs the RGB lights on the panels mount to your motherboard and compatible peripherals , I thought it at least an Ambilight clone but its more niche imho.

I couldnt be bothered setting it up to be usefull per game in games ,though i can see some might.

@CrAsHnBuRnXp calm down dude i doubt you stare at your case while playing games personally and you might find it usefull but WE Alll found it missleading.

 

[las]

You're really pining for acute burn-in issues and your taskbar being constantly visible no matter what you're doing? Oh dear.

Not really an issue on newer OLED (have 2) and MLED will improve on everything.
LCD has terrible image quality compared to OLED/MLED. Especially LCD PC monitors are bad (low priority - much worse panels than the best LCD TV's)
LCD has crappy blacks with mediocre colors and no HDR support (marketing HDR support only).

HDR on LCD requires hundreds of dimming zones to work good, most PC monitors claiming HDR has edge led or below 20 zones... HDR is a much bigger jump in image quality than going from 1080p to 2160p.

Backlighting = clouding and bleeding on LCD panels. You like that stuff? You like IPS/VA Glow? Or prefer the terrible image quality and viewing angles of TN with blacks being grey'ish and zero contrast/colors?

MLED is going to replace LCD as the standard. Hopefully sooner than later. Till then, a few more years of bad LCD displays. Sadly.

If you are satisfied with the quality of PC LCD displays, you must be used to low end panels with low contrast (yep U2711 has low contrast, grainy coating + tons of input lag to mention a few of its flaws).

OLED is not perfect, but LCD is FAR FROM PERFECT.

 

[Valantar]

Not really an issue on newer OLED (have 2) and MLED will improve on everything.
LCD has terrible image quality compared to OLED/MLED. Especially LCD PC monitors are bad (low priority - much worse panels than the best LCD TV's)
LCD has crappy blacks with mediocre colors and no HDR support (marketing HDR support only).

HDR on LCD requires hundreds of dimming zones to work good, most PC monitors claiming HDR has edge led or below 20 zones...
HDR is a much bigger jump in image quality than going from 1080p to 2160p.

MLED is going to replace LCD as the standard. Hopefully sooner than later. Till then, a few more years of bad LCD displays. Sadly.

If you are satisfied with the quality of PC LCD displays, you must be used to low end panels with low contrast (yep U2711 has low contrast and grainy coating + tons of input lag)

I'm not saying current panels are good enough (although there are some VA panels that are pretty great), and completely agree that OLED looks great, but that really doesn't matter when the display is completely unsuited for static image display - the main use for any PC monitor. A monitor is a long-term investment, not something to replace every 2-3 years due to panel degradation and burn-in. My U2711 serves me okay, and its color was amazing back when I bought it (believe it's 7 years ago now!), but I'm well aware of its limitations. Still, I'm not replacing it until it dies or I can get a significantly superior monitor below $1000 that includes FreeSync and all the other features I could want (yep, I'm picky).

As for burn-in being solved: really? Samsung makes the best OLED panels, and they reserve the best panel tech for their phones. If you've ever seen a Galaxy in-store display unit that's approaching a year old, they ALL have burn-in, despite them running looping videos with minimal static text or imagery, schedules that turn them off outside of store hours, and other lower-level techs supposed to counteract this. Most smartphones don't show this for a few years due to the very short amount of time their screens actually stay on, but this isn't how PCs are used. You say you have 2 OLED monitors. Which kind, and how are they used? How old are they? Care to post a photo of them displaying a full-screen white image? If they're more than a few months old and used regularly, I'd be shocked if they didn't have signs of burn-in, unless you automatically hide the taskbar and never keep windows in the same position for long.

OLED has time and time again shown itself to be unsuited for PC use. There's a reason why Lenovo ditched the OLED panels from this year's ThinkPad lineup. I agree that MLED (if by that you mean micro-LED) looks very promising, but it's still years from hitting store shelves, sadly. Local dimming doesn't really compare to SEDs, but when there's no usable SED tech, that's what we're stuck with. I also completely agree that HDR is far more important than UHD for pretty much any use - I'd rather have a HDR FHD TV than a non-HDR 4k one.

When my U2711 dies, I'll be hunting for an ultra-wide ~34" (same vertical size as my 27" 16:9, more height won't do me any good) 3440x1440 FreeSync display with reasonably high refresh rate, accurate (calibrated) color, good contrast (VA levels, so >3000:1 would be preferable - more if possible), HDR , ~1800R curvature, a built-in USB hub and an internal power supply (an external brick for a monitor is not acceptable, especially as they tend to be awful). For less than $1000. Until something like that exists, I'm sticking with my U2711. It's not great, but checks the boxes for good enough. Plus, it's free, seeing how I already own it

 

[las]

Maybe you should read up on OLED burn-in on newer panels. It's not really a huge problem anymore, 2016 and forward has been good. Tech has matured. There's many tests, I know rtings.com have one. Testing for hundreds of hours straight with same content.

Samsung makes the best mobile OLED panels, yeah, but they are more prone to burn in than newer LG OLED TV panels. I have seen burn in on a S7 Note. Went away after some time tho.

After all tho, I'd prefer a little burn-in over a worse image all the time. It's not like plasma burn-in. Most of the time it goes away when panel is off and takes many hours before it happends. Do you use your PC monitor for 100+ hours straight..? I rarely used the same content for more than a few hours.

I don't like Ultrawide, but VA is a good all-around panel (unless you need accurate colors or mainly play fast paced games), which is why I was reading this post to begin with. Atleast VA have decent blacks, sadly lacks viewing angles.

HDR is a joke on PC monitors tho. No HDR PC monitor does well in HDR tests - Backlighting is the problem (as with any LCD). HDR support is limited on PC anyway...

I'll probably pick up MPG27CQ if reviews are decent. But I hope MLED (yes Micro) will happen 2020ish.
Samsung needs MLED badly to be able to compete on TV market (LCD is selling less and less). Samsung have ditched OLED completely now and have full focus on MLED.

 

[medi01]

Samsung makes the best mobile OLED panels

Huh? It's been years since Samsung jumped out of OLED TV platform.

On top of it, it was a joint venture with LG.

MLED will improve on everything.

If it ever flies.

 

[las]

Huh? It's been years since Samsung jumped out of OLED TV platform.

"mobile" it says.

If it ever flies.

Samsung The Wall is working MLED tech.

 

[medi01]

"mobile" it says.

Mea culpa.

Samsung The Wall is working MLED tech.

Wow, looks promising.

 

[Valantar]

Wow, looks promising.

It does indeed, but it's still years (I'd guess closer to 5 than 1, and wouldn't be surprised if it was more) away from any type of mass-market reality. Also very interested in what kind of response times you can get from MLED. Oh, and if they can shrink it sufficiently - the Wall MLED demo had ~1mm2 pixels with 1mm spacing, which isn't even remotely close to normal 4K TV territory (144cm for a 65" TV / 3840 pixels = 0,375mm per pixel, including inter-pixel spacing/pixel pitch. Assuming similar 1:1 pixel width to pitch, they'd need to shrink both by more than 80%). That's a major leap just to get this into modestly large TVs, and for monitors, things get a lot worse. ~32" 4K monitor? That's 0,0185mm/pixel (including spacing). Of course, we're still in the extremely early stages of this tech, but that's just it - it won't arrive any time soon.

Of course, it'll also hit TVs first - so we might see >$10 000 MLED TVs pop up as showpieces in a handful of years, which (if recent adoption rates are anything to go by) means another 3-4-5 years until the tech actually is attainable for "normal" semi-wealthy tech enthusiasts (meaning, people willing and able to spend ~$1000 on a monitor).


Monitors are the most frustrating kind of tech rabbit hole: Once you start looking into them, you realize that what we have today is at best half-decent, and that there are no good solutions arriving any time soon. No real incentive to upgrade unless what you have is really bad, or fails. Then again, I suppose that's good for the planet an my wallet both.