MSI MPG 272URX QD-OLED Gaming Monitor Review - God-level Gaming

TweakTown Rating: 95%

Our Verdict

MSI's first 4K 27-inch gaming monitor is here, and I challenge anyone to find me a game that doesn't look great on this display. The 272URX will make any gamer drool with its 4K resolution spread over a 27-inches, and paired with that luscious QD-OLED.

Pros

• Image clarity
• Incredible colors
• High refresh rate
• 0.03ms response time
• Pixel density

Cons

• Annoying OLED Care option

Should you buy it?

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Introduction & Specification Details and Close-up

CES 2025 has officially wrapped up, and one of the newest forms of gaming monitors on the market is 27-inch 4K (3840 x 2160). These are aimed at gamers after the ultimate pixel density and don't want to go any larger in size.

A quick look at the MSI MPG 272URX QD-OLED Gaming Monitor

MSI formally announced the MPG 272URX QD-OLED at CES 2025, and it's the company's first 27-inch 4K gaming monitor, sporting a buttery smooth 240Hz refresh rate, 0.03ms response time, and that incredible QD-OLED pixel technology that has become a staple of the gaming monitor industry. MSI has informed me the 272URX is scheduled to arrive on shelves in February for $1,099, and the sample we are going to be taking a look at today is a pre-production unit, but judging on the juicy specifications and the conversations I had with MSI at CES 2025, these specifications are locked in.

Who is the 272URX for? It's no surprise that 27-inch is considered the sweet spot for a gaming monitor size, as it works for both competitive gamers who prefer a smaller display and for RPG gamers who benefit more from a larger display. MSI, along with other monitor companies, is now looking to blend both worlds by offering a reasonably sized but high-resolution display, making it an ideal choice for competitive and slower-paced games that benefit from a higher resolution.

Specifications

Close-up

Best Deals: MSI MPG 322URX Gaming Monitor

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	$1799.99 CAD	$1949.99 CAD	$1949.99 CAD	Buy
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Design

MSI hasn't changed much when it comes to the design of the 272URX as it echoes some of the companies other fantastic monitor offerings by keeping mostly the same aesthetics and design functionalities. Starting off with the back of the monitor, MSI has kept things nice and simple, but has also made sure the "gaming" part of the monitor is known.

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The monitor is housed in a hard plastic shell, and the enclosure located on the rear that houses all of the components is exactly the same as the MPG 321URX, MSI's 32-inch 4K at 240Hz variant. The enclosure protrudes out from the panel and features multiple vents for airflow located on the sides and top of the enclosure. Within this enclosure is the heatsink, and MSI's graphene film is designed to improve heat dissipation and reduce the likelihood of burn-in occurring.

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Keeping to the back of the monitor, MSI has engraved its dragon logo on one side of the enclosure while also putting the MSI branding at the top of the enclosure, which is RGB and can be customized in the monitor's OSD settings. Moving to the base of the enclosure, MSI has outfitted the 272URX with a plethora of connectivity options designed to satisfy every type of gamer, whether they be on PC or console. The 272URX features 2x HDMI 2.1 ports with 48Gbps bandwidth, 1x DisplayPort 2.1a with UHBR20, which grants 80Gbps of bandwidth, 1x USB Type-C w/ 98W Power Delivery charging, 2x USB-A 5Gbps, 1x USB-B 5Gbpsm, and 1x 3.5mm headphone-out port.

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What's interesting here is the upgrade to DisplayPort 2.1a and the 80Gbps of total bandwidth. For those who don't know, the increase in bandwidth means improved support for higher quality video viewing, HDR content, improved power efficiency, and Display Stream Compression 1.2a (DSC). The support for DSC 1.2a is a technology that compresses video data to transmit it more efficiently from a graphics card to a monitor and ushers in greater support for color bit-depths, compression ratios, chroma formats, and maximum resolutions. Ultimately, DisplayPort 2.1a is the cream of the crop when it comes to connectivity.

Located on the back of the display right under the MSI logo on the 272URX's front is the multidirectional joystick straddled by two buttons sitting either side. The multidirectional joystick is used to control the OSD options. There are no changes here versus other MSI OLED gaming monitors, with the left-hand button dedicated to turning the monitor on/off and the right-hand button being a "back" option.

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Thanks to the QD-OLED panel the 272URX's width measures at a dramatic 0.4mm. Moving to the front of the display MSI has put a nice grey finish across the bottom border, and a power indicator light located under the MSI logo.

Overall, the design of the 272URX can be summarized in the following words: clean, subtle, aesthetically pleasing, sturdy, and strong. Fantastic work here, MSI.

Panel Breakdown

OLED gaming monitors are the best gaming monitors on the market right now, and as technology evolves, they will eventually become cheaper to manufacture, ultimately resulting in OLED gaming monitors becoming cheaper. The 272URX uses Samsung's 3rd generation QD-OLED panel, which has been paired with MSI's EL Gen 3 technology. EL Gen 3 improves light efficiency by up to 30%, meaning the display requires less power to produce the same brightness levels, which also translates to less required power.

Additionally, EL Gen 3 maintains consistent brightness across its surface, which ensures a uniform visual quality during prolonged use. The 5-layer tandem OLED structure is designed to reduce stress on each of the individual OLED layers, which results in the lifespan on the monitor to be prolonged, and once again, the likelihood of burn-in occurring. Moreover, the 272URX features 166 Pixels Per Inch (PPI), which translates to extremely sharp visuals, improved text clarity and enhanced detail across games and other media.

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The increase in PPI, along with various other improvements ushered in with 3rd-generation OLED pixel technology, has reduced any text fringing problems, which were commonplace on earlier 1st- and 2nd-generation OLED panels. I can't say there is absolutely zero text fringing, but the improvement has put OLED panels right up next to the clarity of IPS panels, which have long held the crown for text clarity. I would be comfortable recommending the 272URX to a gamer who occasionally flexes into word-processing activities. I wouldn't be comfortable recommending it to someone who solely uses the display for word-processing tasks, as there are plenty of other options on the market that will be easier on the eyes and cost far less money.

Just like its other OLED gaming monitors, MSI has outfitted the 272URX with an array of OLED Care features, such as Pixel Shift, Panel Protect, Taskbar Detection, Boundary Detection, Multi-logo Detection, and Static Screen Detection. Each of these features is designed to reduce the likelihood of burn-in. One feature worth discussing is Panel Protect. While the inclusion of this feature is greatly appreciated, what isn't enjoyable about it is the lack of user control. MSI states on its website that Pixel Refresh (Panel Protect) will notify the user after the screen has been active for more than 4 hours. This can be changed to 16 hours in the OSD settings, but unfortunately, when that 16 hours has been reached, there is no way to postpone the Pixel Refresh from starting. This means users will have to wait several minutes for the display to finish its cycle.

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This is particularly a pain when in the middle of a game, as an OSD notice presents itself over the top of a game, impeding vision, and when attempting to navigate to the cancel option, nothing happens when the option is selected. I can only summarize that the process cannot be canceled because the time the OLED pixels can be active has been exceeded, resulting in the Pixel Refresh process having to be carried out -- regardless of whether the user is in-game, working, or enjoying media. This notice has killed me multiple times in competitive games, which, in some instances, resulted in a 40+ minute game ending in a loss.

I would like to see MSI make the following changes. First, make the notice much smaller and place it in one of the corners of the screen. There is no need for it to be extremely large and appear in the middle of the screen. Second, make the notice disappear after the user selects cancel and after a few seconds of it appearing on the screen. Third, if users don't want to use the Pixel Refresh technology and want to run the risk of burn-in occurring, give them that option and allow for the feature to be switched off completely. Lastly, this problem could be solved by the monitor being able to detect when a game has been closed or when a player has alt-tabbed out of the game.

Performance

As with all of my gaming monitor reviews, I like to play a variety of titles on the monitor under the spotlight to determine which genres play best on that specific monitor. For the 272URX, I played the following titles for a minimum of three hours each: League of Legends, God of War: RagnarÜk, Cyberpunk 2077, Valorant, Apex Legends, Age of Mythology: Retold, Black Myth: Wukong, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and DOOM Eternal.

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Throughout my time testing the 272URX, I quickly came to understand the level of immersion this monitor can provide. Between the gorgeous colors thanks to the OLED pixel technology, extremely fast 240Hz refresh rate, and 0.03ms response time, the 272URX provided a punctual and deep level of immersion in each of the aforementioned titles. Given the monitor's 27-inch size, I believe my level of immersion reached its peak in competitive first-person-shooter titles such as Apex Legends, Valorant, and DOOM Eternal, as each of these titles could take full advantage of the 240hz refresh rate and the 0.03ms response time. I felt dangerous in-game with these specifications, especially due to my GeForce RTX 4090 being able to reach the 240Hz refresh rate cap, leaving nothing on the table.

Now this doesn't mean slower RPG titles didn't perform greatly, as they all did. The Witcher 3, God of War, Cyberpunk 2077, and Black Myth: Wukong all looked visually stunning, and since the 272URX's maximum resolution is 3840 x 2160 (4K), each of these titles looked incredibly sharp, crisp, and graphically astute. Personally, I prefer 32-inch monitors as I believe these give the best of both worlds - big enough for maximum immersion in RPG titles and not too big for competitive first-person-shooter titles.

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However, I do understand this could just be my personal preference, and when recommending a gaming monitor to purchase I believe gamers need to ask themselves - which type of games do I play the most? If its competitive first-person-shooter titles you are probably better off with a 27-inch and below in size, and if its mostly RPG-esc titles, go for something a little bigger.

Now, the 272URX does give you the best of both worlds here with its high resolution on a smaller panel, but that isn't particularly an advantage in competitive first-person-shooter titles, as sometimes it's beneficial to have a lower resolution as it makes enemy combatants easier to see/hit because you aren't having to deal with an extreme pixel density makes enemies appear smaller.

With all this in mind, the 272URX really makes me feel like I'm splitting hairs with the recommendations, as MSI has created a monitor that truly does perform at a level any gamer would be impressed with.

Final Thoughts

So, should you buy the MPG 272URX? If you are looking to upgrade from 1440p (QHD) to 4K, or even 1080p to 4K, and don't want to increase the panel size to 32-inches, don't mind the $1,099 price tag, the 27-inch 272URX is your best option.

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With its 4K resolution, 240Hz refresh rate, and 0.03ms response time, and gorgeous QD-OLED panel, gamers will be hard pressed to find a game that doesn't look incredible on the 272URX. Moreover, if you are after increase screen clarity, the 166PPI will do you wonders, and with MSI's burn-in mitigation features, buyers won't have to worry about burn-in occurring - and if it does MSI has slapped a 3-year warranty on the 272URX.

As I stated in my review of the MPG 321URX, to many gamers, 4K gaming might not seem worth the cost of entry. However, with the launch of the new GeForce RTX 50 series graphics cards and now 27-inch 4K high refresh rate displays becoming available, I believe making that leap (especially if you are at 1080p) is now more than worth it. Ultimately, MSI's first 27-inch 4K QD-OLED gaming monitor has knocked it out of the park, and I cannot wait to see future iterations of this display. As for any buyers of the 272URX, I challenge you to find a game that doesn't look great on this gaming monitor.