Moving on to the PC side of things, you can finally take advantage of the advertised 165 Hz refresh rate of the 42771. This is when things need to be more purposefully set up though. Hooking up a PC through HDMI will give you the option of selecting 120 Hz output, and through Displayport, will also open up a 144Hz mode. Neither of these is the stated 165Hz mode, so to take advantage of the advertised speed you need to have your PC hooked up through Displayport and then create a custom resolution with the 165 Hz refresh rate which you can then apply. Even at 1080P, 165 FPS will require decent hardware to achieve. For my aged GTX 1080 this proved a bit difficult in a few titles without lowering settings, and even then it isn’t a guarantee. When it happens, the results are quite pleasing. The 42771 also has built-in adaptive sync to help compensate for the occasional dips, though I haven’t personally noticed much of a difference in games with it on or off.
I wanted to take one minute here to talk about using the monitor’s OSD. The power button found on the back of the display has the typical 4-way movement device that lets you navigate menus and adjust settings. While one direction will bring you into the proper OSD, the other 3 directions have their own set hotkey, like input and color profile swapping. The last direction brings up an on-screen crosshair that can prove useful in games that don’t always have one on display. Inside the OSD you have the typical options for image adjustments, which I covered a little earlier, a couple of audio options, input selection, and a number of extra things like being able to turn off the red LED’s. You can also make them flash on and off if that’s your thing. I am a big fan of being able to select the RGB range on the monitor for different input sources as well.
Now as far as my complaints with the 42771 go, my biggest one is the display’s brightness. It is not a bright display and it can take a while to adjust to it. The display also lacks any form of HDR, which shouldn’t be that unexpected, I suppose. I also take pause at not knowing exactly what type of adaptive sync technology is in use with the 42771, because you would expect it to be either Freesync or Gsync, and it not being stated means it is likely some weird or unlicensed implementation. Could this be why the feature seems to have no effect in my gameplay sessions? Probably. Otherwise, I have greatly enjoyed my time with the 42771 and am sad to send it back once this review has concluded.
While the focus of the gaming world has shifted to higher resolutions, having a native 1080P monitor for 1080P content is awesome, and having higher refresh rates along with it is even better. For players looking to get a start in the competitive scene or have smoother performance in titles on PC or Xbox Series S, the 42771 offers a great picture, performance, and best of all: price! Combine all of this with a sleek look, larger display size (well, I guess that really depends on the person), and plenty of input ports, and you are getting a solid package. So long as you don’t need more advanced bells and whistles like HDR and Freesync, the Dark Matter 42771 might be one of the best entry-level high refresh rate monitors out there right now.
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