If you’re looking for a UHD monitor to go with those new Radeon cards when they hit the market, you just might be in luck. While Nvidia continues to push their proprietary GSync technology into new monitors, AMD’s FreeSync made another move toward mass appeal with the release of two new 4K Samsung monitors. Both screens, the U24E590D and U28E590D, support the open source initiative that uses existing protocols to match the refresh rate of the monitor to the output of the graphics card. This solves tearing issues that usually require V-sync, and reduces stuttering.
The UE24E590D is built around a 23.6-inch PLS display, which gives it a 4ms response time, but gives it a wider viewing angle of 178 degrees horizontally and vertically. The 28-inch version makes the jump to a TN panel, which drops the response time to only 1ms, but also narrows the viewing angle to 170 degrees horizontally and 160 degrees vertically.
Other than that the two displays are the same, and have a 60Hz refresh rate, although that will change dynamically as you play games and watch movies. They also both support picture-in-picture, and boast 100 percent coverage of the sRGB spectrum. For connectivity, both monitors sport two HDMI ports, a single display port, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.
Whether AMD’s open source push or Nvidia’s closed door technology will survive, only time will tell. In the past few months Nvidia has come under fire for leveraging their connection with developers to reduce performance on AMD-powered machines, which may help Freesync’s chances in the long run.
So far there aren’t a lot of displays that are compatible with FreeSync, and Samsung is the only brand producing 4K displays with the technology — the rest are 1080p and 1440p. You can buy the 28-inch version now for only $599.99, with the 23.6-inch PLS version hitting shelves on July 26 for $399.99.
