Question Noob question about getting an external monitor for my gaming laptop

[Alexoferith]

Hi, I wonder if any experienced PC (laptop) users can help me. After I retired last year, I got myself an ASUS G513R laptop with RTX 3080, 16 Gb RAM and 1 TB NVMe SSD. And after spending a couple of weeks at my brother-in-law's place, using his ACER 27" monitor as an external monitor, I decide to get myself one. Since I don't have much experience with laptop, I didn't take notice of the connectors offered by the laptop at purchase. After spending days of reading, eventually I got help here at Tom's Hardware. Someone advised me to get a USB-c to DisplayPort cable but make sure it is DUAL communication. And finally, I could play Black Myth - Wukong at 2K, running at an FPS of 74 on average.
Now, I have spent a few weeks, at least 3 weeks reading and searching. I found myself a lttle confused. Well, I have decided not to go for a 32" monitor as I cannot really see the edge area of the screen. So, I have decided to go for 27" IPS with G-Sync or adaptive Sync. What is confusing me is that for those 27" 4k monitors, from the users' comments, it seems to me that they cannot display in 2k or if so, it will be poor quality. I would be most grateful if someone can confirm this info for me. I assume that if a monitor can display higher resolution, it should have no problem displaying a lower one.
I am currently looking at ASUS ROG Strix XG27UCG and ASUS ROG Strix XG27UCS. On ASUS website, only thing mentioned about the resolution is 3840x2160, nothing about lower resolution with the UCS but with the UCG, it says 3840x2160 at 165hz and 1920x1080 at 320 hz, but nothing about 2560x1440 in both cases. Does that mean that I would not be able to choose the 2k resolution? Many many thanks in advance for your help. Thanks.
Regards,
Alex

 

[Lutfij]

DUAL communication
You mean bi-directional?

I got myself an ASUS G513R laptop with RTX 3080
I'm assuming you got the ROG Strix G15 (2022) G513RM-HF281W as listed in this chart;

ROG Strix G15 (2022) | Gaming Laptops｜ROG - Republic of Gamers｜ROG Bangladesh

2022 ROG Strix G15 is powered by an AMD Ryzen™ 9 6900HX CPU, an NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 3060 Ti Laptop GPU with MUX Switch and lighting fast DDR5 RAM. Up to FHD 300Hz or QHD 165Hz display options with Adaptive Sync.

rog.asus.com

?

If so, then you have access to a;
1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C with support for DisplayPort™ / power delivery / G-SYNC (data speed up to 10Gbps)
so you can hook up any display that accepts USB-C input.

Both the monitors you're looking at;

ROG Strix XG27UCS | Gaming monitors｜ROG - Republic of Gamers｜ROG Global

27-inch 4K, 180Hz, 1ms (GTG), Fast IPS, Extreme Low Motion Blur Sync, USB Type-C, G-Sync compatible, DisplayWidget Center, tripod socket, HDR

rog.asus.com

ROG Strix XG27UCG | Gaming monitors｜ROG - Republic of Gamers｜ROG Global

27-inch 3840x2160, dual mode (4K 160Hz or FHD 320Hz), 1ms (GTG), Fast IPS, Extreme Low Motion Blur Sync, USB Type-C, G-Sync compatible (processing), DisplayWidget Center, tripod socket, HDR, Aura Sync

rog.asus.com

have;
USB-C x 1 (DP Alt Mode)
so you're good to go.

Does that mean that I would not be able to choose the 2k resolution?
4K is higher than 2K, so if your panel can do 4K, you can reduce the resolution in Nvidia's control panel or Windows OS to 2K.

 

[Alexoferith]

DUAL communication
You mean bi-directional?

I got myself an ASUS G513R laptop with RTX 3080
I'm assuming you got the ROG Strix G15 (2022) G513RM-HF281W as listed in this chart;

ROG Strix G15 (2022) | Gaming Laptops｜ROG - Republic of Gamers｜ROG Bangladesh

2022 ROG Strix G15 is powered by an AMD Ryzen™ 9 6900HX CPU, an NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 3060 Ti Laptop GPU with MUX Switch and lighting fast DDR5 RAM. Up to FHD 300Hz or QHD 165Hz display options with Adaptive Sync.

rog.asus.com

?

If so, then you have access to a;
1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C with support for DisplayPort™ / power delivery / G-SYNC (data speed up to 10Gbps)
so you can hook up any display that accepts USB-C input.

Both the monitors you're looking at;

ROG Strix XG27UCS | Gaming monitors｜ROG - Republic of Gamers｜ROG Global

27-inch 4K, 180Hz, 1ms (GTG), Fast IPS, Extreme Low Motion Blur Sync, USB Type-C, G-Sync compatible, DisplayWidget Center, tripod socket, HDR

rog.asus.com

ROG Strix XG27UCG | Gaming monitors｜ROG - Republic of Gamers｜ROG Global

27-inch 3840x2160, dual mode (4K 160Hz or FHD 320Hz), 1ms (GTG), Fast IPS, Extreme Low Motion Blur Sync, USB Type-C, G-Sync compatible (processing), DisplayWidget Center, tripod socket, HDR, Aura Sync

rog.asus.com

have;
USB-C x 1 (DP Alt Mode)
so you're good to go.

Does that mean that I would not be able to choose the 2k resolution?
4K is higher than 2K, so if your panel can do 4K, you can reduce the resolution in Nvidia's control panel or Windows OS to 2K.

Thank you very much for your quick response.
1. Yes, sorry, I mean bi-directional.
2. It is a G15 G513RS 2022 model but with a RTX 3080 and yes, CPU is 6900HX.
With regard to the resolution, if I can set my display to 2K, does that mean that the frequency will be the same as the 4k max, 160 Hz? My laptop screen has a frequency of 300 Hz max. Many thanks for your help.
Regards,
Alex

 

[Lutfij]

The display output will be different than what your laptop's screen can output due to internal motherboard wiring/soldering. Generally when you go for higher resolutions, the refresh rate drops. So the inverse is possible when you reduce your resolution.

 

[Alexoferith]

The display output will be different than what your laptop's screen can output due to internal motherboard wiring/soldering. Generally when you go for higher resolutions, the refresh rate drops. So the inverse is possible when you reduce your resolution.

Hi, I am very sorry to trouble you again. I have purchased the XG27UCG monitor. When I first connected it, it works fine and to my surprise, the resolution of the display was at 3840x2160 at 60Hz even though my laptop was set to 1920x1080 at 320 Hz!!!
My first question is that the bi-directional USB-C to DP cable is stated to be capable of 144Hz. Why I cannot change it to 144 Hz? Is this the limitation of the laptop GPU?
My 2nd question is that, well, I cannot remember what I have clicked as I was trying different things at the same time. Now, using NVidia Control Panel, I only have the choice of 1920x1080 at 320 Hz. After trying to lower the frequency to 144Hz and 60 Hz, I don't see the choice for 2560x1440 nor 3840x2160 anymore. Can you help? Many many thanks for your help in advance. I don't mind if I cannot go up to 3840x2160, but I would really like to set it to 2560x1440 as I have been doing so with my brother-in-law's Acer monitor which is older model than this XG27UCG (I think).
Regards,
Alex

 

[Alexoferith]

Or can anyone help? Many thanks in advance.