do i need freesync?

Hi all,

Building my own pc and at the moment have specc'd myself a Radeon 380 and a freesync monitor.

I could get the GTX 960 for cheaper than the radeon, but g-sync monitors are significantly more expensive.

So do I need freesync, as it is more limiting my options if I have to spec to that combination?

I could probably save myself £30 on the GPU and about the same on the monitor by not going freesync.

Thanks
Dan

The 380 is the better performing card and IMO is worth the £30 extra over the 960. Freesync is a bonus and it is pretty worthwhile since there is not much of a premium on Freesync monitors and you don't upgrade them as often.

AMD should be releasing their new Polaris cards on the 31st, so might be worth waiting a few days to see if anything exciting comes out. If not, the 380 might lower in price a little.

Ok I'll stick with freesync then for the moment. Yeah I'm not quite ready to buy yet, still researching a few things (like fans...look in fan section please hint hint)...so will see what new products are coming out before I decide.

Wait a month, and get polaris, or pick up a 380/960 on clearance

Unless something changes soon, if you go Freesync, you're stuck with AMD, if you go Gsync, you're stuck with Nvidia.

You dont *need* either, but if variable refresh rate is important to you, then AMD have the cheaper solution, though the actual VRR window can be lackluster on quite a few Freesync monitors in comparison to Gsync.

I will say though - if you're not going for at least 970/390-esque performance, then variable refresh rates will probably be quite nice as you wont be able to hit 1080p/60fps in everything consistently most likely(unless you only play less demanding games). Freesync/Gsync will provide a very useful bandaid during your inevitable framerate variation.

If you are an FPS player, both GSYNC and freesync are game changers, it's annoying that the current choice of monitors only supports one or the other as it does lock you in to a GPU vendor.

danlightbulb said:

Hi all,

Building my own pc and at the moment have specc'd myself a Radeon 380 and a freesync monitor.

I could get the GTX 960 for cheaper than the radeon, but g-sync monitors are significantly more expensive.

So do I need freesync, as it is more limiting my options if I have to spec to that combination?

I could probably save myself £30 on the GPU and about the same on the monitor by not going freesync.

Thanks
Dan

Click to expand...

Dan,

Wait for AMD offerings at the end of June-July. The new card lineup with Polaris 10 & 11 going to be faster for the same money in your price bracket (AMD is no NV when comes to pricing)

As for Freesync. It works but you need to make sure the band start as low as possible. Around 40-45fps not 50-60 some of the cheap monitor do. The lowest the better, and much better if the top range is as high as the monitor refresh rate.
Saying that, I would advice you to wait for DP1.3 Freesync monitors that will start appearing this year.

If worth the investment, yes it does. I have an R9 Nano and even the most demanding game with all settings cracked to as high as possible, is smooth even at 48fps. (I use XL2730Z).

Hmm thanks for the thoughts.

I am on a budget with my build, and everything needs to be included.

This is the monitor I'm looking at:

• 1 x AOC G2460VQ6 24" 1920x1080 TN FREESYNC 1ms Gaming Widescreen LED Monitor - Black/Red= £119.99

And really I cannot afford to go much higher in price than this.

The graphics card I am looking at is the 380/380X. Yes I am going to wait until more detail on the new polaris cards is known, but as you can see I am sub £200 on the GPU because of budget.


And now I'm thinking whether I am missing a trick not specc'ing for 1440p at this stage. I guess this cannot be done within my budget though.