AOC AGON AG254FG gaming monitor review

AOC has always tried to pack their gaming monitors with the latest specifications and features over the last couple of years, offering up excellent value and great performance in abundance. Well, that’s exactly what they’ve tried to do with the AOC AGON AG254FG, the brand’s latest 360Hz IPS 24.5″ panel that seems to tick all the right boxes as far as competitive play is concerned. The new esports-grade monitor offers all the response you could want to take your gameplay to the next level, including a 1ms response time (GTG), motion blur reduction features, and a dedicated G-sync module as well. You won’t get amazing colors or breath-taking image clarity with this panel, however, you will get one of the fastest monitors in today’s market – and that’s definitely more important when it comes to competitive play.

Alongside its core features, the AG254FG also showcases great stand ergonomics, decent build construction, and a nicely made sun-blocking hood for, well, blocking sunlight. The AGON AG254FG really is all geared up for competitive play, but how will it compare to the market’s leading 360Hz alternatives. Fortunately, we’ve tested quite a few and will be using that data to see how the AG254FG stacks up in comparison. We’ll be running a number of different tests on picture quality, color accuracy, panel uniformity, responsiveness, and overall gaming performance. We shall conclude with a final summation of the value this monitor brings to the table and whether or not we feel it’s worth your hard-earned cash.

AOC AGON AG254FG monitor: Specifications

What's in the box & assembly

The AG254FG comes in a fairly futuristic-styled box that showcases plenty of marketing material on the exterior – alongside the monitor’s main features and specifications. Inside, the monitor and stand are separately packaged, meaning some light assembly is required. Fortunately, the monitor offers a tool-less design that is incredibly self-intuitive to construct.

The hood also requires assembly with a few pins holding the frame together. The assembly of the hood is arguably more difficult than the monitor, but both are fairly straightforward.

Alongside the monitor and stand, the following items can be found inside the box:

Design

With specifications out the way, let’s take a closer look at the build quality, design, and mechanical features this monitor comes equipped with.

Aesthetics

As far as gaming monitors go, this one is pretty flashy. The front of the monitor doesn’t really offer too much in the way’s of aesthetic features – if you discount the hood. The monitor itself offers thin bezels with the larger bottom bezel featuring a large AGON logo alongside some NVIDIA G-sync branding. The base of the stand features the classic ‘V’-shaped design that we’ve seen across a plethora of panels in the past – so nothing new there. The hood, however, is fairly unique – offering good light protection and a more immersive feel during gameplay. Inside, the hood offers a felt lining that feels quite nice but doesn’t really add anything aesthetically.

The rear of the monitor sees plenty going on, with RGB taking most of the focus. Six RGB light zones can be found at the rear, creating a unique styling that will appeal to some gamers. Having said that, the RGB doesn’t offer the vibrance to create any ambiance – so it feels a little pointless. On the top of the backplate users will find more AGON branding in the shape of a small red logo – continuing the red-on-black color theme. More textbook AOC styling can be found on the stand itself, with a red slider mechanism and red carry handle.

Overall, there’s nothing subtle about this monitor. It certainly tries to capture the imagination of gamers with its loud aesthetics and you’ll rather love it or hate it.

Build Quality

As far as build quality goes, the AG254FG does feel a little lacking. While the monitor does offer good build materials (hardened plastic and a metal stand), many of the seams and fittings do feel a little flimsy. The bottom bezel feels particularly weak, offering a lot of flex and movement. The stand itself feels pretty solid but the mechanism that moves the monitor does offer a little bit of play when moving it.

Having said that, it isn’t all bad. The panel coating offers a hardened layer to protect the panel itself and the rear of the monitor feels solid. The OSD joystick and the inputs also feel well made and purposeful.

Panel Coating

Like most modern IPS panels, the AG254FG comes equipped with an anti-glare coating (in matte) for mitigating both natural and manmade light sources. While this panel coating does pick up grease and fingerprints quite easily, it still does an excellent job of reducing glare when gaming in daylight conditions.

Bezels

The bezels on the AG254FG are fairly slender and add a certain level of immersion when viewing content on it. The top and side bezels measure in at 7mm while the bottom bezel offers a larger 25mm profile. This is fairly standard as the bottom bezel normally features some kind of branding or company logo (with this monitor showcasing the AGON branding).

Stand

As far as stand ergonomics go, the AG254FG really does tick all the right boxes. It offers height, tilt, pivot, and swivel functionality, meaning you’ll always be able to find the perfect viewing position with this monitor. Better still, you won’t experience any awkwardness when plugging your cables into this thing – simply rotate it 90 degrees and life becomes a whole lot easier.

Below are the exact specifications of the stand:

• Forward Tilt – 3 degrees
• Backward Tilt – 21 degrees
• Left Swivel – 30 degrees
• Right Swivel – 30 degrees
• Pivot – 90 degrees
• Height – 130mm

Inputs

Despite only being a small panel, this monitor really does offer a tonne of available inputs. Alongside three available display inputs (HDMI 2.0 x 2 (HDCP 2.2) and DisplayPort 1.4), the AG254FG also features a bunch of USB and audio options too. This includes 4 x USB downstream ports, a USB 3.2 HUB, USB fast-charge port, and microphone in/headphone out ports.

For a more in-depth look at the inputs, see below:

• 2 x HDMI 2.0 (HDCP 2.2)
• 1 x DisplayPort 1.4
• 4 x USB Type-A
• 1 x microphone in 
• 1 x 3.5mm audio jack

OSD

I’ve never really been a huge fan of the AOC OSD layout – it just looks a little dated and can be annoying to us. That said, this monitor does seem to offer all the functionality you could want from an OSD.

Using the joystick found on the rear of the monitor, users can easily navigate through the various menus in the AOC OSD, changing game modes, color presets, luminance, G-sync, and more. You can also use the shortcuts by clicking the navigation toggle in a certain direction, bringing up inputs, crosshair, game modes, and the RGB lighting effects.

With a tonne of different OSD options to choose from, we’ve listed the best features below:

• Gaming style 
• Game mode
• G-menu
• Low input lag
• Game color
• Shadow control
• Motion Blur reduction
• Crosshair
• Frame counter
• Quick switch

Color Accuracy & Picture Quality

Great colors and excellent picture quality are two of the main factors that help create immersion while you’re gaming. Despite the importance of good color, monitor manufacturers don’t always calibrate the color of their panels to what is deemed accurate within specific color spectrums – sRGB/Rec.709, etc.

We like to test each monitor for color reproduction to see how they would perform in color-accurate scenarios.

Here are the results for the AOC AGON AG254FG:

Like always, we started off the color accuracy testing portion of this review by loading up our colorimeter and running a test right out of the box. Below are the results:

Out of the box, I was incredibly impressed with just how accruate the AG254FG actually was. In past AOC monitors we’ve tested, color accuracy on their premium gaming monitors hasn’t been a priority. However, that doesn’t seem to be the case here. Colors were fantastic right from the get-go, with white point nearing a perfect score. The black depth was also impressive, coming in at under 0.1cd/m2 and gamma was set to around 2.25. Most impressive, however, was the average deltaE – a figure that is normally around 2-3 out of the box. For the AG254FG, we recorded a cool 0.61 deltaE – making this one of the most color-accurate gaming monitors we’ve tested in its default settings.

Unusually, this monitor didn’t come with an sRGB color preset. It did have the option to enable sRGB colors in the luminance tab, but they were already activated out of the box. And if truth be told, switching between the on and off settings for this particular didn’t seem to do a great deal to the picture at all.

That said, we didn’t test any of the other presets for accuracy as they were all far too vibrant or lacking in certain colors shades.

At this stage, we decided to calibrate the panel to see how accurate the monitor could be. By doing this we also get a read-out of color gamut volume and coverage for the sRGB, DCI-P3, and Adobe RGB spectrums.

For the best results, we used the following RGB values 52/50/48.

Here are the results:

As you can see from the results above, the overall accuracy of the panel was better after calibration (to be expected). But not by much. White point stayed solid at around 6500K and black depth now increased to a little over 0.11cd/m2. Contrast ratio took a small dip to 1046:1 whie average deltaE improved to 0.26, respectively. The maximum deltaE, however, was still 1.66 which meant this monitor won’t make the best editing panel – who figured?

All being said, this was still a very impressive monitor as far as general colors were conerned, ticking a lot of the right boxes.

Panel Uniformity

Panel uniformity is a test we run to check how uniform the luminance and colors are across the entirety of the screen. During this test, the center square is used as the reference space. Every other square is then tested to see how far it differentiates from the reference.

In an ideal world, we want every square to be green, meaning it hasn’t broken the differential threshold – something we can set at the start of the test.

Note: results will differ from panel to panel.

Our 3 x 3 panel uniformity test didn’t see the AG254FG excel like we’d expect. Only the centre segments passed the nominal tolerance level to a decent standard. The outer segments all resulted in an amber score which, while this is a pass, is still far from ideal. That being said, this lack of performance doesn’t dint the viewing experience at all. Even when watching content with large blocks of color I found it hard to notice any artifacts.

Viewing Angles

Like all IPS panels, the AG254FG offered up extremely good viewing angles. We’ve taken a short video below so you can get a better idea of how the viewing angles look:

Color Gamut

As part of the calibration process, the DisplayCal will give an accurate measurement of the color gamut the monitor can provide. Below are the results of the color gamut test:

Strangely, I couldn’t find any setting that met the AG254FG’s specifications as far as color gamuts go. According to the website, the monitor is able to reach 110% sRGB and 86% DCI-P3. However, as you can see from the table above, our panel only recorded 68.6% of the DCI-P3 gamut.

Looking at the physical gamut graph, you can clearly see where the AOC AGON AG254FG exceeds the sRGB spectrum – showcased by the dotted line. We also added the DCI-P3 space as well, showcasing where the monitor falls short.

Maximum And Minimum Brightness

We ended the color accuracy and picture quality testing by checking the maximum brightness, minimum brightness, and 120 candelas points on this panel. The results are below:

Brightness	Candelas
100% Brightness	432.22cd/m2
0% Brightness	38.82cd/m2
113 Brightness	120 cd/m²

Calibrated Profile

For those who want to use our calibrated color profile, you will find a link below where you can download the zip file.

AOC AGON AG254FG: Gaming Performance & Response

With color accuracy out of the way, it’s time to put the AOC AGON AG254FG through a number of different gaming scenarios to see how it stacks up in pixel response, input lag, and overall responsiveness. 

Competitive gaming

We kickstarted the gaming portion of this review by loading up our go-to game, CS:GO. CS is a great game for testing monitors as it features lots of fast-moving images (often on contrasting backgrounds) that really put the panel’s general responsiveness to the test.

For this particular test, I utilized the ‘FPS’ preset, enabled G-sync, and set the overdrive settings to ‘medium’. 

Like always, I jumped straight into my local deathmatch server to get a taste of how this monitor performed and first impressions were pretty damn good. I haven’t reviewed a 360Hz monitor for a while now – the last being the ASUS PG259QN – and it’s safe to say I’ve missed it. As a competitive player myself, you really can’t beat the lucid gaming experience that 360Hz provides. Better still, with a game like CS where you can actually push 360+ frames per second in 1080p screen res, you really get to see the benefits of this rapid refresh rate. After playing for a few hours I concluded that ghosting and smearing were incredibly minimal. Motion handling was also very good, with perceived blur showing good clairty even when dark objects moved quickly over lighter backgrounds.

All being said, there were some screen artifacts that cropped up in CS:GO, mainly overshoot from the additional voltage being pushed by the overdrive settings. Even on the medium settings, we saw some pretty obvious overshoot problems – as you’ll see in the UFO BlurBuster test shortly. Moving to stronger overdrive settings resulted in a pretty poor gaming experience overall – even when lowering the monitor’s refresh rate.

General gaming

Even though this monitor is clearly geared towards competitive esports gaming, we ran it through a few lesser intensive, single-player titles to see how it performed. We played Shadow of the Tomb, Cyberpunk, and a few other titles to get a feel of how immersive this panel can be – and despite its small size and weak HDR performance, the AG254FG did give a good account of itself in single-player titles.

Colors were OK, offering nice levels of vibrance and nothing felt overly washed out. Gameplay was, of course, very smooth with no signs of ghosting or smearing experienced. However, despite nothing necessarily being wrong with the monitor, it still struggled to offer the same immersive experience as large alternatives.

Perceived blur and motion tracking

For those more interested in the physical response time of this monitor, we ran the panel – and all of its settings – through the Blur Buster UFO test. Below are the results:

As you can see from the results above, the AG254FG handled motion incredibly well in this particular test. The alien in most settings is quite clear, even when overdrive is set to ‘OFF’. This is mainly thanks to the panel’s fast refresh rate, with some light smearing noticeable when overdrive was set to ‘OFF’. The best setting for motion blur was the ‘Weak’ mode, adding some extra clarity without seeing any signs of overshoot.

As you quickly move up the overdrive settings, you’ll start to see overshoot creep in – with the ‘Strong’ setting riddled with haloing and highlights around the UFO.

Final Thoughts

So, there you have it, our comprehensive review of the AOC AGON AG254FG – an all-out esports gaming panel that prioritizes speed over immersion and image clarity. 

Ultimately, this monitor really impressed me during the time I spent reviewing it. With a rapid 360Hz refresh rate, gaming on this thing was incredibly smooth and very immersive when playing competitive titles like CS:GO. The fast reponse time also meant that smearing and ghosting were very limited, pairing nicely with the G-sync module for a tear-free experience. Despite this monitor only featuring a small 24.5″ screen size, it still provided OK levels of immersion when playing both competitive and single-player titles. Granted, this monitor is certainly not geared towards single-player titles, but it’s good to know that you can still enjoy them to a high level with this monitor.

All being said, the monitor still retails for around $700, making it one of the more expensive offerings in today’s market. Comparing this to the ASUS ROG PG259QN and Acer’s 360Hz panel and you would have to say it delivers a similar gaming experience. That being said, build quality was a little lacking in this monitor. Not to say it was terrible, but it certainly fell short in certain areas.

Overall, however, this was a very powerful gaming monitor. It delivered excellent performance when playing competitive games and certainly ticked plenty of the right boxes in other areas. If you’re in the market for rapid gaming monitor, the AGON AG254FG is well worth your consideration.