ZOWIE Brings Tournament-Grade Monitors to the Budapest Major — Pros Say They Felt the Edge

What happened at the Budapest Major and why it mattered

At the 2025 Budapest Major, ZOWIE supplied its newest XL2586X+ gaming monitors for competition play and practice areas. The monitors were visible on stage and in team rooms across the event, and the company ran on-site demos for players, coaches and fans. For those following pro play, the move was straightforward: a hardware brand took a prominent role at one of the season’s biggest tournaments, giving professionals a chance to use gear designed for high-speed shooters.

What the XL2586X+ actually brings to gameplay

The XL2586X+ is built around two things pro players care about: speed and comfort. It offers a very high refresh rate and an extremely fast pixel response time, which together make motion look smoother and help targets appear sharper when players turn quickly. In practice that means frames update more often and image blur is reduced during fast camera moves.

Low input lag is another headline feature. That’s the delay between a player moving their mouse and seeing the result on screen. The XL2586X+ prioritizes minimal delay, so small aiming corrections feel more immediate. The monitor’s color and contrast settings are tuned to keep important on-screen elements easy to see without dramatic saturation that can hide subtle details.

Ergonomics matter in long events, and the monitor offers height, tilt and swivel adjustments plus a swivel-and-pivot stand that helps players set up exactly how they like. A consistent viewing angle and a stable mount reduce the tiny adjustments that can throw off a routine during a long match or a multi-day event. Taken together — refresh speed, response, low lag and flexible ergonomics — the gear is focused on letting the player concentrate on aim and decision-making rather than the screen itself.

How players and teams used the monitors at the Major

On site, the monitors were used by teams during warm-ups and by players on the main stage. Organizers also made demo units available in practice booths so teams could test settings before matches. The most visible effect was consistency: players who normally switch between different setups had a single, predictable screen in which colors and timing behaved the same across warm-ups and matches.

That consistency tends to matter more than any one spec. Players talked informally about feeling more confident in tracking fast targets and in landing precise shots after a short adjustment period. Coaches noted that when hardware behaved predictably, communication and timing between teammates improved subtly — fewer “I didn’t see that” moments and fewer technical distractions. For fans watching, the brand presence also meant clearer visuals on stage and in streamed content when production matched the monitors’ output to broadcast feeds.

Why this matters for ZOWIE and BenQ’s wider plan

For ZOWIE, the Budapest Major was a visibility play as much as a product demo. The brand sits under BenQ (4938.TW), and putting tournament-grade monitors in front of the world’s best teams reinforces ZOWIE’s image as a pro-focused gear maker. Sponsorships and event partnerships like this are core marketing tools in esports: they let companies show their products where the stakes are highest and reach a global audience at once.

Beyond raw impressions, these activations create content — clips, social posts and player endorsements — that brands can use long after the event. For BenQ and ZOWIE, the payoff is both direct and subtle: short-term buzz around a product and longer-term association with top-level competition that can influence fans and aspiring players when they choose gear.

Where this fits in the wider gear market and what to watch next

The esports peripherals market is crowded and competitive. Monitors are just one piece of a larger puzzle that includes mice, keyboards, headsets and software. But monitors are visible to every player and viewer, so they carry outsized influence. Brands are racing to combine speed with reliable calibration and easy setup, and event partnerships remain a fast route to credibility.

Going forward, watch for a couple of trends: more event-first product launches that let pros test gear in real competition, and tighter integration between hardware and broadcast or tournament production so what pros see matches what fans watch online. For ZOWIE and its peers, success will depend on whether the gear helps players perform consistently under pressure — not just on paper specs but in real matches.