Gadgetory

welcome back to hadron box a couple of months ago you might remember we first put nvidia support for free sync models to the test a winner got every free sync honor I had in the office hooked it up to a collection of NVIDIA GPUs and verified that in all cases adaptive sync worked as expected with an NVIDIA GPU and these monitors well LG saw that video noticed we didn't test any LG monitors so they sent me an email asking if I wanted to test five of their latest free sync gaming monitors to check out whether they to work within the video GPUs I thought well you know why not we haven't reviewed any LG monitors on a channel in the past and this is a great opportunity to revisit in video support for free sync with the collection of Nu and in some cases quite popular gaming displays as a quick refresher with a driver update almost two months ago in video open up support for the Vaser adaptive sync aka free sync standard with their Pascal and newer graphics cards invidious current GPU architectures have always had the ability to drive adaptive sync displays it's effectively how g-sync works in laptops but for desktop cards it was locked down so Nvidia could focus on their chasing to monitor ecosystem since the update what we're left with now is a multi tier monitor ecosystem for NVIDIA GPU owners at the top we have the monitors that reach a custom J sync module branded as either G sync or HDR monitors chasing ultimate then below that we have Jason compatible these are adaptive sync monitors nvidia has certified to work properly with their GPUs they have almost the same feature set as full juicing displays and they will have adaptive sync enabled out of the box however there's also an option in the Nvidia control panel to enable adaptive sync on any free sync monitor regardless of whether it's been certified or not so you really don't need to go out of your way to buy a Jason compatible monitor because any free sync display should work fine and that's what we showed you in our previous video and what many of you guys have been telling us in the comments of course Nvidia did take the time when introducing Jason compatible monitors to blast the free sync ecosystem for having all sorts of issues like blanking flickering and so on but really these are problems with freesync their monitor specific issues and if you encounter them you should return the display NVIDIA suggested that their compatibility certification process was necessary to ensure you don't end up with these issues but from what we've seen 99% of uncertified learners seem to work perfectly fine the testing in today's video is very straightforward I plugged in all five of the LG monitors into my test rig loaded up with an NVIDIA GeForce r-tx 2080 TI one at a time of course the next step was to enable free sync in the monitors settings all five displays came with free sync disabled out of the box you need to turn it on in the on screen display for Nvidia to recognize it as an adaptive sync monitor where possible I used the extended free sync mode which delivers the widest refresh rate range LG actually notes this mode which is almost a form of display overclocking could cause flickering but I'll discuss whether this was an issue when I go through each model after enabling free sync in the display settings from they're unable to adaptive sink in the Nvidia control panel then I was pretty much good to go all five monitors were recognized as supporting adaptive sync by the GPU after free sync was enabled so that's a good sign and in case you're wondering one of invidious requirements for juicing compatible certification is to have free sync enabled by default so I suspect the reason these LG monitors didn't immediately pass certification was down to free sync being disabled out of the box a bit of a nitpicker requirement because it means many free sync models fail certification despite being otherwise perfect anyway let's go through each monitor individually from here and talk about whether I encountered any issues with the displays adaptive sync implementation on NVIDIA GPUs basically what I was looking for was to check whether there were any flickering issues blanking refresh rate inconsistencies and so on when adaptive sync was activated in particular I was interested in seeing how these monitors behaved around potentially problematic points such as below the minimum refresh rate and transitioning in and out of the refresh window the first moment to be tested was the LG 32 G k-8 50 F a 32 inch flat VA panel with a 1440p resolution and 144 Hertz maximum refresh rate this is also a free sync to certify displays supporting HDR with display HDR 400 certification this monitor has a 52 144 Hertz refresh window so it supports a crucial feature called low framerate compensation or LFC which essentially extends the adaptive sink window down to one Hertz allowing the monitor to have no minimum refresh you'll only get a good fruit sync experience with monitors that support LFC so I'm glad to report LFC works fine with this monitor and NVIDIA GPUs as expected I encountered no other issues with this display the transition inside and out of the refresh window so around that 45 to 55 Hertz range was them perfectly without flickering or other artifacts LFC is activated as expected here and the monitor works with free sync whether you have HDR enabled or disabled so turning on HDR has no impact on the adaptive sync experience a great result and this is the model that I think is great quality in general with a top-notch beer panel plus I love that it's flat the 24 GL 600 F is a more basic gaming monitor in LG's lineup featuring a 24 inch 1080p 144 Hertz TN panel it's designed to slot into that budget high refresh category again no issues with this monitor it too supports LFC and I saw no problems transitioning in and out of the refresh window the only minor concern I have here is this is a monitor that does not come with a display port cable in the box not a big deal really as a display port cable costs all of five bucks but if you use the included HDMI cable you will not get free sync support as NVIDIA GPUs don't support free sync over HDMI / DisplayPort though as expected there are no issues here next up we have the 27 GK 750 F and this is a rare 27 inch 1080p 240 Hertz TM display normally only see this refresh rate at 24 inches in size a decent unit this one especially if you want that super high refresh rate when gaming this monitor feels really fast and some of that is down to lightning quick response times anyway this isn't a review of the display but I am happy to report it works perfectly with adaptive sync on an Nvidia chip you again it supports LFC with a 48 to 240 hertz refresh window and across the entire refresh range everything is handled well no flickering or anything like that the fourth display is the 32 GK 650 F so it's almost the same monitor as the - GK 850 F but without HDR support and at a lower price tag to match it's still a 32-inch 1440p 144 Hertz ba again with the 50 to 144 Hertz refresh window you guessed the - there are no issues with this display either and with this combination of specs you're getting a great gaming experience if you can you know drive it and have enough GPU horsepower there certainly with the 2080 IO is using playing games and ultra settings above a hundred FPS at 1440p was a blast the last display of this 5 is the 34 GK 950 F a 34 inch IPS ultra wide with a 34 40 by 1440 resolution 144 Hertz maximum refresh rate and HDR support it's another one that supports free sync - although this isn't a feature you can use within the video cheaper use you can still use adaptive sync and HDR at the same time you just kind of able free sync - in games that support like Assassin's Creed Odyssey as the feature is exclusive to AMD GPUs again Noah should you see whatsoever with standard free sync like the other monitors I've tested it - supports LFC thanks to a 60 to 144 Hertz refresh range and I didn't experience any flickering or blanking problems either below or above the minimum refresh I also wanted to specifically check the maximum refresh range here as well because 144 Hertz is a step above the 120 and one hundred Hertz monitors we've been seeing with similar specs lately but even right up to 144 Hertz there were no issues using the extended free sync mode so as expected all five free sync monitors work perfectly with the NVIDIA GPU to provide a fluid adaptive sync experience or a high refresh models that support LFC so the experience is really good here there's no abrupt transition between free sync on and off as your framerate drops its overall a really smooth experience on all of these displays had LG enabled free sync on these monitors by default I believe they would pass Jason compatible certification but even though they are not certified they still work perfectly when you enable free sync and I'm sure getting the hardware unbox your certification will be good enough for you guys anyway LG seems to have really perfected their implementation of precinct since the early days they were one of the first manufacturers to jump aboard the adaptive sync train and in 2019 their range has grown significant to encompass lots of different models even their new TVs for this year support free sync over HDMI for AMD GPU owners like I said in the original video on this topic I think it's safe to say if you purchase a new free sync model today that it will work fine with NVIDIA GPUs you definitely shouldn't expect to see flickering or any other issues whether you buy an LG monitor or something from a different brand it's really only with the very early older freesync models that you might encounter some issues but even then I haven't heard too many reports of specific models consistently not working my recommendation continues to be to just buy a free sync monitor and not bother with chasing and these results from a great selection of LG monitors just reinforces this I'm actually looking forward to doing a full review on some of these models in the coming weeks so look out for those because there might be a bit of an lg monitor testing onslaught anyway that's it for this one subscribe to hardware unbox for more content as always consider supporting us on patreon to get access to our exclusive discord chat I'll catch you in the next one you