The best FreeSync monitors
Have you ever played a computer game and the buildings, characters, and practically everything in the world seems to rip apart? It's not a bug and definitely isn't a visual enhancement. It's most often a symptom of screen tearing.
Screen tearing occurs when the frame rate of the content â counted in frames per second, or "fps" â doesn't perfectly match the refresh rate of the monitor â measured in Hertz, or "Hz". To compensate, frames of in-game graphics sit your graphics card's memory until there's room in its frame buffer to deliver them to your monitor.
The monitor is constantly refreshing its display contents to get those buffered frames in, and the imperfections in the loading and flushing of those frames create an ugly tearing effect that can ruin a movie or your gaming experience. It can also create a frame stutter that makes your game appear jittery or choppy.
The old trick to fixing this issue was enabling virtual sync. It's a technology that's usually effective at reducing the effects of screen tear, but many swear it off due to the input lag it can cause. This is especially damning for esports gamers who need every advantage possible.
That's where FreeSync comes in. FreeSync is the name of the variable refresh rate technology backed primarily by AMD. The monitor works directly with the graphics processor (GPU) to sync frames perfectly, so you completely eliminate the symptoms without the added input lag.
Unfortunately, not all monitors support this technology, and you need an AMD GPU to take advantage of it. Nvidia support for the open standard is building, but G-Sync is what you want if you're in that camp. If you need help finding a monitor to step your game up, look no further. We've uncovered some of the best monitors with FreeSync no matter your budget, need, or style.
