It’s interesting how for a lot of people higher resolution and larger screen size are important, but when it comes to competitive gaming. The pros have a slightly different focus, huge monitors aren’t useful or even possible for events and the singular focus is a high refresh rate. Part of getting that high refresh rate also means that high resolutions aren’t a good idea because of the processing power needed to get your performance up in the range to match with an ultra-high refresh rate so 1080p is still the norm. This is where monitors like the Agon Pro AG254FG from AOC come into play. It is pushing the limits for LAN events with its 24.5-inch screen size that they consider 25 inches but it is running 1080p with a refresh rate of 360  Hz which even just a few years ago would have been a crazy number. Of course, AOC didn’t just touch on those main features, the AG254FG does have a lot more going on so today I’m going to check it out and see what it is all about.

Product Name: AOC Agon Pro AG254FG     

Review Sample Provided by: AOC

Written by: Wes Compton

Amazon Affiliate Link: HERE

Packaging and Accessories

The box for the Agon Pro AG254FG doesn’t have the same shape as most other monitor boxes, it is noticeably taller. AOC went with color printing on the outside of the box with a black background and a purple design in the background that is like a fog with a woman in a purple dress with a sword and shield walking. This carries over into the Agon Pro AG254FG which is also on the front as well. The AOC logo is by far the largest font and is up in the top left corner along with the Agon Pro logo in the top right corner. Then down on the bottom, they highlight some of the key features like being a G-Sync monitor and the 360 Hz refresh rate and the model number is there but in a small font in the far right corner. The box has this same design on both the front and the back and the packaging doesn’t have anything else of importance on the ends.

When you open the top of the box up we can see why the box is taller than normal. They have the included hood box sitting up on top of the normal foam packaging. So you need to pull that cardboard box out first, then under that, you have the two pieces of foam formed around the monitor. AOC does include a plastic strap that goes around the foam to make it easier to pull out and also holds everything together until you pull it out of the box which is good because I’ve dropped things multiple times when pulling monitors out of their box.

The foam has all of the stand components on one side each in their own cutout area along with a foam bag over top of everything. Then there is a black box right in the middle that stands out from everything else. This has the rest of the accessories including the documentation except for the red and yellow paper that comes right on top of the box and gives you instructions on how to open up the packaging. For documentation you get two booklets, the biggest of the two is the important information booklet. This also has information on preventing tipping along with a bunch of legal information. The other book is the quick setup guide which is specific to the Agon Pro AG254FG.

When we get into the accessories box, the first thing inside you will find is the power supply for the Agon Pro AG254FG. You have what looks like a C5 to C12 power cord to plug into the main power supply which then has a larger than normal DC power connection on the end that looks to be around 7mm wide. The power supply itself supports between 100 and 240 volts and outputs 120 watts at 20 volts and 6 amps. The 20 volts might explain the larger plug size being used. The power supply is larger as well at just over 6 and a half inches wide.  

Also in the box were two smaller baggies. One has an Allen wrench-shaped Phillips head screwdriver. The other bad has two plastic wire management clips with double-sided sticky tape on the back.

This round remote is what AOC calls the OSD pad or the on screen display pad. Unlike the cordless OSD pad, they used in the Porsche Design AOC Agon PD27 that I reviewed last year the OSD pad for the Agon Pro AG254FG is corded and comes with a long cord with a mini-USB connection on the end. The OSD Pad is round and has the Agon branding on the front edge and has a black housing. The top has four buttons around the outside edges in grey. Inside of that in black, there is a four-way direction pad and then in the center is the rounded Okay button. The bottom also has rubber feet around the outside edge. The idea behind the OSD Pad is to let you have easier to access controls which you can see where the controls on the Agon Pro AG254FG and most other monitors are on the back of the monitor and if you are like me and have multiple on a stand it can sometimes be impossible to reach the controls. So having this could be nice but with multiple monitors would get to be a mess as well.

For wiring, the Agon Pro AG254FG comes with three different cables to cover anything you might need. It comes with a DisplayPort cable and an HDMI. Then the cable on the right is a USB cable to hook up the included built-in USB hub.

Photos and Features

To get the Agon Pro AG254FG all setup you need to get the stand together first which does come on the front of the foam packaging, not inside the two pieces of foam like the monitor itself does. The stand comes in two pieces, you have the vertical portion which has the mounting plate and all of the adjustment for the monitor is built into this portion. AOC has given this part a few red accents which if you look close you can see the hinge that pivots and the main red part is also what will slide up and down for monitor height adjustment. The bottom half of the Agon Pro AG254FG stand is thinner and aluminum for the 3 legs that keep everything planted on the ground. The vertical half slides into the top of this and the bottom has a screw with a flip-out wing nut that you can tighten the two halves together without any tools.

The mounting pad for the monitor has two hooks at the top and then a latch down at the bottom which is also tool-less, you just hang the Agon Pro AG254FG on the stand it will latch into place. This portion does have a 90-degree pivot built in so you can use the Agon Pro AG254FG in a horizontal or vertical layout but what is especially interesting with this are the four contact pins on the mount. These work with contact pads on the back of the monitor to keep the four connections working even when spinning. The contacts are for the logo projector which is lower down on the stand that projects the Agon logo onto your desk.

Here is a look at the stand connection on the back of the Agon Pro AG254FG. You can see at the top where the two hooks slide in and the latch spots at the bottom. The rainbow-looking contact surface for the projector at the bottom of the stand to stay connected in horizontal or vertical is cool as well. The four pre-installed screws can be removed for VESA mount support if you would prefer that over the included stand which is always good to see.

The bottom edge of the Agon Pro AG254FG has all of the I/O for the monitor split across two sections. The smaller right section has the 20v power plug as well as a USB connection for the included OSD pad which is a wired controller for the on screen display. There are also three 2.5mm audio jacks in this section as well, one is a microphone in and one is the microphone out and there is also a headphone out which will bypass the built-in speakers to your headphones. The larger I/O on the left has a USB 3.2 in and next to it four USB connections. They are especially colorful and that is because the two blue ports are standard USB 3.2 Gen 1 plugs through the hub. The yellow also has built-in fast charging and I believe this port stays powered and the green port support Reflex latency analyzer which can be turned on in the on screen display to show you your mouse latency. This main section also has a DisplayPort 1.4 port on the right and there are two HDMI ports. It’s important to note that both the HDMI and Display port connections will support the 1080p resolution but the HDMI only goes up to 240 Hz so if you want the full 360 Hz you will need to run the DisplayPort with a proper DisplayPort 1.4 cable. Also on the bottom edge, there is an addressable RGB strip with a white diffuser. The Agon Pro AG254FG comes in at 72.4 mm thick as well which is surprisingly thick.

The front of the Agon Pro AG254FG has nearly no bezel on the top and sides of the screen. The bottom bezel is thicker and is 7/8 of an inch thick. This has the AGON branding in the center and on the far left they also have Nvidia G-Sync printed on it in white. Normally that would be a sticker that you can remove, I understand with it being an esport-focused monitor that Nvidia most likely wants that to stay on there but being white and non-removable is kind of a bummer. Then in the far right corner, there is a small white LED to show you the power status. The stand on the Agon Pro AG254FG has an adjustable height and can be adjusted 130 mm or just over 5 inches to help try to get the height correct. The display itself is 24.5 inches diagonal and has a plastic cover with an anti-glare coating on it. This coating also adds a 3H hardness scratch protection as well. The Agon Pro AG254FG’s 24.5-inch display runs at 1080p or 1920 x 1080 and has an aspect ratio of 16:9. It has WLED backlighting with a brightness of 400 nits and a contrast ratio of 1000:1. It supports HDR with Vesa Certified DisplayHDR 400 and is an IPS panel. They have it rated at a viewing angle of 178 degrees left and right. Of course, being an esports-focused monitor the really important details come down to things like its response time which is 1 ms, and its refresh rate which is an impressive 360 Hz. It also supports G-Sync as well as Reflex Analyzer from Nvidia as well.

The stand on the Agon Pro AG254FG supports a side-to-side swivel of 30 degrees each way and for tilt, it can tilt down -5 degrees and 21 degrees up. 

Normally the back of a monitor doesn’t have much going on other than all of the I/O connections but we have already covered those and the Agon Pro AG254FG still has a LOT going on. For starters, it does have two 5 watts speakers but there isn’t any indication on where those are being directed out, there are vents at the top on each side which would be my guess but there is also a long vent facing the back and more down at the bottom near the I/O. On the right side of the Agon Pro AG254FG if you are facing the screen there is a small knob on the back of the monitor (left side in our pictures here) which is the on screen display controls and the power button if you aren’t using the included wired controller. Then the back of the Agon Pro AG254FG has RGB lighting with three C-shaped accents on each side with defused addressable RGB lighting in them that go with the light bar along the bottom edge as well. On the top edge, it also has a light sensor to support an auto-brightness mode that will adjust the backlight brightness depending on the light in your office/room at the time. On the right side, the small black bar next to the RGB lighting is a slide-out hook to hang your headphones off.

The stand on the Agon Pro AG254FG supports a vertical layout as well as the standard horizontal. Here is a look at it when flipped around.

I’ve mentioned the projector a few times now, the bottom of the stand has this small RGB light projector that projects the AGON logo down onto your desk. The slider on it lets you flip between their fancy emblem logo or the text logo like on the front of the monitor.

Beyond the performance features of the AG254FG that make it a pro or esports-focused monitor, AOC did also include a hood for it as well which is especially important when set up on stage with studio lighting that can wash things out on the screens. The box for the hood has the instructions on putting it all together right up on top. But I was most surprised by how protected each component was inside of the box. Each part is in padded bags then sits in its own location in the thick foam which could have been half as thick and still kept everything safe. You also get a bag of hardware as well which are long black pins which you get an extra just in case you lose one.  

With everything out of the box, this is what the hood looks like. The long panel is the main top panel that runs the width of the AG254FG. Then you have two side panels and it uses a simple hinge design to link everything together which allows it to be folded up in the future without taking the hinges back apart. The outside of the panels is black plastic but then inside they have a soft felt coating. The top panel does have what looks like a handle in the center but this is to still allow room for webcams or camera mounting at the top of the monitor if that is needed. Each of the panels has a small grove that fits perfectly around the monitor so when you sit it on the monitor it holds from the top and the sides to lock the hood in place.  

The top and both sides do have Agon branding on them and then I have a few pictures of the AG254FG with the hood installed. Even with my photo lighting being positioned low and somewhat facing towards the front of the monitor you can still see the shadows that the hood creates on the screen to help cut back on any glare and to keep everything dark and visible.

Performance

Before jumping into the testing of the Agon Pro AG254FG I did want to double-check that it will run at the resolution and refresh rate that it is advertised at. For this, I hooked the monitor up using a DisplayPort 1.4 cable and then double-checked things using the Nvidia control panel. There I could see the resolutions supported included the native 1920 x 1080 resolution and all of the available refresh rates which 360 Hz is at the top. We can also see that G-Sync is supported as well. Then I went to windows display settings to double check that HDR also worked because the Agon Pro AG254FG is listed as a DisplayHDR compatible display and it does work.

Before getting into some of our other testing I did want to talk about some of the features of the Agon Pro AG254FG like its lighting. The most noticeable, especially from the front of the monitor is the projector that projects the AGON logo down onto your desk. Even on the dark table that I was using for testing here, the logo shows up extremely clearly and I found out later that this was only with it set to the medium brightness setting, there is a higher setting than this! The slider with the projector also lets you switch between the shield A logo design which reminds me a lot of League of Legends to the normal text version of the Agon logo like on the front of the monitor. I should also note that the LED light bar at the bottom of the AG254FG is on but it doesn’t project any light down on the table here. In fact, I forgot it was even there until I was testing viewing angles and tilted the display up, and was looking from under.

The back accent RGB lighting on the other hand is going to be a lot more visible assuming the back of your monitor is visible. With desks pushed up against a wall you might catch some lighting here and there reflecting off the wall but this lighting is mostly there to look cool when you can see the back. By default, it has a rainbow effect but in the OSD you can pick between other effects or set solid colors as well to match your build or your office.

Earlier I mentioned the opening at the top of the optional hood that is there to help you mount a webcam. Here is a look at how it flips up. Most traditional cams would work without this opening. But there may be some camera mounts used for the production cameras in e-sports where this is needed.

Here is the slide-out headphone hanger on the left side as well. It works with the hood installed because it has a small notch on that side. The hanger itself only sticks out a little more than an inch and it isn’t a very thick hanger. I wouldn’t put a lot of weight on it but it does get the job done as far as headphones go to keep them out of the way when not in use.

To check out the performance of the monitor I started my testing off with the EIZO monitor test to get an idea of the Agon Pro AG254FG’s IPS displays performance. My first test was the test pattern to get an initial look at the image quality across a variety of colors and to make sure the image fits on the screen correctly which it does. The checkered pattern around the edge helps us look for any light bleed as does the next test the uniformity test and the Agon Pro AG254FG looks good across most of the display though the bottom left corner does have some light bleed.

The gradient test shows the light bleed a little as well but otherwise didn’t show any inconsistencies when going across the display in grey or any of the color gradients included in the test.

The test has a sharpness test which tests the Agon Pro AG254FG with a screen full of text to make sure it can reproduce it sharply and without any shadows.

Then we have one of my favorite tests, checking out viewing angle performance. The Agon Pro AG254FG lists its viewing angle in the specifications as 178 degrees in each direction which is the standard for an IPS panel. In every angle, the test on the display is completely readable though some of the angles as you can see do wash the black out somewhat. The bottom angle here is a great look at the bottom RGB lighting which doesn’t throw any light down onto the table but looks good when you can see it, sadly you have to get this low to do it lol.

The gamma test put the Agon Pro AG254FG at a gamma level of 2.3 which is great and an improvement over the last few AOC monitors in the office.

With all of that out of the way, I couldn’t wait to dive into the biggest component that makes the Agon Pro AG254FG special and that is that crazy 360 Hz refresh rate. For this, the standard is vising the Blur Busters website which has a variety of tools to test things out. A lot of those don’t translate to a photo but there are a few that are always great to check out. The first one is the frame skipping test which runs across an array of boxes at a high speed one frame at a time and when you take a picture with an exposure of 1/10 you will be able to see all of the boxes that are displayed in that time and you can check to make sure none of the frames were skipped which you can see below that there was no issue with the Agon Pro AG254FG.

Next up I did want to confirm that the Agon Pro AG254FG is reaching its claimed refresh rate and we can see that officially it is just right below it at 359.553 Hz.

The last test is the Animation Timing Precision graph which graphs out the precision of the frames. This will show any skipping and issues and is a test of Vsync or in this case Gsync. While there were a few small spikes the Agon Pro AG254FG did well here.

While I don’t dive into my on-screen display settings often when you do you are most likely not going to remember how the controls work. The Agon Pro AG254FG does help with a few different things. For one, you have the OSD pod which is a wired remote that you can see, if you are using that you don’t have to fumble behind the monitor. The normal control button is there as well on the right side but I do wish they would put it accessible from the bottom of the display in case you are running a multi-monitor setup. I know it's always a huge pain on my monitors when I’m trying to reach the controls for that reason. All of that said the actual on screen menu for the Agon Pro AG254FG is surprisingly easy to navigate because of the photo menu and they do have pictures of what your button controls are down at the bottom to help as well.

The game menu is the first menu and this lets you turn on some of the gaming-focused features like turning on a frame counter which isn’t really an FPS counter but shows your current refresh rate. But with G-sync your refresh rate should be your frame rate assuming you have Vsync on in your game. The dial point turns on a crosshair in the middle of the screen which some might consider cheating in some games but can be a big help for games without a crosshair.

The G-Sync menu page has the options controlled by the G-Sync processor. The big one here is the ULMB option which can turn on ultra low motion blur. This also has the settings for the Nvidia Reflex latency analyzer tool for getting the lowest latency with your mouse. With that, it also controls that USB port so you can turn on USB charging and if the USB is on when the monitor is in sleep mode.

The audio menu controls the two 5-watt speakers, this is where you can adjust speaker volume and turn on DTS sound.

The Luminance menu is where they have the contrast ratio settings, gamma, and backlight settings for things like variable backlight mode.

The color setup is all display settings for color temp, turning the low blue light mode on, and adjusting your red, green, and blue color tones individually.

The lightFX menu is the accent lighting menu. You can set the RGB brightness, select an effect like breathing, and then the color pattern which by default is rainbow but you can set it to anything. There is also a shortcut menu that gets you the lighting presets as well.

The menu does scroll down and has two more options on it. The extra menu has a few random things in it like switching between your inputs and turning the auto input switch on and off which I was surprised that the Agon Pro AG254FG came with that option turned off. That is one of those things that will cause someone inexperienced to not know why their monitor isn’t working if they plug into a port that isn’t the default. They also have the logo projector settings here which is weird, you would think that would be in the lightFX menu but you can see that by default it does come set to the medium brightness. The other hidden menu is the PSD menu which is where you can change the language for the OSD, its timeout timer, transparency, and position on the screen. There is also a break reminder here that you can set up to remind you to get up and take a break if you have been at the screen too long.

Overall and Final Verdict

AOC certainly stepped things up with the Agon Pro AG254FG and they are focused on esports with the AG254FG which supports their partnerships with companies like G2 esports, ESL, Riot Games, and in the past Red Bull. The Agon Pro AG254FG is going to be a solid choice with just its 360 Hz refresh rate, but AOC didn’t’ stop with just that. It is a full G-Sync monitor and they use the G-Sync processer to also add in Nvidia Reflex Analyzer which can test your mouse latency when using the reflex USB port in the USB hub built into the Agon Pro AG254FG. You also get ultra low latency mode which can improve your gaming performance in shooters. The AG254FG is a DisplayHDR 400 capable display and the 1080p resolution may sound low to some but is the only way you are going to be able to get the performance needed to take advantage of the 360 Hz refresh rate.

The esport-specific features can also be seen on the outside of the Agon Pro AG254FG which includes an add-on hood to help with studio lights and the built-in headphone stand. The stand itself has a lot of adjustability including being able to rotate the Agon Pro AG254FG into vertical mode if that is what you prefer without interrupting the logo projector built into the stand. The OSD menus are easy to use which is good in an esport environment because it will be new people using the monitors often and the Agon Pro AG254FG also comes with a wired remote that they call the OSD pod. For home use, it does also include VESA mount support which is something I wouldn’t be able to go without.

The Agon Pro AG254FG isn’t perfect and while the display performed extremely well in my testing across the board. I did have some light bleed in the bottom left corner. My other nitpick or complaint would be that some of the RGB lighting is useless. Specifically, the bottom-mounted light bar which isn’t visible unless you are looking up from below the monitor, in some displays that have had a similar light bar it would glow under the monitor but I couldn’t see it at all on our table, especially with the Agon logo projector. I personally don’t find the back RGB accents very useful as well because my desk is up against a wall but I do understand that some office setups will be visible and with the esport focus that lighting would be visible when used on stage.

My other complaint on the Agon Pro AG254FG was its price. With an MSRP of $699.99 and even with it currently selling for $649 on Amazon, it is expensive. That isn’t to say you aren’t getting a great monitor because the Agon Pro AG254FG is. But there are other 24-25 inch monitors with a 360 Hz refresh rate like the PG259QN which is currently $480, MSI has one for $403, and even Alienware which is known for higher prices is $409. You do get the hood with the AG254FG but that doesn’t justify the additional cost. So for the AG254FG, it is a great monitor but keep an eye on pricing. AOC is normally on top of pricing so I imagine that we will eventually see the AG254FG being competitive there.

Live Pricing: HERE

Author Bio

Author: garfi3ldWebsite: http://lanoc.org

Editor-in-chief

You might call him obsessed or just a hardcore geek. Wes's obsession with gaming hardware and gadgets isn't anything new, he could be found taking things apart even as a child. When not poking around in PC's he can be found playing League of Legends, Awesomenauts, or Civilization 5 or watching a wide variety of TV shows and Movies. A car guy at heart, the same things that draw him into tweaking cars apply when building good looking fast computers. If you are interested in writing for Wes here at LanOC you can reach out to him directly using our contact form.