Hey duders. So I think i'm going to sell my old 2009 iMac and building my first PC. Seeing as I will be starting from scratch and will need a monitor I was wondering if it's worth hanging on a couple of months?

From what I read it might not be a bad idea to wait. That being said, as this is new tech, I would wait a year for all the kinks to be worked out and buy the monitors during the second run. So build now and just get that monitor next year. There are plenty of good monitors for less than $200 or you can buy a K monitor and get more bang for your buck.

I really don't think it sounds like anything special. Screen tearing is such a non-issue that I'm kinda unsure why everyone is so hyped for this. I've never had any issues with just using V-Sync, and I can assure you that just getting a monitor now will save you a lot of money (plus probably a bunch of hardware/software headaches when it turns out G-Sync doesn't work with certain games).

To cut a long technical reply of how G-Sync is a ripoff when the tech is already free though only working on VESA certified laptop monitors; Do not bother, just sit and wait.

@bollard: screen tearing, i dont get very often, atleast not very noticable.

But when i did try vsync i got input sluggish-ness, if Gsync can eliminate the input delay 100% and also kill all kinds of tearing, as well as pushing out images to the screen when they are made, instead of at set rate like 60 or 120, that would be pretty cool.

but @somejerk said, vesa certified monitors already have some of this functionally ( apparently )

No one can say which is best without seeing them both in person however.
Only time will tell.

I'd like to get my hands on Gsync, they just need to put out some monitors, not sure exactly how long its left untill then.

Yeah, I've never had any issues like that with V-Sync, so I guess I'll have to try it to be sure but I don't think G-Sync does anything for me.

@devildoll: I would like to see a demo in person because you can't really judge it based on a YouTube impression. Kinda like the Occulus Rift. I do understand the problems with turning on V-sync and I hate the input lag that it creates on certain games.

Anyways, the pricing for the first generation of G-Sync monitors are going to cost a pretty penny. I believe it will be wise to wait until next year to see if there are less expensive versions of G-Sync monitors or see a general consensus among the community that this technology is worth having in your home.

I just bought a new IPS display and an AMD GPU, so in my opinion, it wasn't worth it at this time. It could very well be that in a few years, that will have changed, and it will be something worth having. The only monitor you can buy right now that has it though is a TN panel and it is 800 dollars. No thanks.

The principle is interesting, and tearing is not often an issue, and good vsync implementation can help a lot, but there are times when neither works real well and something else would be nice. Those times, are few enough and far enough between for me that I didn't feel that it was worth waiting to upgrade my older monitor or spend the extra 100 bucks for a comparable nvidia GPU.

I have no issues with never using vsynch, so I see no reason to have a better vsynch. Tearing is so uncommon and so unintrusive. Who cares.

Hey girl lemme get in your G-sync

Thanks for the feed back guys. So my next question is can somebody recommend a good monitor?

Every person that's reported on their experience with it makes it sounds like it's akin to getting a handy from God herself.

Zero draw latency as a result of buffer reduction, zero tearing, and as many frames as your machine can spit out at any give moment. Sound's like heaven to me. On a side note people in this thread saying that they don't have latency with v-sync would be more correct in saying they're just not sensitive to input/draw latency. V-sync by design introduces buffered frame lag (rendering 2 frames or head, or 3 frames in the case of triple buffers).

I think I read asus sells a monitor that can be retrofit with the chip for gsync, might be worth googling.

Surprised a lot of people find tearing to be a non issue, I find it fairly common, or notice it more maybe?

Vsync makes for a fairly significant performance hit in a lot of games, and some genres it completely lags up the input.

You can get a decent monitor for a few hundred bucks, so buy one now and then wait and see how it pans out, likely the kinks and expense will be worked out in the next few years and then upgrade from there.

Define a good monitor. How much do you want to spend? What resolution do you want (somewhat dependent on the first question)? Do you prioritize fast response times, thus making gsync a smaller improvement, or would you rather have better viewing angles and color accuracy? Those are the basic questions that you need to answer before we can start to recommend monitors to you.

This doesn't seem like a feature that's necessary to wait for, especially considering you don't have a gaming PC already.

Monitors now are decnet. The thing to look for is response time - generally anything 5ms GTG and under is considered good. The Dell IPS panels are a bit of a step up in quality from your run of the mill LED monitors, but there is really nothing wrong with your standard LED monitors for gaming. IPS monitors are great, but unless you are doing something like photo or video editing where you need the best picture and color quality available, I don't really see where you would benefit from that over an LED.

As long as its 1080p resolution (1920x1080) or higher and has good GTG response time you are good. Anything more than that (for gaming) is just icing on the cake.

I would start with something like this and then work your way up from there (if you want something bigger with a higher resolution or an IPS panel.)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236102

There are a number of factors you should consider. First of all: when will things like tearing and vsync latency be the worst? How does the state of the industry (We are between generations, which means most PCs can absolutely tear apart games performance-wise) impact that? How much do you care about latency? Do you play a lot of first person shooters? Horror games? Both of these tend to suffer from either latency or tearing more than most. Shooters have a lot of movement on screen, especially first person. And the aiming feels significantly different depending on latency. I will never play an FPS with vsync on unless I can't feel the latency, which is unusual.And horror games tend to have dark environments with lots of flickering imagery or lights, which makes tearing really obnoxious, to the point of being extremely distracting. Games with lots of lateral movement (RTS/overhead games) will also show tearing more obviously because the movement is constant and consistent and along no more than 2 axis generally. But without as much contrast generally so that can help reduce felt tearing.

Another things to keep in mind: right now PC gaming is in a world of easily pushing 100fps in many, many games. I rarely see games running at lower than 120hz these days as a result (I have a 144hz monitor which I believe is the one that has a G-Sync mod available for it). This means that I can enable Vsync with reduced latency, and felt tearing is reduced. All that said, even with vsync enabled, tearing can occur to some extent if the implementation is poor, and even with high framerates, latency can easily be felt depending on the implementation.

How does the state of the industry come in? Well, we are on the cusp of a new generation. And a lot of that stuff is pretty hardware specific. More VRAM, more compute effects. And just higher quality assets. Games will not run nearly as well. This means that latency is going to become a potential threat once again, as framerates drop below 60 with next gen games. We already have games like Metro which push our hardware to it's limits at times, and those games will only become more intensive as the consoles are better utilized.

Also important is how framerate impacts tearing. Lower framerates mean much more obvious tearing. If you get tearing at 30fps, you'll be seeing it for 1/30th of a second. If you got tearing on a G-Sync monitor, you'd only see it for about 1/144th of a second. That's about 1/5th of the time you'd see it at the lower framerate. 1/30th of a second is a long time for your eyes, and it's very distracting at that point. It's why pretty much all console games make an effort to reduce or eliminate tearing through vsync, and why when you get tearing on consoles it's generally pretty gnarly.

Also consider this: G-Sync monitors are all high refresh rate, low persistence screens. Depending on your preferences for gaming, that can be a huge plus. If G-Sync doesn't work in a game, it doesn't screw the game up, it just works as a normal monitor would. Or a normal 144hz monitor, which greatly reduces all of the effects of tearing and latency already, so even if you aren't running with G-Sync, you'll still see a chunk of those benefits generally speaking.

For me, I'd absolutely wait. I think the benefits are well worth the wait. But it's really up to your preferences when you game.

Although, I think there's already a G-Sync monitor or two out there, didn't ASUS just release a G-Sync monitor? Your best bet might be to get an ASUS VG248QE which is a great monitor (144hz, pretty good image quality) and is user-upgradable to G-Sync. I would at least recommend a high refresh rate monitor. It's changed my life since I got mine for super cheap over the holidays.

Low latency, tear-free gaming is awesome. Gsync will help make sure you can enjoy that even as games become more demanding. If you can get a good price on a monitor with support for it, I'd say you wait for it. Especially if you don't have the money for your PC immediately.

EDIT: Here's a download link for the demo video. http://international.download.nvidia.com/geforce-com/international/videos/NVIDIA_GSYNC_Product_Video.mp4 That'll let you see all but the latency benefits of G-Sync and may help inform your purchases!

@jarmahead:

The monitor Asus just released is that same monitor, but with the gsync stuff built in. Oh, and its 800 dollars. Sorry, but that isn't worth it.

This tech will almost certainly become cheaper and not require nvidia hardware. When that happens is when it starts to look more attractive (at least to me). For now though, the hardware restrictions are too much. Later this year, more monitors are going to come out, but we have no idea how much they will cost. it could be in the same ballpark, or it could be a lot more reasonable. However, you are still going to be tied to an nvidia card for as long as you want to use that monitor for anything more than a tradional 144hz panel. So if you are not prepared to use nvidia GPU's in your next few computers, I would hold off.

For the 800 bucks that monitor costs, you can get a hell of a traditional monitor, as well as a top tier GPU (780 or r9 290(x)) to power it. So it really doesn't seem worth it to me.

I would wait until a non video card specific technology games out. G-sync requires NVidia (which is what I prefer), but you want to be able to use it with AMD in case you want to switch.

The only sync worth waiting for is *N Sync.

@wewantsthering: Agreed. I have prefered nvidia in the past (the 8800gt/gts was pretty baller when it came out) and right now I prefer AMD (r9 290). However, I would not personally want to buy a peripheral that would tie me to either brand for longer than I am likely to have that video card. I also keep monitors for a rather long time, so I would be in a situation where when I upgrade my video card I would have to either replace my monitor, stick with nvidia reguardless of their performance/dollar, or lose the only real feature that made me buy that monitor anyway.

That doesn't mean I'm not excited about the technology in general though.

Yeah, was gonna mention the same thing. I guess it's just something you don't really notice until you've directly compared the two, like wired vs. wireless input, or higher vs. lower framerates. Implying that the issues don't exist is objectively wrong; it's simply whether or not you're able to look past it or they're small enough that you don't mind/don't notice.

I, personally, have to turn vsync off in 90% of games and just deal with the possible tearing because I cannot stand the input lag. If gsync can eliminate both, then cool, but from the little I've read, the technology still seems a ways off.

Wow, thanks for all the input guy. As a PC noob it's a massive help. Don't think I'll wait. Just got to find the right monitor for me now. 24" 144hz sounds pretty good.

I'll be jumping on that 2560x1440 120hz monitor the moment it releases.

For some reason G-sync sounds like something dirty to me. That's all I will say

Aside from all the pricing and availability stuff, the only people who will make real use of this are competitive twitch gamers. If you aren't one of those people already, then this is not a feature that will mean anything to you. The tiny bit of input lag introduced by V-Sync isn't a problem in any single player or co-op game.

Spend your money buying the best monitor for your needs. If you want a big, cheap screen that looks nice, but doesn't have all the videophile bells and whistles, Asus and BenQ both make 27" 1920x1080 LED screens that are great for playing games. There are lots of video cards around $350 and under that will deliver great gaming experiences at that res (GTX 770 and R9 280 series in particular).

It's not just about latency, I'm fairly certain the dynamic refresh is a massive positive no matter who you are. The complete elimination of tearing and sync related stutter is a massive deal.