MSI MAG 255XFV Reddit Verdict: Great Deal or VA Gamble?

The resolution complaint misses the point — it's 300hz.

I actually own this and use it for games like Val and it is fine. I do not need crystal clear visuals or I would've gone to QHD but for the price this is more than enough. The VA has nice blacks and better contrasts than IPS. Response time is also fast so I wouldn't consider that a downside. I would consider if you want better colors, viewing angles and response time opt for the IPS LG, but given that the 255XFV is still fast as HELL, I would pick the MSI if you wanted better for media consumption as it has better contrast.

I have it and I gotta say, I'm pretty disappointed. HDR is very meh, colors are not the best and monitor is not bright as it should. I have some HPs 144Hz super old that seem a lot better on the image. The 300Hz is really good, no ghosting and all...but I miss the colors from my other monitors. Whites are almost unbearable and even lines on excel are not even visible.

I read more about the AOC one and it seems to have a lot of issues, so I went with the MSI, and if something goes wrong I can still return it. I already have a 165hz monitor with 250 nits brightness, and it's enough, but I hadn't had something brighter and thought maybe I was missing something.

Did the settings from the guide and it's great.

Applied the settings from the guide — it's really good.

The white color fix tip — setting color temperature to Custom and all channels to 100 — was very helpful.

1080p for 24 inch is fine.

Wait, this is from the VA panel? Holy — that's lowkey impressive. There's a bit of overshoot and undershoot but the smearing is minimal and almost top-IPS levels of control. For a VA that's kind of incredible.

Just ordered one for my grandfather. Keep in mind the 255xfv is 250hz and rapid VA. For $20 more there is a 300hz same response time 0.5ms IPS LCD version the 255XF. If you're a competitive FPS gamer some people swear the IPS has less smearing and better color accuracy. But imo the 255xfv has so much blacker blacks and whiter whites, colors pop vibrantly especially with HDR turned on.

It's freaking beautiful and is super bright, perfect contrast ratio. I couldn't recommend it more. Absolutely no ghosting at 240fps/240hz vsync. Smooth as butter. Not sure what I would be missing with an IPS model but I doubt it would be a significant difference. My grandfather has really bad cataracts and says he's never been able to read text on a monitor clearer.

Mine was horrible, it completely stopped working after 4 months even though I didn't do anything.

I bought it. 250hz, fastest mode with just a little ghosting, fast mode with no ghosting. All is good. Except the VA panel, it looks not good as IPS. That's it. Recommend buying at this good price.

Colors are either bad or blown out with HDR. Whites are too white and when contrast gets better, monitor will not be as bright. When it is bright enough, contrast is not the best and you lose a lot of detail. But, as I've said, personal experience. To me it is not AMAZING, but it is still a pretty good monitor.

I got this monitor today. I mainly use it to play overwatch. Motion clarity is excellent and smooth. One thing it does have HDR but the colours were terrible even after windows calibration I had to turn it off. It was actually really bad. Pale colours and weird areas which were too bright and somehow made text and sharp lines worse. But otherwise it's very smooth. Stand is pretty cheap and only tilt adjustable.

I got this today and pretty smooth playing CS 2 and DOTA at 300hz without overclocking. The only problem I have with this monitor is the color is shit, spent hours trying to get the right color temperature and my picture still looks like very exposed when switching platforms (Gaming to desktop to browser).

Just bought it, had the 255 XFV before it and was curious to see the difference. Adaptive sync works well with the 300hz and no smearing or flickering. Really good out of the box colors, only thing I noticed is the picture is noticeably darker overall even with the brightness at 100. That's my only complaint. HDR is just a gimmick here — you need local dimming for real HDR.

I bought the monitor out of curiosity. Brand new on Newegg for $162.55. Is there any ghosting? I haven't noticed any. I used UFO to test and no issue. I tested with Rainbow 6 Siege and never noticed any ghosting. Brightness is plenty for me. I have it set to brightness=70 and contrast=70. In a dark room I'm having no problems. Pretty good monitor for competitive gaming.

I purchased this monitor a couple of days back and like yourself I mainly play R6. I am really struggling with how it displays whites, it looks fuzzy and hard to look at.

Never even tried the settings fix, just accepted the graininess and got used to it — and it's no big deal. So far though, perfect monitor for the price, no other complaints.

Good enough for competitive. MPRT works excellent with no visible ghosting. Zowie is obviously better for competitive games but for the price this holds up.

I tested on UFO website — I don't recommend using MPRT, the ghosting is very noticeable.

Bought this today. I'm telling you, for this price this is a treasure.

The settings guide makes it look much better. Not that I thought it was bad originally, but it seemed kind of glare-y especially at night. Now it looks quite civilized and nice, and like I could use it for hours without wearing out my eyes.

For comp games, get the XF because of the higher refresh and minimal ghosting and smearing compared to the XFV.

The difference from 144hz to 300hz is pretty big. I'm hitting shots I thought I couldn't hit.

The mag 255xf is very good for its price — you're just used to your old HP.

I just pulled the trigger and ordered 3 of these. They were on sale at Walmart for $116 during launch. With everything else that's around the same price, this monitor was just a no brainer. I can't believe this much Hz exists at this price point.

I don't think I've ever seen this much hz for $120. Definitely pulling the trigger.

I was looking at this too. It seems pretty cheap for 240hz. Looking at the specs, it's a VA panel, so it's not going to look good. And it's only 250 nits. The Dell G2524H is another one I found for $170 — it's an IPS and 280hz. I think it's worth spending a few extra bucks on it.

I don't get companies calling these HDR monitors when there's no local dimming. My AOC Q27G3XMN 1440p has true HDR 1000 certification because it's mini LED. This monitor's HDR is just a gimmick — don't fall for it.

I'm coming from a 100hz VA 1080p monitor with 5ms. Even with overdrive I still see blur and DLSS makes it worse. I'm jumping to 300hz IPS 25 inch 0.5ms — should be a massive difference. My entire setup is MSI anyway so this feels like a natural fit.

As far as I can tell the 25G3ZM is VA so I'd get this instead because it's IPS and doesn't have black smearing.

I keep the brightness at 70 which I believe is the default and it is fine, however 10 bit is pretty much meaningless in this price bracket so you'll probably be better off with the AOC just to have the brightness headroom in case you end up needing it.

I've had the 255XF for a year and I have nothing to say about it besides that it's 1080p — but that's not really that bad.

I have many competitive gaming monitors. This monitor is pretty good, especially for its price, for competitive gaming.

Kinda got used to the color issues after a week. I was using a ROG Swift before this which had better picture quality and I had it for 2 years. It's a step down in image quality but a big step up in refresh rate.

The darker picture issue isn't really a problem for me — it looks really good for a 1080p panel. I was able to fix it by turning up the contrast to 85. I'd recommend it for high refresh 1080p gaming.

Watched YouTube reviews comparing both. The IPS panel version is better overall, the VA panel is not as good.

Not sure if to keep my backorder on the MSI one for less than $100 total. Curious to try it out as I've only found 2 reviews by humans on YouTube but one was in Chinese with no subtitles and the other in Spanish which wasn't in-depth.

My comp goes from 250-300fps on this monitor in Overwatch and I'm happy with the motion clarity. The 300hz is absolutely noticeable when you're pushing those frame rates.