The Acer Predator Orion 7000 is an absolute beau of a gaming machine, with gorgeous RGB lighting and exquisite cable management. Of course, its massive size and heavy weight are also nothing to sneeze at, making it difficult to move around or lift without a second person. Once it’s in place, however, the massive chassis will be most likely under your desk meaning that it shouldn’t be an issue. And it’s designed to pull apart easily for tool-less access to the insides.
The internals aren’t just for show, though they make quite the gorgeous one, as the state-of-the-art fans and liquid cooling system ensure that this PC will never overheat even when overclocking it with high-end titles. And if you need a handy way to overclock and ramp up the fans in response, the PredatorSense feature allows for precise control over both.
Acer Predator Orion 7000 Key Specs
Here is the Acer Predator Orion 7000 configuration sent to TechRadar for review:
CPU: Intel Core i7-12700H Graphics: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 RAM: 32 GB DDR5 Storage: 1TB M.2 PCIe Gen 4 SSD and 2TB 7200RPM SATA III hard drive Optical drive: 2.5-inch USB 3.2 Gen2 Type C hotswap drive bay Ports: 6 USB 3.2 Type-A, 2 USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C, 2 USB 2.0 Type-A, 1 Universal Audio Jack, 1 HDMI 2.1 port, 3 DisplayPorts 1.4a Connectivity: Intel Wireless WiFi 6E AX211, Bluetooth 5.2
In terms of pure performance, the Predator Orion 7000 is a top contender for the best gaming PC you can buy off the shelf out there, with some truly solid benchmark performances. For instance, it completely blows away the Maingear Turbo in both the Geekbench5 and CinebenchR23 benchmarks thanks to its more powerful processor, and it more or less matches the Turbo across the 3DMark suite of GPU tests.
However, those same impressive scores don’t translate to improved gaming performance, since even though the general performance is excellent it doesn’t reach the standards of the Turbo’s extremely high framerates playing the best PC games. But gaming is still effortlessly smooth on the Orion 7000, even when pushing it to the max, so only those running endless benchmarks will notice any nuances in the performance
For all these premium specs and features built into the PC, you’re sure to pay a premium price for them. The setup we were sent will set you back $3000 and includes an Intel Core i7-12700H, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080, 32GB DDR5 RAM, and 1TB of storage.
The configurations being offered in Australia and UK are quite different from the US ones, with the former offering an Intel Core i9-12900K, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080, 16GB DDR5 RAM, and 512GB of storage. The latter has an Intel Core i9-12900K, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090, 32 GB DDR5 RAM, and 1TB of storage. This means that the configurations outside the US are more powerful and expensive machines at the cost of more choices in the configuration.
But considering what’s under the hood, the starting prices are mostly a steal. As, despite falling prices for the best GPUs and best CPUs, these prebuilt and customizable PCs are the best value ways to get your hands on some top-tier specs.
Acer Predator Orion 7000: Price and availability
(Image credit: Future)
How much does it cost? $3,000 (£3,300 / AU$5,500)
When is it out? It is available now
Where can you get it? You can get it in the US, UK, and Australia, though it's difficult due to low stock
As expected from a high-end gaming PC, the Acer Predator Orion 7000 fetches a pretty penny on the market. In the US, the one we received is $3,000, while the cheapest ones in the UK and Australia respectively are priced at £3,300 and AU$5,500, with prices going as high as AU$7,200 for the latter region.
However, considering the chips, cooling system, and aesthetics we would argue that this is a PC worth investing in if you want to essentially future-proof it.
Value: 4.5 / 5
Acer Predator Orion 7000: Design
(Image credit: Future)
Stunning RGB lighting and see-through chassis
Great port selection and cable management
Too heavy
Watching the glow of the RGB lighting illuminate the RTX 3080, fans, and beautifully managed cables never gets old. Then there’s also the fact that said chassis is built for practicality as well, as it can be pulled apart without the use of tools.
It’s a well-made machine, with a sturdy chassis that houses an excellent port selection. It includes six USB 3.2 Type-A ports, two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C ports, two USB 2.0 Type-A ports, one headphone jack, one microphone jack, one HDMI 2.1 port, and three DisplayPort 1.4a. Even better, three of the Type-A, one of the Type-C, the disc drive, and the headphone/microphone jack are located at the top front of the chassis for convenience.
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The only real complaint against the Orion 7000 is its size and weight. This is a gamer’s gaming PC and as such all that hardware, including the state-of-the-art fans and liquid cooling system, plus the size of the casing itself makes it bulky and hard to transport. We found it requires at least two people to safely move the PC around.
With the powerful combination of fans and liquid cooling, near-perfect circulation is all but guaranteed. We didn’t notice as much as a whisper of heat coming from the PC, and this was on the standard settings without using the PredatorSense tool to further modify the fan speeds. The sound while wearing headphones is phenomenal, crisp and sharp audio that’s perfect for picking up subtle cues or for feeling dropped right in the middle of all the action.
And the fact that it comes with a decent gaming keyboard and mouse is just icing on the cake.
Design: 5 / 5
Acer Predator Orion 7000: Performance
(Image credit: Future)
No game can stand against it
No overheating issues
Has ray-tracing, HDR, and more
Benchmarks
Here's how the Acer Predator Orion 7000 performed in our suite of benchmark tests:
The Acer Predator Orion 7000 is a beast when it comes to playing PC games, no matter how demanding the task is. For instance, we completely maxed out every option in Final Fantasy VII Remake including 4k resolution, HDR, ray-tracing, and 120FPS.
To our extreme surprise, the Orion 7000 exceeded all of our expectations, performing at max 256FPS with all those settings turned on. Meanwhile, it runs Hitman 3 butter smooth, at 84FPS on average for the Dartmoor benchmark, and a whopping 103FPS on average for the Dubai benchmark.
Then there’s the PredatorSense tool, which allows you to both overclock your PC and increase fan speeds to overcompensate for it, to your exact specifications. It’s a great feature that’s incredibly easy to use and customize.
The Orion 7000’s configuration, which is equipped with the RTX 3080 and Core i7, churned out some phenomenal benchmark scores. Not even the Maingear Turbo, which uses a stronger graphics card, could beat this computer.
It’s interesting how the mostly tied or superior scores didn’t translate into superior framerates for the suite of PC games we benchmarked with, compared to the Turbo. Though considering the slight improvement in the chips department it makes sense.
That said, the Orion 7000 is still a high-quality, high-end gaming PC that eats demanding and poorly optimized games for breakfast. And thanks to the well-constructed cooling system, it keeps running smoothly without turning into a furnace under your desk.
We pride ourselves on our independence and our rigorous review-testing process, offering up long-term attention to the products we review and making sure our reviews are updated and maintained - regardless of when a device was released, if you can still buy it, it's on our radar.
The Samsung Q60B QLED TV starts from a much cheaper price than Samsung's other QLED sets, but its spec sheet includes Quantum Dot colors, a comprehensive smart system, and so-called Object Tracking Sound technology.
The Samsung Q60B looks like it should have what it takes to steal a march over its similarly priced competition. It backs its on-paper appeal up with a gorgeous super-slim design, crisp finish, and good build quality that help it look and feel much more premium than you’d expect for its money.
And aside from being a bit unintuitive to navigate, the Samsung Q60B’s Tizen smart system impresses by delivering pretty much every streaming app known to humankind, and ensuring that there’s always HDR and 4K streaming support from any app that carries these features.
Picture quality starts well, with the Q60B producing more brightness and Quantum Dot-inspired color punch than the vast majority of cheap TV rivals. Its playback of native 4K sources is also impressively crisp most of the time, too – especially welcome on the 55-inch size that we tested for this Samsung Q60B review. It doesn't miss out compared to the best 4K TVs for Ultra HD content.
However, you don’t have to watch for too long before you notice that the pleasing brightness has a cost in the shape of relatively flat, gray dark scenes. Motion doesn’t look as clean and natural as it usually does on Samsung TVs either – even accounting for its price, it's not up there with the best TVs available today. Meanwhile, the Q60B’s audio system copes with day-to-day TV viewing quite nicely but comes up short of power with any good action film soundtrack.
In the US, the same kind of price at 55 inches will get you the TCL 6-Series Roku TV (2022), which provides mini-LED backlighting for its QLED panel, plus 120Hz support for better motion handling. We'd suggest that for most people. In the UK, the competition is tougher, and the Samsung Q60B is still one of the best TVs under £1000.
We tested the 55-inch Samsung 55Q60B for this review.
Samsung Q60B review: Price and release date
Released in May 2022
Starts from $549 / £499 for 43-inch model (not available in Australia)
Costs $699 / £699 / AU$1,299 for the 55-inch model we tested
The Q60B is the cheapest Samsung TV series in its Quantum Dot ‘QLED’ category, and it comes in smaller sizes than most of Samsung's other QLED TVs – at least, it does in some countries. It has a different range of sizes in the US, the UK and Australia.
In the US, it comes in 43-inch ($549), 50-inch ($649), 55-inch ($699), 60-inch ($799), 65-inch ($949), 70-inch ($999), 75-inch ($1,199) and 85-inch ($1,799) sizes.
In the UK, it comes in 43-inch (£499), 50-inch (£599), 55-inch (£649), 65-inch (£1,099), 75-inch (£1,599) and 85-inch (£1,999) sizes.
In Australia, is starts with the 55-inch model (AU$1,299), and you've also got 65-inch (AU$1,499), 75-inch (AU$2,499) and 85-inch (AU$3,999) sizes.
Being Samsung’s cheapest QLED range does mean that the Q60Bs’ screen specifications are limited in some other ways, as we’ll see in the next section, and there are models from the likes of Hisense and TCL that also feature Quantum Dots, but are able to pack in some more advanced image tech elsewhere too.
The existence of these rivals does not, though, make the Samsung Q60B any less of a potential hit, provided its performance is up to Samsung’s usual mid-range LCD standards.
The step-up model from the Q60B, the Q70B, provides you a slightly more powerful picture processor – including more advanced motion handling. Going up again to the Samsung Q80B gets you a more advanced backlight with better contrast. If you can live without Quantum Dots, the step-down Samsung BU8500 saves you a little more money, but features the same processing and smart TV tech.
Samsung Q60B review: Specs
This Samsung panel uses relatively inaccurate edge-based lighting rather than putting its LEDs directly behind the screen. (Image credit: Future/TechRadar)
Samsung Q60B review: Features
QLED TV with edge LED lighting
Native 4K resolution and HDR support
Uses Samsung's Dual-LED backlight technology
The Samsung Q60B’s key screen specifications make for interesting reading, thanks to their unusual mix of premium and basic features. On the basic front, the panel uses relatively inaccurate edge-based lighting rather than putting its LEDs directly behind the screen, and doesn’t feature any local dimming (where different parts of the backlight can be made to output different levels of light, so darker areas can appear dimmer darker than light areas).
On the premium side, the Quantum Dot color system will hopefully reach color tones, and subtleties regular color filter technology cannot match. In fact, Samsung claims more than a billion shades and 100% coverage of the key DCI-P3 color standard in its Q60B marketing.
While it doesn’t carry local dimming, it does benefit from a Dual-LED lighting system, that finds the LEDs ranged around the screen producing alternating cool and warm tones in a bid to increase color accuracy and richness.
The Q60B’s on-paper strengths raise real hopes of superior performance with high dynamic range content – though the potential lack of light control is something we’ll have to keep an eye on.
The HDR potential is bolstered, too, by support for the HDR10+ format as well as the more basic HDR10 and HLG formats. The HDR10+ format adds extra scene-by-scene image data to the video feed that compatible TVs can use to produce more dynamic and accurate images. In fact, the Q60B even provides the Adaptive version of HDR10+, where the picture settings can automatically compensate for ambient light conditions.
As ever with Samsung TVs, though, the support for HDR10+ is not partnered with support for the Dolby Vision format, which also carries extra scene-by-scene image data but is available on a broader range of sources than HDR10+, including Disney Plus and Netflix.
Another premium image touch is the Quantum Processor Lite 4K brain at the Q60B’s heart. This is not as potent as the processor found in Samsung’s step-up models and doesn’t draw on any AI ‘neural network’ learning like the processors inside Samsung’s high-end TVs. But it still works across a range of picture quality areas to deliver better-looking results - especially regarding the upscaling of sub-4K sources.
The Quantum Processor extends its tendrils into the Q60B’s audio, offering the option to automatically adjust the TV’s audio profile to suit different types of content.
Although it’s only equipped with a down-firing 2x10W speaker system, the Q60B still delivers a ‘Lite’ version of Samsung’s Object Tracking Sound system whereby sound effects appear to be coming from precisely the correct place on the screen. Thanks to Samsung's Q-Symphony feature, you can also partner the Q60B’s speakers with those of a recent Samsung soundbar and they'll combine together for a bigger sound, instead of the soundbar simply replacing the built-in speakers.
On the back, you'll find three HDMI ports, which is often the case with cheaper TVs, but given that this is premium enough to be a QLED model, we'd prefer the future-proofing that four ports would give you.
Features score: 4/5
The successes and failures of the Q60B’s picture quality depend on whether you’re watching bright or dark scenes and the environment you're watching them in. (Image credit: Future/TechRadar)
Samsung Q60B review: Picture quality
Bright and colorful for its money
Good 4K and upscaled sharpness
Some black level shortcomings
As we’d slightly feared, the desire to deliver the color and brightness benefits associated with Quantum Dots at the Q60B’s sort of affordable price level isn’t an unmitigated success… but there are certainly times when you’d be forgiven for persuading yourself that it was.
Essentially the successes and failures of the Q60B’s picture quality depend on whether you’re watching bright or dark scenes. With the former, the set instantly wins you over with its impressive brightness compared with many of its similarly affordable rivals. It’s often said that you really need at least 500 nits of brightness for anything approaching a ‘true’ HDR experience, and the Q60B is impressively bright for a budget TV, able to produce 573 nits of brightness on a 10% white HDR window in its Standard picture mode during our tests.
The Q60B’s ability to deliver this certainly contributes to a much more dramatic and exciting shift when you switch from SDR to HDR than you do with most cheap HDR TVs.
This brightness feeds handsomely into the Q60B’s Quantum Dot colors, giving them levels of intensity and richness that again push comfortably beyond the color volumes typically associated with TVs at the same price. The brightness can cause a bit of subtle shading to be lost in the most extremely bright HDR areas. Still, for the most part – especially in the Standard preset – the impressively full-on color saturations are combined with very credible and immersive blends and tonal shifts.
Again there’s a sense that you’re seeing much more of an HDR image’s potential here than you would typically expect with such an affordable TV.
The Q60B also stands out from many rivals with its sharpness. Native 4K images typically look crisp and full of texture, while the 4K upscaling of HD sources delivers exceptionally clean, crisp, and natural-looking results.
While these strengths add up to bright scenes – especially HDR bright scenes – that look eye-catching and dynamic, though, the Q60B’s inability to achieve really any level of localized light control makes it much less satisfying with dark scenes. Parts of dark scenes that should look black instead invariably look a rather washed-out gray, leaving them feeling flat and unconvincing compared with bright moments in the same TV show or film.
This means that as well as feeling unsatisfying in themselves, the flat-looking dark scenes contribute to a sense of inconsistency that can be quite distracting when you’re trying to immerse yourself in a film.
Some of the TV’s settings can cause dark scenes to flicker a bit, too, as the screen reacts to small changes in average brightness levels, while colors in dark picture areas tend to look less punchy and convincing thanks to the infusion of gray washing over them. It’s noticeable, too, that dark scenes can reveal patches of cloudiness in the Q60B’s panel.
Since we wouldn’t typically associate such clouding with Samsung mid-range or even budget LCD TVs, we can’t help but wonder if the push for an ‘air-slim’ design is at least partly to blame.
Another surprising picture gremlin finds motion looking a bit uncomfortable on the Q60B. While the motion presets on even Samsung’s flagship TVs are typically pretty unhelpful, at least it’s possible with those to get natural, clean-looking motion without too much trouble. With the Q60B, though, depending on which motion processing setting you use, you’re either left with quite glaring judder, distracting stuttering/frame dropping, or too many unwanted processing ‘glitches’.
Picture quality score: 3.5/5
The thing frame looks premium, but doesn't leave much space for audio power. (Image credit: TechRadar/Future)
Samsung Q60B review: Sound quality
OTS Lite processing for positional audio
Adaptive Sound capabilities
Q-Symphony support with Samsung soundbars
As well as potentially not helping the Q60B’s picture quality in some areas, its Air Slim design likely also contributes to its underwhelming audio performance. There just doesn’t seem to be enough physical space to create either the volume levels or dynamic range – especially where lower frequencies are concerned – to provide a really convincing accompaniment to anything more rambunctious than a daytime chat show.
You can even clearly hear the TV physically give up the audio ghost during loud movie scenes that rise to a serious crescendo, with its soundstage suddenly becoming quieter rather than continuing to expand with the sound.
While the Q60B’s sound lacks any remotely cinematic qualities, though, it does at least understand its limits, managing to avoid falling prey to crackles, buzzes, hums and drop outs for most of the time. This is actually preferable to a TV that tries to go beyond its capabilities and just makes a mess of things.
The Object Tracking Sound Lite processing, finally, does a surprisingly credible job of placing specific effects in the correct place on screen considering how few speakers it has at its disposal. This at least compensates a bit for the speakers’ lack of raw power and impact.
Sound quality score: 3/5
Three HDMI ports is not atypical, but we'd really prefer four on any TV that's intended to last. (Image credit: Future/TechRadar)
Samsung Q60B review: Design
Exceptionally slim profile
Solar-powered remote control
Multi-position feet
Take a quick walk around the Q60B, and you’ll struggle to believe its price. It’s incredibly thin, for starters – the proud recipient of an Air Slim design that makes practically every other non-OLED TV look a chunky monkey by comparison.
The frame around the screen is pretty trim, too, while the two supporting feet (if you’re not wall-hanging the set) are so slim when viewed straight on that you can barely see them. All of this means that the Q60B does a very impressive job of letting you focus on the pictures it’s producing rather than the hardware that’s producing them.
You can adjust the width of the feet to suit different sizes of support furniture or, perhaps, to give you the space to tuck a small soundbar between them.
The Q60B ships with two remote controls. One is a standard, button-heavy affair that looks a bit overwhelming but is actually pretty easy to learn your way around once you’ve used it for a few minutes. The other is a stripped-back smart remote featuring a much leaner, more button-light design and, best of all, a solar cell on its rear that means you can use it as much as you like without ever having to worry about replacing its batteries.
Design score: 4/5
This TV is incredibly thin for an affordable model, and makes other options look they're not trying hard enough. (Image credit: Future/TechRadar)
Samsung Q60B review: Smart features & menus
Proprietary Samsung Tizen system
Extensive app collection
As ever with Samsung TVs, the Q60B’s smart interface and features are provided by a home-grown system built around Samsung’s Tizen OS. This has traditionally served Samsung very well – though the redesign ushered in for Samsung’s current range is a rare misstep.
The issue is that by moving to a full screen home page in place of the previous much more compact couple of ‘shelves’ overlying the picture, Samsung has made things feel more overwhelming. Plus it hasn’t made particularly great use of all the space available to it, making it feel harder rather than easier to quickly get to content you’re actually likely to want to watch.
Some aspects of the new menu navigation system aren’t helpful/logical either, especially when it comes to accessing the picture and sound set up menus.
On the upside, Samsung’s TV Plus service of fully streamed TV channels is now pretty expansive and includes more interesting content than it used to. Plus the main Tizen platform continues to cater for a huge line up of apps, including all the streaming services most people will want (with the exception of Google Play).
Where a streaming app is supported, moreover, you can bet that it will be able to play 4K and HDR video if a service carries these key AV features. The only catch is that the Q60B’s lack of Dolby Vision support means it will only play basic HDR10 from services that support Dolby Vision.
The two issues we have are that it doesn't support ATSC 3.0 for 4K broadcasts in the US (though few budget TVs do), and in the UK it doesn't support the Freeview Play umbrella app for the UK’s main terrestrial TV catch up apps. However, Samsung does carry all the individual apps for these channels.
The Q60B provides extensive support for voice control via multiple voice recognition platforms, giving you a handy way to dodge some of the issues with the onscreen menus.
Smart features and menus score: 3.5/5
The Q60B ships with two remote controls – this the simple one you can mostly just use. (Image credit: Future/TechRadar)
Samsung Q60B review: Gaming
Handy Gaming Hub for checking features
No 4K 120Hz support
Ultra-fast 9.4ms response time
An affordable, unusually bright, colorful TV like the Samsung Q60B has excellent potential as a gaming display. Potential which it delivers on in some areas, but falls a little short in others.
Of massive appeal to the gaming world is its 9.4ms of input lag (the time between when a console sends an image to it, and when it appears on-screen) with 60Hz content when using its Game preset. This is one of the lowest numbers we’ve ever measured on a TV.
Also very welcome is a dedicated Gaming Hub in the TV’s menus that pulls together a host of streaming apps, games and services, such as Xbox Game Pass, Twitch and Nvidia Geforce Now. It’s easy to connect controllers to the TV, too, to play via cloud services.
The screen’s combination of brightness, rich colors, and impressive sharpness are well-suited to game graphics too. This sharpness with 4K sources also makes it a shame that none of the TV’s three HDMI inputs can support 4K at 120Hz feeds or variable refresh rates. The only gaming feature they can handle is automatic low latency mode switching.
To be fair, 4K 120Hz and VRR support are currently very rare at the Q60B’s price point. But if TCL can do it, then you’d like to think Samsung could too.
Gaming score: 3.5/5
Samsung Q60B review: Value
Recent reductions make it very competitive
Well featured for its money
Cheaper models often don’t have Quantum Dots
The fact that it recently received further price cuts instantly establishes today’s Q60B as a potential bargain. It builds on this impressively, though, by including a Quantum Dot system at a price where such color technology is not always found.
Its smart system is extremely rich in content for such an affordable TV too, while its bright, colorful and responsive pictures help it stand out from the usually much duller competition.
Its uninspiring sound quality, lack of cutting edge gaming graphics support and limited backlight control, though, mean that it can’t entirely escape its budget nature.
The Samsung Q60B isn’t consistent enough with its performance or features to warrant an unqualified recommendation. If you’re after an affordable TV that will deliver more brightness and richer color in a room that tends to be quite light, though, then it is a good option for its money. Its intense, sharp visuals and fast response time might make it a good gaming monitor, too.
Its lack of contrast and rather basic sound damage its potential as a serious home cinema TV, however, and it’s a shame that it doesn’t support the latest cutting-edge gaming graphics features.
There aren't a whole lot of gaming monitors out there like the HyperX Armada 27. The display panel is a fairly standard-issue 1440p gaming monitor featuring a 165Hz refresh rate, up to 1ms response time, and plenty of color modes to tinker with. But where this monitor really shines is the boom arm that replaces the traditional gaming monitor stand, and it's honestly hard for me to ever go back to a traditional gaming monitor after this.
Boom arm-style monitors aren't new by any means, with displays like the LG 32UN880 UltraFine Display Ergo being a prime example. But these monitors are typically marketed to content creators or professional users like software developers who might be crowded around and focused on a single display in portrait mode.
The HyperX Armada 27 — and its smaller sibling, the Armada 25 — are purely designed with gamers in mind, and for that, it could easily be the best gaming monitor for 1440p gaming that you're likely to find out there thanks to its physical versatility.
It isn't all upside though, as you'll need to spend a good bit more for this display than you would for many of the best 1440p monitors on the market. The Armada 27, which is available now, has an MSRP of $499 / £499 / AU$779, though it's certainly possible to catch the occasional sale to help bring the price closer to the $400 / £400 / AU$600 mark that's typical for a good 1440p display.
And, since this is a gaming monitor, you're not getting a lot of input ports on the Armada 27, which is limited to just two HDMI 2.0 and one DisplayPort 1.4 input. This means that if you plan on using this with a PS5 or Xbox Series X console, you'll be locked into 60Hz rather than 120Hz, and there are better gaming monitors out there that can get you 120Hz for less than you're spending here.
But, there really is just something about this monitor that demands to be loved, and I do, in fact, love it. It's not for everyone, and for PC gamers out there jealous of everyone else getting to enjoy some of that sweet, sweet arm action, then this is definitely the monitor for you.
HyperX Armada 27: Price & availability
(Image credit: Future)
How much is it? $499 / £499 / AU$779
When is it available? It is available now.
Where can you get it? It is available in the US, UK, and Australia
The HyperX Armada 27 is available now in the US, UK, and Australia for $499, £499, and AU$779, respectively.
This makes it cheaper than something like the Corsair Xeneon 32QHD165, which doesn't even have a monitor arm and costs $799 / £699 / AU$999, while something like the Monoprice Dark Matter 27-inch gaming monitor can offer the same frame rates and resolution for about 40% cheaper at $299 (about £265, AU$435).
Ultimately, it's still a bit pricey for a 1440p display that is good but not the absolute best. The money you're spending really is for the monitor arm (as well as the included VESA mount), which is well-built enough to justify the premium price, but you're still spending a lot of money for the adaptability rather than the display itself.
If all you're looking to do is game at 1440p with fast frames, there are cheaper options for that.
Value: 3.5 / 5
HyperX Armada 27: Design
(Image credit: Future)
Monitor arm is fantastic
Included VESA wall mount hardware
Limited input options
HyperX Armada 27 key specs
Here are the specs on the HyperX Armada 27 sent to TechRadar for review:
The Armada 27 is a fantastic gaming monitor if what you're after is cool factor and a well-built premium feature. If you're looking for the best gaming panel on the market, you might find yourself disappointed by the somewhat mismatched quality of the two parts of the monitor.
First, when it comes to the arm, the degree of movement it affords you is rather incredible, and this leave it open to all kinds of use cases that we haven't even thought of yet. In addition to portrait mode, the tilt on the monitor is one of the most liberal I've ever encountered, with a back tilt that puts the display panel at an acute angle, something I've yet to encounter in a gaming monitor.
The forward tilt isn't as intense, unfortunately, but the freedom to move the monitor through multiple axes of motion makes it ideal for finding the exact right angle to play your games no matter what position you're in.
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The display, on the other hand, is your fairly standard plastic monitor panel, though the bezels are nice and thin, and the panel itself doesn't weigh all that much. It's VESA mount-compatible, and a wall mount for the arm is included in the package if you want to bolt it to the studs behind your dry wall.
Let me just emphasize that part, by the way. Always mount TVs and monitors to wall studs! Anchors in dry wall are not going to be enough to withstand the torque this display produces when fully extended.
As mentioned before, there are only three input ports (two HDMI 2.0 and one DisplayPort 1.4), so you're going to be somewhat limited in what you can connect to this monitor.
There is a noticeable lack of RGB lighting on this display, which I definitely appreciate, and the controls on the right-bottom corner on the back of the panel are easy to access when needed, which lets you access the display's settings menu to make adjustments to color profile, response time, and more.
Design: 4.5 / 5
HyperX Armada 27: Performance
(Image credit: Future)
Steady 165Hz refresh, 1ms response time
Decent color gamut (95% DCI-P3)
HDR 400 is ok, but nothing special
The Armada 27 wouldn't be a great gaming monitor without great gaming performance, and fortunately, it delivers.
While 4K gaming monitors are nice and all, 1440p really is a sweet spot for gaming as it brings fantastic visuals while giving you higher frame rates for your games, and the Armada 27 definitely lets it rip thanks to its 165Hz max refresh rate.
What's more, you can tune the pixel response in the monitor's settings to get 1ms GtG response time, though there might be some slight loss of clarity when set in this mode. If you're in it for competitive esports, you won't care about that, but for more mainstream gaming, I'd actually suggest you use a more moderate setting between normal and the fastest response.
When it comes to color, there are a number of onboard color profile presets that you can pick from, and while 95% DCI-P3 color gamut coverage is very good, it's not the best monitor for creatives at this price.
The HDR 400 helps bring some better blacks during gaming, but really, you need content designed for HDR 400 to get the benefits of the technology, so you're probably not going to get much use out of it. It's an ok also-have, but it's definitely not a reason to buy this monitor.
Performance: 4.5 / 5
Should you buy the HyperX Armada 27?
(Image credit: Future)
Buy the HyperX Armada 27 if...
Don't buy the HyperX Armada 27 if...
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HyperX Armada 27: Report Card
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