On January 15th, nVidia released a driver update that made its proprietary adaptive sync technology called G-Sync compatible with FreeSync monitors. The announcement, which effectively removes the need to buy one of a select few (expensive) monitors to achieve the full benefits of the leading chipmaker’s GPUs, was expected never to come.
If you peruse sites like this, there’s a good chance you’ve come across the monitor discussion. “I’m buying a monitor, what size/resolution/refresh rate should I get?” Choosing the right monitor can be as important as (or, in some situations, even more important than) anything else in your build.
After all, your monitor is how you experience your build. The best graphics card and CPU don’t mean much if the monitor you’re using can’t show you the benefits of those parts.
(Note: If you want to skip to our recommended 4K monitors below, scroll down to “Our favorite 4K monitors.”)
For desktop PC users, 1080p (1920×1080) monitors are ubiquitous today, but that was not always the case. A little more than ten years ago, they were just starting to hit the market. Monitors with an aspect ratio of 16:10 (for instance, 1920×1200) first started appearing back in 2004, with 16:9 (1080p) monitors coming a year or two after.
Samsung’s CFG70 monitor with Quantum Dot technology
For a new PC builder or a person out of the hardware loop for a few years, choosing a new monitor may prove to be fairly difficult. These days, dynamic refresh rate technology, which syncs your monitor’s refresh rate to your graphics card’s output, plays a big role in choosing a monitor.
The two big contenders in dynamic refresh rate technology are AMD’s FreeSync and NVIDIA’s G-Sync. Both have their strengths and weaknesses, which we’ll try to address in detail in this article.
Still looking for the right gift for the PC gamer in your life? Not sure what to buy for them? Why not Check out Coolest-Gadgets for more information on gaming keypads? Take a look at the latest games and buy one for them!
Our good friend, the smooth-voiced YouTube gaming sensation RecklessYuki, just released a gamer gift guide for the 2015 holiday season. Watch it here:
If you haven’t checked out Yuki’s channel before, he makes great videos on custom PC builds and 4K gameplay footage. Really, check it out.
Here are the products mentioned in the video, in order of appearance: