On March 7th, AMD announced updates to its FreeSync series standards, adjusting requirements for resolution and refresh rates. Particularly, there's a significant increase in the refresh rate threshold, with 1080p monitors now required to support a minimum of 144Hz.
AMD introduced FreeSync technology in 2015 as a response to NVIDIA's G-Sync, offering an open standard that doesn't rely on specialized hardware chips. Notably, it has been adopted by the VESA standards organization and garnered support from a wide range of laptops, monitors, and television products.
It's fair to say that FreeSync technology stands as one of AMD's most successful industry standards.
Actually, back in September last year, AMD made some updates to FreeSync, but they've only been made public recently.
After the update, FreeSync still comes in three tiers. The basic version is still called FreeSync. For laptops, the maximum refresh rate is just 40-60Hz. For monitors and TVs with a horizontal pixel count less than 3440 (that is, below 3K resolution), the refresh rate is equal to or greater than 144Hz.
The advanced version, FreeSync Premium, requires a laptop refresh rate greater than or equal to 120Hz. For monitors and TVs, it's split into two categories: one with a horizontal pixel count less than 3440 and a refresh rate of 200Hz or higher, and the other with a horizontal pixel count greater than or equal to 3440 and a refresh rate of 120Hz or higher.
The top-tier version, FreeSync Premium Pro, mainly adds further support for HDR.
According to AMD, when FreeSync was introduced in 2015, high-end monitors typically had refresh rates of around 120Hz. But now, many gaming monitors support 144Hz or even higher refresh rates, so there's a need to upgrade the technical standards.
