After speculation that Nvidia may have lowered its G-Sync Ultimate monitor specifications following a number of display announcements at CES 2021, the GeForce-maker has now confirmed that changes were in fact made. With the new Ultimate guidelines, Nvidia is making it easier for manufacturers to get certification for new gaming monitors.
When Nvidia announced its G-Sync Ultimate specifications in early 2019 for the most premium G-Sync gaming monitors you can own, the company issued guidelines that include the highest resolution and refresh rates available, the lowest possible latency, backlighting in multiple zones, and support for a wide color gamut. These are all the specifications that gamers care about.
However, the big announcement was support for brightness levels of at least 1,000 nits. Two years later at CES this year, Nvidia’s announcements of several monitors — including the MSI MEG MEG381 and LG 34GP950G — come with G-Sync Ultimate ratings and specifications that list the maximum brightness as just HDR600, leading to some confusion as that’s 400 nits less than the original requirements from before. The requirements on Nvidia’s websites for G-Sync Ultimate also changed to list only “life-like HDR” now.
Following widespread reports that Nvidia may have quietly changed G-Sync Ultimate specifications, the company had reached out to Overclock3D to confirm and detail the changes for monitors.
“All G-SYNC Ultimate displays are powered by advanced NVIDIA G-SYNC processors to deliver a fantastic gaming experience including lifelike HDR, stunning contract, cinematic color, and ultra-low latency gameplay,” the company said in its statement. “While the original G-SYNC Ultimate displays were 1,000 nits with FALD, the newest displays, like OLED, deliver infinite contrast with only 600-700 nits, and advanced multi-zone edge-lit displays offer remarkable contrast with 600-700 nits.”
Nvidia added that G-Sync Ultimate was never defined alone by brightness ratings or a hardline requirement for VESA DisplayHDR1000 certification. And if Nvidia is correct, with new OLED gaming panels, gamers may not even notice the lower brightness requirements.
The decision to do away with the explicit language requiring HDR1000 requirement may be due to the fact that manufacturers were not able to meet the requirements, as screens with 1,000 nits of brightness are still rare. For comparison, in the non-gaming space, Apple rated its Pro Display XDR with 1,000 nits of sustained brightness, but the panel can go to a peak brightness of as high as 1,600 nits. However, the Pro Display XDR is also a professional-grade display that retails for $5,000, or more than the cost of most premium gaming rigs on the market.
With the new lower brightness requirement for G-Sync Ultimate certification, hopefully we’ll see more gaming monitors on the market this year.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.