NVIDIA has pioneered numerous gaming innovations, including tackling vertical synchronization issues with its G-Sync technology. We now have a newer incarnation of this technology in G-Sync Ultimate. This article will help you determine if G-Sync Ultimate will be worth your time (and money).
The topic of vertical synchronization has been discussed at length before, but if you’re unfamiliar, we’ll give you a short summary.
Vertical Synchronization is a tool used to synchronize the frames that a graphics card produces with the images shown on the monitor.
The issue usually occurs when a GPU produces more frames than can be shown by the monitor’s maximum refresh rate.
This means the monitor will try to display more frames than it is capable of and, as a result, will show two images combined into one. This effect is also known as screen tearing.
This issue was largely rectified by NVIDIA’s G-Sync (and AMD’s FreeSync), so what is the point of G-Sync Ultimate?
Additional Cost
In short, as of 2023, G-Sync Ultimate isn’t worth the additional cost. It brings a slight increase in price for G-Sync certified monitors and likely for NVIDIA’s latest RTX 3000 series graphics cards.
As you might know, G-Sync already has an annoying additional cost that monitor manufacturers must pay to use NVIDIA’s module. With the improvements that G-Sync Ultimate is bringing, it’s no surprise that it costs more.
One of the major arguments against this is that AMD offers a similar product that is completely free of any additional cost (hence the FreeSync name).
If you want a top-notch gaming experience and aren’t too concerned about the price, then we have to say that G-Sync Ultimate is definitely worthwhile.
Before we lay out all the capabilities of G-Sync Ultimate, we have to address the elephant in the room.
HDR Brightness
When information on G-Sync Ultimate first appeared on NVIDIA’s website, they were bragging about 1000+ nits HDR. However, this changed in January 2021 to “lifelike HDR“. The reason for this is that NVIDIA began adding OLED displays to the list of G-Sync compatible monitors, and they are unable to produce 1000+ nits.
At most, an OLED monitor will give you 600-700 nits, meaning you have a choice to make when getting a new monitor. The lighting will still be good because OLED is good at it. Unless you’re able to really perceive the slight changes in lighting, you probably won’t notice a difference.
On the other hand, it’s impressive that NVIDIA included 1152 backlight zones, giving those HDR images extra fidelity. Another cool feature is ultra-low motion blur display modes. This allows for smoother-looking gameplay.
Likely the most interesting innovation of G-Sync Ultimate is the refresh rate overclocking. As the G-Sync Ultimate module has its own processor, NVIDIA can provide users with the ability to increase the monitor’s refresh rate to match the frames that the GPU produces.
