Gaming Performance

The ASRock Phantom Gaming PG34WQ15R3A sports a 165 Hz refresh rate VA panel, which supports the adaptive synchronization technology from both AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards. The adaptive synchronization range is 48–165 Hz, so that's the framerate range your PC should be able to achieve at 3440x1440 resolution to experience buttery smooth, screen-tear-free gameplay.

Response Time and Overdrive

The response time of the ASRock Phantom Gaming PG34WQ15R3A is specified as 1 ms MPRT. The panel uses overdrive technology to make the pixel transitions faster, and you will find the option in the Image Setup > OD menu in the OSD. Overdrive has only two settings: on and off.

I tested the response time with the Open Source Response Time Tool (OSRTT), developed by Andrew McDonald of TechTeamGB. It's a nifty tool that, combined with the OSRTT Launcher app, measures panel response times and presents them through detailed graphs and easy-to-read heatmaps. You can find everything you might want to know about the OSRTT in its technical documentation and on the official website, where you can order your own unit, too. The OSRTT gives us three interesting heat maps to observe.

Perceived Response Time tells us how much time the panel took to transition from one color to another. This measurement is expressed in milliseconds and includes overshoot. In other words, if the panel exceeded the target value, the perceived response time also includes the time it took for the transition to recover from overshoot and stabilize on the target value. I'm running my tests with recommended settings, so with a fixed RGB 5 tolerance level and with gamma-corrected RGB values.

RGB Overshoot tells us how much a specific transition missed the target value. For example, if the panel was transitioning from RGB 51 to RGB 204, and it initially landed on RGB 212, the overshoot RGB value is 8. Overshoot can be both positive and negative, and it commonly occurs at extreme overdrive settings when pixels are driven by high voltage. In practice, an overshoot manifests as an afterimage or a halo around a moving object. It can be easily spotted even when doing something as basic as scrolling through a webpage.

Visual Response Rating is the most abstract heatmap generated by the OSRTT Launcher; in essence, it's an ever-evolving scoring system. To quote OSRTT's technical documentation, it is a finite score rather than a direct measurement. The calculation is pretty simple; it's: "100 – (Initial Response Time + Perceived Response Time)." Since both metrics use the same tolerance level, if a display doesn't overshoot, both times will be identical. This essentially rewards displays that are fast with a small amount of overshoot over displays that aren't as fast even if they don't overshoot at all – while still overall preferring ultra-fast, accurate monitors.

Here's how the ASRock Phantom Gaming PG34WQ15R3A fares in the pixel response time test for both available overdrive settings.



As you can see by examining the numerical data and accompanying heatmaps, there's surprisingly little difference between having the overdrive on or off. Turning it on does reduce the perceived pixel response time by 0.97 milliseconds, but that's hardly significant. Having said that, I suggest keeping it on, although it's somewhat disappointing ASRock didn't implement more overdrive settings, as that's the norm for modern gaming monitors.

Moving Picture Response Time (MPRT)

In the OSD's Luminance menu, you'll find the MPRT toggle. If you turn it on, the backlight will start strobing to achieve a faster pixel response time at the expense of picture brightness. You're also losing the ability to use adaptive synchronization; turning MPRT on instantly deactivates FreeSync/G-SYNC, and for some reason, also Overdrive.

The MPRT response time is not to be confused with GtG response time, as the commonly used GtG value tells us how much time it takes for a pixel to change between two colors. At the same time, MPRT, also known as display persistence, represents how long a pixel is continuously visible. It's important to know that MPRT isn't a blur reduction technology but a measurement that can be lowered by backlight strobing.

Activating MPRT on the ASRock Phantom Gaming PG34WQ15R3A locks the panel brightness to 135 cd/m². To my eyes, that's too dim to enjoy the monitor in bright rooms. The MPRT also doesn't seem to drastically improve the pixel response times or completely eliminate any traces of ghosting, so I wouldn't consider using it regularly or at all.

Input Lag

To measure the input lag of a monitor, I recently switched from using the LDAT V2 (Latency Display Analysis Tool), which I've covered extensively in my NVIDIA Reflex review, to the OSRTT Tool. The OSRTT Tool and the accompanying software include a DirectX code developed by Andrew McDonald of TechTeamGB, which allows the OSRTT Launcher to track the events and capture the frame time, making it possible to isolate the monitor latency from other factors that come into play when using the click-to-photon testing methodology, namely the USB polling rate and game render time. For a deeper insight, I suggest you watch an excellent overview video made by Andy himself.

While I used a consistent methodology in all my previous LDAT-based monitor reviews and kept everything the same, switching to the OSRTT-based approach isolates me from potential issues, such as game engine updates (I based my tests on Overwatch, which transformed into Overwatch 2), and allows me to move on to a different testing system at will. I have to admit it was becoming increasingly annoying having to keep my old Core i9-9900K/RTX 2080 Super test system around for nothing but monitor input lag testing. Thanks to Andy for his tireless work on the OSRTT Tool and the OSRTT Launcher software!

Here's how the ASRock Phantom Gaming PG34WQ15R3A holds up in terms of input lag after doing 100 iterations of the input lag test.



The ASRock Phantom Gaming PG34WQ15R3A shows an average input lag lesser than 3 milliseconds, which is a fantastic score for a gaming monitor. Such low input lag can't be picked up even by the most hardcore gamers, including esports professionals.