MSI OPTIX MAG273R Gaming Monitor.

The Gaming menu offers five picture modes aimed at different game types. User is the default and best mode, as it allows for image adjustments. Night Vision raises the black level to make shadow detail more visible. Response time is a three-level overdrive. We ran it on its maximum without visible ghosting.

Anti-Motion Blur is a backlight strobe that takes out overdrive and Adaptive-Sync. It also reduces brightness by 50%. We noticed visible phasing when using it, so we recommend leaving it off. Refresh Rate is an FPS counter you can place in any corner of the screen. Alarm Clock is a countdown timer, and Screen Assistance offers an array of aiming points. You get five different reticle shapes in either red or white, and you can place it anywhere on the screen using the joystick.

The Professional sub-menu repeats the backlight strobe option and adds dynamic contrast (HDCR) and four more picture modes. The last one, HDR, attempts to simulate the effect of HDR with SDR content. We weren’t fans of it, but users should try it for themselves before deciding. Image Enhancement adds ringing around high-contrast objects. We suggest leaving it off.

The Image menu has the MAG273R’s calibration controls. You get three color temp presets, plus a set of RGB sliders. We were able to achieve excellent grayscale tracking with them. We wish there were extra gamma presets because we found the default luminance urve to be a little light; measuring closer to 1.9 rather than 2.2.