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AMD FreeSync monitors to be available by Q1 2015

by Mark Tyson on 19 September 2014, 10:00

Tags: AMD (NYSE:AMD), VESA

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AMD has announced that it will be collaborating with MStar, Novatek and Realtek to build the scaler units required by monitors which will offer DisplayPort Adaptive-Sync and AMD Project FreeSync compatibility. AMD Project FreeSync is the red team's "licensing-free solution to stuttering and tearing in PC games". In contrast to Nvidia's G-SYNC it doesn't require proprietary licensed hardware in your monitor. AMD says that FreeSync also has the benefit of no communication overhead as it "does not need to poll or wait on the display in order to determine when it’s safe to send the next frame to the monitor".

We saw FreeSync demonstrated at Computex in June and since then we've been waiting for a timescale or availability announcement. At that time we were told that FreeSync support was already built-into several Radeon products and we would see the monitors compatible with the technology "soon". Now that AMD has partnered with the above named scaler unit manufacturers a broad availability target has been set for Q1 2015. That is the date from which you will start to see DisplayPort Adaptive-Sync and AMD Project FreeSync compatible monitors emerge. The scaler component will be available to monitor manufacturers "by year end". When the monitors do arrive we should notice "lower prices and wider adoption," than similar rival gaming monitor tech, according to AMD CVP of Graphics Business Unit Matt Skynner.

Yee-Wei Huang, vice president at Realtek, said that customers in the channel are "really excited about AMD's FreeSync technology" and he asserted that "adopting the DisplayPort Adaptive-Sync industry standard by VESA is the best approach," to provide smoother stutter-free gameplay for wide range of end users.

The first crop of FreeSync monitors with compatible scalers from MStar, Novatek and Realtek will be FHD and QHD panels up to 144Hz, or UHD panels up to 60Hz. Beyond the headlining refresh rate sync abiliity, features such as picture scaling, on-screen display (OSD), HDMI/DVI inputs for legacy users and DisplayPort High Bit Rate Audio are all supported by the new monitor scaler hardware.



HEXUS Forums :: 5 Comments

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“they will use robust DisplayPort receivers from MStar, Novatek and Realtek in 144Hz panels with QHD 2560x1440 and UHD 3840x2160 panels up to 60 Hz.”

speaking as a gamer looking longingly at these new 21:9 curved 34" screens with a 3440x1440 resolution; will they be 144Hz or 60z, or something in between?

The whole point is adaptable refresh right…
Well, it's adaptable in whatever range the monitor is physically capable of.
Currently they can't produce 144hz monitors at any higher than 1440p without it being prohibitively expensive and technically difficult - look at the ROG swift for example. So 4k at 144hz is a way off yet. But YAY for the news! Been wanting one of these type of monitors for a while now
.havoc;60142
Currently they can't produce 144hz monitors at any higher than 1440p without it being prohibitively expensive and technically difficult - look at the ROG swift for example. So 4k at 144hz is a way off yet. But YAY for the news! Been wanting one of these type of monitors for a while now

Well Display Port 1.3 has support for 144hz 4K monitors, when they eventually arrive.
Dottorrent
Well Display Port 1.3 has support for 144hz 4K monitors, when they eventually arrive.

Hence the ‘Currently’.