MSI MPG 272QRF X36 Review: 1440p 360Hz IPS G-SYNC Pulsar Gaming Monitor

The MSI MPG 272QRF X36 is a 27″ 1440p 360Hz IPS gaming monitor with a dedicated G-SYNC Pulsar scaler developed by NVIDIA and MediaTek.

It provides simultaneous VRR and backlight strobing performance within the 75 – 360Hz range, and allows for strobing at 60Hz, making it one of the best monitors for fans of CRT-like motion clarity.

Let’s put it to the test!

Image Quality

The monitor is based on a fast IPS panel with 90% DCI-P3 color space coverage, 178° wide viewing angles, a 1,000:1 static contrast ratio, a 500-nits peak brightness and dithered 10-bit color depth support.

To test the display’s capabilities and accuracy, we’re using our Calibrite Display Pro HL colorimeter paired with DisplayCAL.

We tested both the FW.035 (G-SYNC Pulsar v1.0.6) and FW.038 (v1.1.4) firmware versions.

To update or roll back the firmware, simply go to the monitor update page, make sure the monitor is connected to your PC via the USB-A to micro-USB cable and that ‘Firmware Update Mode’ is enabled in the OSD menu, and update the firmware.

In the OSD (On-Screen Display) menu, you’ll find six different picture modes: Eco, User, Standard, NVIDIA Esports, sRGB and Native.

The Eco mode limits the brightness to around 186-nits, so if you wish to unlock the full 500-nit peak brightness, you’ll have to use one of the other modes.

The sRGB and Native modes lock out some image settings, while NVIDIA Esports introduces too much saturation, so we recommend sticking with the Standard mode, or sRGB if you want more accurate colors.

Color Gamut

The MSI MPG 272QRF X36 has a wide color gamut with a 127.3% sRGB volume, providing you with a bit of over-saturation. It’s not too intrusive and most users will prefer this for the extra color vibrancy.

In competitive games, the wider color gamut can also make certain objects stand out more in specific environments, which can sometimes make it slightly easier to spot enemies.

You can also clamp the gamut down to 96.7% volume and 96.2% coverage if you’d rather have more natural and accurate colors by using the dedicated sRGB mode or by selecting the ‘sRGB’ option under ‘SDR Color Space’ setting.

Image Accuracy

In the wide color gamut mode, we measured a high Delta E of 1.97 average (color deviation from the target, less than 1.5 is considered good) and 6.68 maximum (target is less than 3) since Windows doesn’t do color management by default.

Selecting the sRGB mode or using sRGB SDR Color Space, reduces the average Delta E to 1.19 and maximum to 1.98, providing you with accurate colors.

Thanks to the monitor’s IPS panel with wide viewing angles and consistent image quality, the accurate factory calibration makes it suitable for entry-level color-critical work out of the box. For more professional color work, you’ll need a colorimeter.

Sadly, gamma tracking isn’t very accurate, with an average of around 2.05 (target is 2.2). This leads to slightly elevated midtones and highlights, making brighter areas appear lighter than intended and reducing perceived contrast.

In games, this provides a bit better visibility in shadows and highlights, so having a bit lower gamma might’ve been intentional.

Changing the gamma to 2.4 in the OSD menu offers a more accurate 2.22 average result, but then the image is a bit darker than intended for the most part, except for 85 – 95% white.

Color temperature, on the other hand, is good. We measured 6765K, which is a bit higher than the 6500K target, but there’s no noticeable tinting to the whitepoint.

Keep in mind that all IPS monitors exhibit IPS glow, which can be characterized as a faint glow that’s sometimes visible in the corners of the screen when viewed from certain angles. Its intensity can vary from unit to unit, so some panels may show it more than others.

It’s most noticeable when viewing dark content in a dark room at higher brightness levels, but you can minimize it with a proper setup, for example, by lowering the brightness in dim environments and adding some ambient lighting behind the screen. Our unit didn’t show any excessive IPS glow or backlight bleed.

Calibration

For full calibration, we set the brightness to 0/100 for 123-nits in the Standard mode, ‘Wide Color Gamut’ SDR Color Space and ‘Custom’ color temperature with red, green and blue channels set to 100, 100 and 95, respectively, to get 6501K.

Delta E improved to 0.37 average and 1.32 maximum with accurate gamma tracking (2.2 average). You can download our ICC profile here. You can use this profile to fix the gamma tracking and have accurate colors in color-managed apps with a wide color gamut in other apps, such as games.

If you want the fixed gamma and accurate colors in all apps, you can use this ICC profile instead. In this case, you should use the Standard mode with the ‘sRGB’ SDR Color Space option.

Brightness & Contrast

In the Standard mode, we measured a maximum brightness of 520-nits, and a minimum of 123-nits. The maximum brightness is more than enough to combat glare even in well-lit rooms, but the minimum brightness may be too high in a dark room for some users.

In that case, you can change Mode to ‘Eco’, which has a low minimum brightness of 18-nits, but the maximum is 186-nits. In the sRGB and Native modes, the maximum and minimum brightness are 498-nits and 49-nits, respectively.

At around 200-nits, we measured a contrast ratio of 1046:1, which is a typical result for an IPS panel.

Blacks won’t be as deep as that of VA panels (usually around 3,000:1 contrast ratio), OLED panels, or monitors with full-array local dimming (FALD).

Of course, OLED and FALD displays have their own drawbacks, while VA monitors in this price range suffer from slower response time, VRR brightness flickering and narrower viewing angles.

Subpixel Layout & Pixel Density

The MSI MPG 272QRF X36 has a typical RGB subpixel layout, meaning that text and fine lines are sharp and without any colored fringing.

It has a pixel density of 108.79 PPI (pixels per inch), which results in reasonably crisp details and no scaling necessary. 1440p is also considerably less demanding on the GPU than 4K UHD, allowing for higher frame rates.

A lot of competitive FPS players prefer smaller ~24″ sized screens and a lower 1080p resolution to achieve even higher frame rates, but 1440p has its advantages too. As the image is sharper, it can make it easier to distinguish certain objects, while 27″ is not too big for most gamers.

The MSI MPG 272QRF X36 also has a 25″ screen size emulation mode with 960p (4:3), 1080p (16:9) and 1332p (16:9) options, which we’ll explore later in the article.

HDR

The monitor supports HDR (High Dynamic Range), but while it can accept and display the HDR10 signal, it lacks proper display hardware (OLED panel or FALD) for a true HDR viewing experience.

You can still get some benefit from HDR, such as proper DCI-P3 color mapping and dithered 10-bit color for smoother gradients with less banding. However, you’ll lose detail in the shadows and highlights, and the image won’t fully reflect the creator’s original intent.

Performance

For latency and response time testing, we’re using OSRTT.

The MSI MPG 272QRF X36 has a maximum refresh rate of 360Hz, which provides you with a huge boost in motion clarity and responsiveness as opposed to regular 60-75Hz displays.

Response Time

There are six overdrive modes: Native, Weak, Normal, Strong, Stronger and Extreme, as well as a user-adjustable ‘OD Strength’ option from 0 to 400 in increments of 1.

The default Normal mode is the best with a 2.35ms average GtG (gray to gray) pixel transition speed, low 1.83% average overshoot error and 83.33% refresh rate compliance. ‘Strong’ and ‘Stronger’ simply add overshoot to transitions that are already fast enough, while ‘Extreme’ has too much overshoot overall.

Thanks to the variable overdrive of the dedicated G-SYNC scaler, the Normal mode works great across the entire refresh rate range.

When G-SYNC Pulsar or ULMB are enabled, the overdrive settings are grayed out. We weren’t able to test the response times of this locked mode since OSRTT cannot measure response times when the backlight is strobing.

Overall, the response time performance is excellent as there’s no visible ghosting behind fast-moving objects regardless of the refresh rate, which you’ll be able to see in Blur Busters’ UFO ghosting test.

Motion Blur Reduction & Variable Refresh Rate

The MSI MPG 272QRF X36 has four operation modes: Normal, G-SYNC, Pulsar and ULMB.

To enable G-SYNC Pulsar, you need to enable G-SYNC in NVCP (NVIDIA Control Panel) and set your refresh rate to either 360Hz or 240Hz. Then, make sure the G-SYNC Pulsar option is enabled in the OSD menu.

To enable ULMB, G-SYNC needs to be disabled in NVCP and then ULMB enabled in the OSD menu. You can enable ULMB at 360Hz and 240Hz.

To enable ULMB at 120Hz or 60Hz, you need the newer v1.1.4 firmware version and to make sure the ‘Allow ULMB2 60Hz’ option in the OSD menu is enabled.

For regular VRR (variable refresh rate) performance without strobing, you just enable G-SYNC in NVCP and set Pulsar to ‘Off’ in the OSD menu.

Finally, for normal operation without VRR or backlight strobing, you need to disable G-SYNC in NVCP and set ULMB to ‘Off’ in the OSD menu.

For G-SYNC Pulsar, you will need an NVIDIA RTX GPU (30-series or newer, though we didn’t have an RTX 20-series GPU to test if it works). With other cards, you can only use ULMB or regular operation (VRR on or off).

Blur Busters UFO Ghosting Test

G-SYNC Pulsar is an impeccable backlight strobing implementation. It allows for simultaneous VRR and backlight strobing performance across a wide refresh rate range with no brightness penalty and minimum strobe crosstalk (image duplications) visual artifacts.

Some manufacturers have attempted this on LCDs via implementations such as Aim Stabilizer Sync by Gigabyte or ASUS’ ELMB-Sync, but the results haven’t been very good.

Blur Busters’ ghosting UFO test photos speak for themselves. We used the 1920 Pixels Per Sec test with shutter speed set to 1/4 of the refresh rate.

As you can see, there’s minimal strobe crosstalk. The clarity is the same regardless of the brightness setting, from the minimum 128-nits to the maximum 520-nits. The clarity is also the same across the entire screen.

Here are the results at 240Hz.

You cannot enable Pulsar at a fixed 120Hz refresh rate since the VRR range would be too narrow. However, if you enable Pulsar at 360Hz or 240Hz, and your frame rate drops to 120FPS, the screen will be running Pulsar at 120Hz.

For testing Pulsar at lower frame rates, we used SmoothFrog with the same 1920 Pixels Per Sec speed and shutter speed set to 1/4 of the refresh rate

In the G-SYNC Pulsar settings, you can adjust ‘Pulsar Low FPS’. By default, it’s set to 90, but you can decrease it to 75. However, in our testing, Pulsar would disengage once the frame rate dropped to around 80 FPS, sometimes causing brief screen blackouts.

So, for games where you cannot maintain over 80FPS consistently, we don’t recommend using Pulsar unless you use frame generation technology.

Some users have reported that the new Pulsar firmware adds ghosting between 90 and 180FPS, which wasn’t present in the older firmware. However, we weren’t able to reproduce this. Here are the Blur Busters UFO pursuit photos at 160FPS and 96FPS using the new firmware.

With the old firmware, you cannot enable ULMB at 60Hz or 120Hz. Updating the firmware adds the ‘Allow ULMB2 60Hz’ option to the OSD menu.

Sadly, unlike with G-SYNC Pulsar displays by Acer and ASUS, the MSI model doesn’t have a Pulse Width option, which would allow you to adjust the trade-off between screen brightness and motion clarity for 60Hz strobing.

While the difference in motion clarity is obviously enormous, the brightness is limited to 128-nits at max setting (31-nits minimum).

The Pulse Width option would allow you to increase the brightness at the cost of motion clarity for those who find 128-nits too dim.

You should also keep in mind that strobing at 60Hz is very noticeable, especially on static images, so those sensitive to screen flickering will likely find it unusable. Here’s how 60Hz strobing looks shot at 240FPS in slow motion

Still, 60Hz strobing offers incredible motion clarity, ideal for games limited to 60FPS. If you’re not sensitive to flicker and find 128-nits to be bright enough, it’s an amazing feature.

We’ve reached out to MSI to see whether they plan to add this option, and we’ll update the article once we hear back.

Max. Brightness	360Hz	240Hz	120Hz	60Hz
Pulsar	520-nits	514-nits	N/A	N/A
ULMB	506-nits	507-nits	497-nits	128-nits

Here’s how the MSI MPG 272QRF X36 compares to the MSI MPG 271QR X50 with a 500Hz QD-OLED panel at 360Hz and 500Hz, also shot at 1920 Pixels Per Sec.

According to NVIDIA, G-SYNC Pulsar delivers up to four times the effective motion clarity compared to standard sample-and-hold operation.

When we compare Blur Busters UFO pursuit photos, we can see how Pulsar at 120Hz does indeed look similar to OLED at 500Hz.

Latency

With G-SYNC Pulsar and ULMB disabled, we measured display latency of 2.15ms at 360Hz, 2.75ms at 240Hz, 5.14ms at 120Hz, and 9.01ms at 60Hz.

These are all excellent results with no perceptible delay between your actions and the result on the screen.

Here’s how latency increases when we enable ULMB or Pulsar. Sadly, we weren’t able to measure latency at 60Hz with ULMB enabled due to heavy flickering.

	360Hz	240Hz	120Hz	60Hz	25” Emulation Mode (360Hz)
Off	2.15	2.75	5.14	9.01	2.47
Pulsar	4.42	5.93	N/A	N/A	4.1
ULMB	4.43	5.86	7.24	N/A	4

Latency increases by just under a single frame at 360Hz or 240Hz when Pulsar or ULMB is enabled, but we don’t expect most gamers to notice this in practice. A modest latency increase is expected when using backlight strobing.

Uniformity & Quality Control

The top right corner of the screen is around 18% dimmer than the center for 100% white, around 10% dimmer for 75% white, and 5% dimmer for 50% white, but this wasn’t noticeable during everyday use.

Next, we didn’t find any dead or stuck pixels, no frame skipping, pixel inversion artifacts, excessive IPS glow or backlight bleeding.

During the Blur Busters’ UFO ghosting test, the flickering pattern was briefly visible as an afterimage on dark backgrounds, but it faded quickly once varied content was displayed. We didn’t experience any image retention in regular use.

The monitor uses a flicker-free backlight (unless Pulsar/ULMB is enabled), ensuring a comfortable viewing experience without the risk of eye strain or headaches for sensitive users during extended use.

There’s also a low blue light mode that can bring down the color temperature to 4082K, which can be helpful if you have trouble falling asleep at night after prolonged screen time.

Features

On the rear of the monitor, there’s a directional joystick for navigating the OSD menu. It’s somewhat finicky and sensitive, so it’s easy to misclick when adjusting settings in a hurry. Below it is a dedicated power button.

Moving the joystick up, down, left or right also serves as a quick menu for brightness, input source selection, audio volume and mode (Eco, User, Standard, NVIDIA Esports, sRGB and Native).

Since User and Standard have the same image quality, you can assign one to Pulsar/ULMB Off and the other to Pulsar/ULMB On to more quickly change between these two operation modes.

Besides typical image adjustment tools (brightness, contrast, color temperature), there are some advanced settings available too, including gamma (from 1.8 to 2.6), 6-axis saturation and automatic input detection. There’s no sharpness setting.

The MSI MPG 272QRF X36 doesn’t support MSI’s Gaming Intelligence desktop application for adjusting OSD-related settings, at least at the time of this writing. You can use third-party apps to adjust the following settings.

Useful gaming features include:

• Esports Vibrance – saturation from 0 to 200 in increments of 1, default is 100
• Game Assistant – crosshair overlays (red or white)
• Screen Size – 27″ (auto, full screen 16:9, full screen forced) and 25″ (960p 4:3, 1080p 16:9 and 1332p 16:9)
• Dark Boost – improves visibility in dark scenes (3 adjustable levels)
• Refresh Rate tracker

We couldn’t get the 25″ (1280×960) mode to work, as the monitor would lose signal and wouldn’t reconnect until we restarted the PC and changed the setting. It’s most likely a driver issue, as we managed to get it to work when connected to another PC with an AMD GPU. Other modes, including 25″ 2368×1332, worked without issues. The 2368×1332 resolution looked crisp thanks to pixel-perfect scaling.

Other OSD settings include language, OSD setup (timeout, transparency), power LED indicator (on, off), RGB LED (on, off), audio (volume, mute), Ultra Low Power (we recommend disabling it for best image quality), Firmware Update Mode, Info. On Screen (shows current resolution, refresh rate, mode, input source, color space and bit depth) and factory reset.

The monitor also has a built-in sensor that can automatically adjust screen brightness and color temperature according to ambient lighting.

Design & Connectivity

The MSI MPG 272QRF X36 has a robust design with full ergonomic support, including up to 130mm height adjustment, -5°/20° tilt, +/- 90° pivot, +/- 30° swivel and 100x100mm VESA mount compatibility.

It’s mostly textured with a matte finish, along with a few glossy accents and RGB lighting on the back.

The screen has a light matte anti-glare coating that’s efficient at mitigating reflections without making the image too grainy. The flat stand doesn’t take up a lot of space, allowing you to place your keyboard and mouse close to it.

The bezels are ultra-thin (1mm at the top and sides, 21mm at the bottom) and there’s a 6mm black border before the image starts around the screen (1mm at the bottom).

Connectivity options include DisplayPort 1.4 with DSC, two HDMI 2.1 ports with 40 Gbps bandwidth, three USB-A 3.0 ports, USB-B, a headphone jack and a micro-USB port for firmware updates. It uses an external power supply.

The HDMI port is limited to 120Hz at 2560×1440, but it supports 4K 120Hz upscaling for consoles. Over HDMI, you cannot use the 25″ emulation mode and Adaptive-Sync isn’t supported (only HDMI 2.1 VRR).

In the box, along with the monitor and its stand, you’ll get a factory calibration report, a quick start guide, the external power supply, power cord and DisplayPort, HDMI, USB-B to USB-A and USB-A to micro-USB cables.

Price & Similar Monitors

The MSI MPG 272QRF X36 price amounts to $650, which is a similar price to that of the other G-SYNC Pulsar models.

The ASUS XG27AQNGV goes for the same price, while the AOC AG276QSG2 can be found for $600 and the Acer XB273U F5 for $580.

While these are expensive, they do deliver a unique gaming experience with unprecedented motion clarity, so for enthusiasts, the price can be well worth it.

For others, we feel that including a mini-LED backlight for proper HDR support at this price point would have made the deal much more appealing, but it would also be significantly more complex to implement and would likely end up increasing the cost even further. That kind of solution may become more realistic in the future, as Pulsar technology is still in its early stages.

Only the ASUS and Acer models offer the ‘ULMB2 Pulse Width’ option, which is particularly useful for 60Hz strobing. So, if you play a lot of games locked to 60FPS, those are the best options if you don’t want to wait and see if MSI will add it later via a new firmware.

Otherwise, you can simply choose according to your personal preference or regional pricing as the general image quality, performance and features are similar across all four models.

We were unable to reproduce the ghosting or image duplication issue in the 90 – 180Hz range on our MSI sample, despite reports from other users experiencing it on other Pulsar monitors running newer firmware.

It’s currently unclear whether this behavior is limited to specific models. NVIDIA also stated that they’re working on a fix for a future firmware update.

NVIDIA and monitor manufacturers are also working on 32″ 5K 165Hz IPS G-SYNC Pulsar models with 1440p 330Hz Dual Mode, such as the Acer XB323QX, though there’s no pricing information or release dates planned yet.

For more information and monitor deals, check out our dedicated best gaming monitors buyer’s guide.

Conclusion

All in all, the MSI MPG 272QRF X36 is an excellent gaming monitor for those who enjoy CRT-like motion clarity.

G-SYNC Pulsar delivers outstanding motion clarity with high brightness, fast response times and low latency, as long as your frame rate stays within the 80 – 360 FPS range. Below that, some artifacts can start to appear, though (multi) frame generation can help mitigate this if your GPU supports it.

We were disappointed to see the lack of a ULMB Pulse Width option on the 272QRF X36, unlike some competing models, which would have allowed for better brightness control when using 60Hz strobing. While 60Hz strobing is still usable here, alternatives from Acer and ASUS offer more flexibility in this regard.

Other than that, you get a fully ergonomic stand with solid connectivity options, along with plenty of useful gaming features such as crosshair overlays, a 25″ emulation mode, and Dark Boost. It also comes with decent factory calibration and a slightly wider color gamut for added vibrancy.

Specifications

Screen Size	27-inch
Resolution	2560×1440 (Quad HD)
Panel Type	IPS
Aspect Ratio	16:9 (Widescreen)
Refresh Rate	360Hz
Response Time	0.5ms (GtG)
Motion Blur Reduction	G-SYNC Pulsar
Adaptive-Sync	G-SYNC (1-360Hz), HDMI 2.1 VRR
Ports	DisplayPort 1.4, 2x HDMI 2.1
Other Ports	Headphone Jack, 3x USB-A 3.0, USB-B, Micro USB-B
Brightness	500 cd/m²
Contrast Ratio	1000:1
Colors	1.07 billion (8-bit + FRC) 90% DCI-P3
HDR	HDR10
VESA	Yes (100x100mm)