ASUS released a brand new monitor called the ProArt Display 6K PA32QCV that is specifically made for content creators who care about colors and how good the colors look. It’s not content creators like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok – but content creators who work on films that require super accurate color reproduction.
And yet, this monitor is also very friendly to every computer – including Macs as this monitor supports MacOS’s P3 color profile too.
Specs
Let’s talk about the specs first. On paper, it is a:
- 31.5-inch
- IPS LCD
- 6016×3384 pixels
- 218 ppi
- 16:9 aspect ratio
- 60Hz refresh rate
Despite this monitor being advertised to only have a typical brightness of 400 nits in SDR mode, we can actually get 635 nits at 100% brightness. That’s… quite surprising, and supremely bright. The brightness can also be controlled via Mac’s native keys.
Now, there are a lot of color profiles that are built into this monitor, but I’m only going to highlight a total of 3 of them, starting with the default native color profile. This is actually a very good starting point already, as it covers 99.96% of sRGB and 99.16% of DCI-P3 color gamuts, and even up to 87.92% of Adobe RGB too. It can achieve all of this while still having an extremely low ΔE number. It’s impressively low.
Then moving on to the DCI-P3 color mode for a much more vivid look, it can cover 99.95% of sRGB and 95.97% of DCI-P3, while also covering 80.39% of Adobe RGB. Once more, the ΔE number is really low as well.
Then we have it in the sRGB mode. If you’re familiar with sRGB mode itself is a standard that has a defined 80 nits brightness. Our colorimeter only reports it at 76 nits. It can cover 98.95% of sRGB and 72.47% of DCI-P3 color gamuts and 69.37% of Adobe RGB.
Looking at all of this information that we have, I can quite safely say that the specs sheet on the ASUS website is kind of underselling what the monitor can do. While the display is amazing, let’s now talk about the features that it has.
Plus, this monitor also has ASUS’s exclusive LuxPixel technology – which is their own proprietary anti-glare, low reflection technology. It works really well as it can also reduce the reflections from our super bright studio lights.
Other features
Firstly, we have the buttons located at the bottom right corner of the monitor. Having the buttons facing the front is definitely convenient, though I personally would prefer it to be at the back because of aesthetics reasons – and I don’t think we need to touch these buttons anyway. More on that later.
Now, the OSD menu is pretty comprehensive. Pressing into the joystick will bring up this menu, and we can press on the corresponding buttons as shortcuts to those menus. We can then press in the joystick again to bring up the real OSD menu.
In here, we can see a lot of stuff. First, we have the color profile presets. These are as shown earlier, but I do want to highlight this brightness slider. It goes from 0 to 400, and the slider moves very slowly. I thought the values here correspond to the monitor’s actual brightness, like the previous generation of ProArt monitors- but no. 400 in the brightness slider means 635 nits.
Then we have the color palette where we can further tune the colors, image where we can change how the display responds to the input signal, PiP and PbP if we have two computers plugged inside, QuickFit Plus that draws whatever margins we selected on the screen directly. This is a great feature for video editors who will be using this monitor as the live preview, and these margins will serve as a permanent guideline.
Then we have input selection, and a whole list of other settings. This settings menu has a bunch more things to change, but I want to highlight a few here. Firstly, the MediaSync feature is actually referring to the VESA MediaSync. It’s a feature that most people won’t care about, but if you’re buying this monitor, then enable it please. VESA MediaSync is technologically similar to AMD FreeSync, but it’s catered for lower refresh rate content like films and such.
Then, we have the dynamic dimming feature as this monitor does have a little ambient light sensor beside the power button at the front.
Companion app
All of these features, while they are built into the OSD menu, navigation is quite annoying. Luckily, we have the ASUS DisplayWidget Center.
By downloading this utility from ASUS’s website, we can directly fine-tune the settings with our keyboard and mouse, and we don’t have to use any of the buttons on the monitor itself. We can even set shortcut keys on the keyboard so we can change the monitor settings directly from the keyboard! That’s extremely useful!
Plus, the MultiFrame layout partitions the monitor into a few different layouts. It works flawlessly if you’re the kind of guy who likes this kinds of window organization.
Finally, we have the App Tweaker, where we can select which app to use what particular color profile. I find it to be useful but annoying since the display flashes every time it changes the color profile.
Utilities
Back to the ProArt Display 6K PA32QCV download page a while. In here, both MacOS and Windows 11 have the ASUS DisplayWidget Center software, and they’re essentially the same in terms of functionality. All of the functions are already shown above, and we practically don’t need to touch the monitor’s OSD buttons as everything can be controlled by the DisplayWidget Center software.
Please also do remember to update the monitor’s firmware. It can be downloaded via the support page as well, and the update process is quite similar to how we update a motherboard’s BIOS. We have updated everything before testing this monitor.
Ports
As for the ports, I do think that ASUS has kind of modernized the ports that a KVM monitor should have. We have all of these ports as shown.
I do wish that there were more USB ports – particularly USB-C, this is already pretty good. Also, thanks for including KVM functionality. Even though this isn’t a gaming monitor, I can still play some games on it using my desktop and switch over to my MacBook when I need to get work done.
Ergonomics
This monitor also has a very sturdy stand that supports all the ergonomic features that we can ask for. Height adjustment, pivot, tilt, and also rotation – all of them are supported. Plus, the monitor also works with 100x100mm VESA mounts.
Should you buy the ASUS ProArt Display 6K PA32QCV?
So, should you buy this monitor? I think if you’re someone who can utilize all the features that it has – or maybe just most of the features since there are way too many features here – then yes, this monitor is highly recommended. Many types of work that need accurate colors are also recommended to get this monitor, such as:
- Creative directors
- Senior designers
- UI/UX designers
- Video/photo colorists
- Filmmakers
- VFX artists
Mac users won’t have to worry as well as this monitor is 100% compatible with the Mac’s color profiles. Even for me, I think this monitor suits my use case too, as I have a Mac Mini and a gaming desktop hooked to one KVM monitor and switch between both machines frequently.
As for the price, it is at RM6,293. It’s not overly expensive considering that the ASUS ProArt Display 6K PA32QCV is about the same price as the Apple Studio Display, which is only 27-inch and has 5K in resolution. The Apple Studio Display XDR is more than double the price, and it is locked into the Mac ecosystem only. This ASUS monitor can be used on both Windows and Mac.
Plus, ASUS is also providing 3-year warranty with 1-1 swap service in case anything happens to it too. It gives me peace of mind as the monitor is such a crucial piece of tool for our work. Also, it comes with 3 months of Adobe Creative Cloud for free too!
Since we like the monitor so much for its versatility, we’re obviously going to give it our gold star rating.
