Pixio Gaming has been an up-and-comer in the monitor business for a few years now but 2019 may be the year that puts the company on the map. Displays like
PX5 Hyabusa impressed us with the number of features delivered for the money. With the PX7 Prime, however, Pixio is making big claims: “The Pinnacle,” “The Ultimate Gaming Monitor,” “the monitor you have been dreaming about your whole life.” It certainly has specs to impress with a 1440p vertical resolution, 165 Hz refresh rate, and a 27-inch IPS panel. Does the PX7 Prime live up to the hype? Join us as we find out.
Design and Features
The PX7 Prime features a refined design that does away with a lot of the needless, price-increasing features like customizable RGB. Instead, Pixio has opted for a simple black design that draws your eye to the screen and nowhere else. The bezels are only about a millimeter with another quarter inch of black border built into the screen itself. The PX7 is as close to an edge-to-edge screen as gaming monitors currently go even if it’s not exactly “frameless” as Pixio’s marketing claims. Still, the PX7 is a particularly good choice for multi-monitor gaming.
What’s most striking is the beautiful IPS screen. IPS panels are usually the first choice for content creators because of their rich, accurate colors. They’ve not been the first among gamers because of their slower response times which isn’t ideal for competitive gaming and preventing ghosting. As technology has advanced, those limitations have become less meaningful. Pixio has clocked the PX7 to a 165 Hz refresh rate with a 4ms grey-to-grey response time. That’s an impressive feat and opens the door to high-performance with the best-looking panel type on the market today.
The benefits are clear from the first boot-up. The PX7 Prime is rated to cover 95% of the DCI-P3 color spectrum, which captures more red and green than traditional sRGB color, and leads to a more vivid picture. Images are crisp with a native 1440p resolution. At normal sitting distance, the 27-inch diagonal screen size is perfect for this resolution, hiding any visible pixels and eliminating screen-door effect. The monitor was also well-calibrated out of the box and only needed minor gamma tweaking to bring it in line with the 2.2 industry standard.
The PX7 Prime also offers HDR10 support. I had to enable HDR inside the monitor’s OSD before Windows would detect that it was capable but once I did, it turned on without a problem. I was also impressed to see that the PX7 offers full 10-bit color without chroma subsampling even at 165 Hz. Peak brightness is acceptable but not outstanding at 400-nits. Displays like the AOC Agon 3 forced you to choose between high refresh rate and 10-bit color, so that’s a big feature-win for Pixio.
The only area that the PX7 Prime feels lacking in is gaming-specific features. It does have FreeSync, which is supported from 48 – 165 Hz, and it’s also G-Sync Compatible, which worked flawlessly when activated. Beyond that, Pixio has included several on-screen reticles for games that don’t offer them, and three overdrive modes to reduce motion blur – but these are all standard even on much cheaper monitors. In short, it’s the panel, not the extra features that “makes my gaming dreams come true.”
To cross check the manufacturer’s claims, I ran the PX7 Prime through a series of tests on Lagom’s LCD Test Pages and the BlurBusters Test UFO. On the white and black saturation tests, the PX7 did well and didn’t crush the blacks at all. The white level test was good but lost detail in the second-highest pattern with HDR enabled. I didn’t find it noticeable in gaming, but this does mean that detail will be lost in the very brightest scenes. There was no banding in the gradient test and its gamma calibration was close at 2.3 instead of the aforementioned standard of 2.2.
In truth, I was most concerned about its performance in Lagom’s response time and ghosting tests. IPS panels have a reputation for being slower than TNs or VAs which are commonly used in gaming monitors. Surprisingly, the PX7 Prime offered one of the best performances I’ve seen on the response time test. There was virtually no color shifting in the flickering patterns, which supports Pixio’s 4ms GTG claim, and means that the PX7 is quickly able to move from light to dark pixels and vice versa. This was reinforced in the ghosting test which was also one of the best results I’ve seen.
Rounding out, I loaded up the Blur Busters ghosting test. The test sends a series of UFOs across the screen and easily demonstrates ghosting and motion blur. There I did see a touch of ghosting but it was very minor. This test also showed that the PX7 Prime is susceptible to motion blur with Overdrive disabled. Turning it up to medium made the UFOs look much crisper without artifacting and proved to be a good setting for gaming too.
Getting up and running with the monitor is extremely easy. The arm comes pre-attached to the display and attaches to the base with three screws. The stand also marks a big improvement from Pixio’s history. It debuted on their PX5 Hayabusa and finally provides height, rotation, and pivot adjustments. In fact, you can easily turn the monitor to be used in portrait mode to pair with a second display, which is great for monitoring chat while streaming. If wall-mounting is what you’re after, the PX7 Prime is also VESA 100×100 compatible for aftermarket mounting options.
Finally, if you’re a multi-device gamer, you’ll be pleased to know that the PX7 Prime supports up to three video inputs. If you want the full 165 Hz at 1440p, you’ll need to connect over DisplayPort as HDMI is limited to 144 Hz at 1080p, and 85 Hz at 1440p. There’s also a headphone jack for connecting a headset. There are no built-in speakers. Rounding out the back panel, Pixio have also included a USB port for charging your devices.
Performance and Gaming
If a company is going to claim that they’ve developed the “ultimate gaming monitor,” I expect big things. After running the Lagom and Blur Busters test, I was cautiously optimistic but had reservations. To put it bluntly, there are good reasons why most gaming monitors don’t use IPS panels: they’re beautiful but if what’s happening on-screen lags behind your inputs or is trailed by ghost images, gaming goes out the window, quickly followed by the monitor itself.
I deliberately choose high-intensity games to push the PX7 and in every case, it lived up to the challenge. Whether it was Overwatch, Apex Legends, Battlefield V, or Borderlands 3, I never noticed any actual ghosting in gameplay, despite the results of the UFO Test. Leaving Overdrive on medium also kept the image crisp even during rapid spins and intense action on the screen.
The 165 Hz frame rate is simply phenomenal. If you’re already running a 144 Hz display, it’s not worth running out to upgrade, but if you’re used to gaming at 60 or even 100 Hz, it makes a profound difference in how smooth and responsive games feel. Depending on your hardware, pushing that many frames a second may be difficult, but in esports games like Overwatch or Apex, even mid-range hardware should get close.
I also didn’t notice any stuttering while using G-Sync. The implementation of AMD FreeSync is well-done enough that the two variable refresh rate systems played completely nice, leading to a smooth and tear-free experience.
In short, the PX7 Prime really does deliver when it comes to high-performance gaming. 1440p and 165 Hz are an excellent pairing of features on their own, adding in the color richness and wide viewing angles of an IPS panel, and you really do get the best of both worlds between panel types. If you’re also the type of gamer who likes to cut together gameplay clips or enjoys editing photos and videos, the PX7 is an excellent tool to combine work and play.
My only wish after gaming is that it offered a higher peak brightness to make the most of its HDR capabilities. At only 400-nits, it’s on the low-end of what’s acceptable for high dynamic range content. It’s still perfectly bright in a dark room, though, so this is a small nitpick in an otherwise great gaming monitor.
Purchasing Guide
The Pixio PX7 Prime is available on Amazon and Newegg with an MSRP of $429.