Sync-wars heat up with new 1440p display from Asus

By Jon Martindale Published April 8, 2015

A gaming monitor sitting on a desk. — Asus

In the ongoing war to prove that their graphics hardware is vastly superior to their similarly performing counterparts, Nvidia and AMD have found a new battleground: frame rate syncing. Gone are the days of using the stock V-Sync option to prevent screen tearing, thanks to new technologies like G-Sync and FreeSync. That is of course if you have a compatible monitor, the roster of which has just expanded a little with Asus’ latest creation.

As always, this 27″ display comes with an obscure name – MG279Q – and although it’s not 4K, it does support the better-than-HD resolution of 2,560 x 1,440. It can also output that at a refresh rate of 144Hz despite the use of IPS panel technology. It’s also said to be able to adjust its refresh rate down to a minimum of 40Hz, which should help those attempting to run more intensive titles at 1440p on a single GPU.

Recommended Videos

However, the real killer technology that Asus is hoping will push this new display forward is AMD’s FreeSynnc, which should cut down on screen tearing without limiting your frame rates like V-Sync often does.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

In terms of connectors, the MG279Q has a single DisplayPort and Mini-DisplayPort , as well as two HDMI and a single MHL 2.0 connector. It also has two USB 3.0 ports for those that don’t have enough already. There’s no price announced for it just yet, but TechSpot has it speculated for around $600 at launch.

The release date is expected to be sometime in the next couple of months, since the MG279Q was first shown off at CES this year – albeit with not quite as impressive specifications. When it does land, ASUS’ new display will join the likes of LG, BenQ and Acer, all of which have recently unveiled their own high resolution FreeSync displays.

Topics

Evergreen writer

Jon Martindale is a freelance evergreen writer and occasional section coordinator, covering how to guides, best-of lists, and…

Computing

This is the GPU I’m most excited for in 2025 — and it’s not by Nvidia

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics card.

The next few months will completely redefine every ranking of the best graphics cards. With Nvidia's RTX 50-series and AMD's RDNA 4 most likely launching in January -- and even Intel possibly expanding its Battlemage lineup -- there's a lot to look forward to.

But as for me, I already know which GPU I'm most excited about. And no, it's not Nvidia's rumored almighty RTX 5090. The GPU I'm looking forward to is AMD's upcoming flagship, which will presumably be the RX 8800 XT (or perhaps the RX 9070 XT). Below, I'll tell you why I think this GPU is going to be so important not just for AMD but also for the entire graphics card market.
Setting the pace

Computing

Google Street View camera captures highly suspicious act, leading to arrests

The Google Street View image showing someone loading a large bundle into the trunk of a car.

Imagery from Google’s Street View has reportedly helped to solve a murder case in northern Spain.

Street View is the online tool that lets you view 360-degree imagery captured by cameras mounted on Google’s Street View cars that travel the world.

Computing

AMD’s RDNA 4 may surprise us in more ways than one

AMD RX 7800 XT and RX 7700 XT graphics cards.

Thanks to all the leaks, I thought I knew what to expect with AMD's upcoming RDNA 4. It turns out I may have been wrong on more than one account.

The latest leaks reveal that AMD's upcoming best graphics card may not be called the RX 8800 XT, as most leakers predicted, but will instead be referred to as the RX 9070 XT. In addition, the first leaked benchmark of the GPU gives us a glimpse into the kind of performance we can expect, which could turn out to be a bit of a letdown.