When we unpacked the G-Pro 120Hz, we were unable to find any instructions on how to enable refresh rates above 60Hz. The Nvidia Control Panel only showed 60Hz as an available choice. Of course, we had the monitor connected via DisplayPort. What Monoprice left out of its manual is the fact that you have to use the included heavy-gauge dual-link DVI cable for faster refresh rates.
Once we rectified this, there was still the matter of creating custom resolution presets, since the G-Pro’s EDID (Extended Display Identification Data) has not been modified. Normally, manufacturers do this so the video card can see the display’s supported refresh rates. Luckily, these presets are easy to set up in Nvidia's software.
We’ve already created a 120Hz preset here. To do this, click Customize and you’ll see the dialog box below.
All you have to do is change the refresh rate to 120Hz, or any number between 60 and 120. Leave the timings on Automatic. The driver will test different settings for you until the image remains stable. In our case, it only took a few seconds.
While the G-Pro is stable at 120Hz, we did encounter some frame-skipping artifacts. Our tests and findings are on page seven, along with the response and input lag results.
The OSD is incredibly simple, with only four sub-menus to explore.
The first screen has the brightness, contrast and dynamic contrast controls. The brightness slider appears to work in reverse. Lowering the number raises the backlight level. Contrast comes set to 70 and should not be set higher since clipping will result. Dynamic contrast should be avoided entirely; it will crush detail at both ends of the brightness scale.
Screen two contains three white balance presets plus a user-configurable mode. The RGB sliders interact a bit, making it tricky to achieve perfect grayscale tracking. Our results were pretty good though. If you don’t calibrate, User mode is still the best choice.
The OSD can be viewed in either English or Korean. You can move it to any position on the screen and extend its timeout to a maximum of 60 seconds.
The final screen has source selection, aspect ratio options (16:10 or 4:3), factory reset and a field for choosing the DisplayPort version. Even though we chose 1.2, it still wouldn’t support refresh rates over 60Hz. You’ll have to use DVI for that.
Once we figured out that the brightness control works backwards, it was a simple matter to dial in the G-Pro 120Hz. There are no picture modes, so you can only create a single group of settings. The only feature we missed was an sRGB gamut option. Our tests confirmed that this is an Adobe RGB-native screen and you can’t throttle the color back to the more commonly-used Rec.709 standard. We left DCR (dynamic contrast) off and tweaked the RGB sliders for a solid grayscale tracking result. Gamma tracked well in our tests, which is fortunate since there’s no gamma control. While the out-of-box color is decent, you might realize some gains by trying our settings below.