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Nvidia G-Sync

Nvidia's M-Sync has been getting some printing of late, thanks to a fresh crop of monitors promising new feature support and Nvidia'due south button to put the applied science in more boutique laptops. Nosotros've seen a number of displays with higher refresh rates hitting market recently, but there's a bug in the latest driver sets and how they interface with the Asus ROG Swift PG279Q. Apparently, increasing refresh rates tin crusade steep increases in power consumption — and the bug doesn't announced to be monitor-specific.

PC Perspective tracked down the problem and plant it'south linked to G-Sync when running at high refresh rates. At or below 120Hz, the GPU sits comfortably at 135MHz base of operations clock. Push the refresh rate in a higher place 120Hz, however, and power consumption begins to spike. PC Perspective believes the problem is linked to pixel refresh rates — the base 135MHz frequency isn't fast enough to refresh a display above 120Hz, but y'all don't demand a GPU running full bore to handle a 144Hz refresh rate, or the 165Hz that the Asus console can deliver.

powerdraw
Today, Nvidia confirmed the problems to PCPer and announced that it would accept a gear up in the pipeline in the virtually future. According to Nvidia, "That new monitor (or you lot) exposed a issues in the way our GPU was managing clocks for GSYNC and very loftier refresh rates. As a outcome of your findings, we are fixing the bug which will lower the operating point of our GPUs back to the same power level for other displays."

We don't take a 1000-Sync brandish with that high of a refresh rate to test, merely we did pull an older 1080p Asus monitor out to check if the issue is confined to G-Sync. Even at 144Hz (the maximum refresh rate on this particular panel), our GTX 970 sits at a steady 135MHz. Granted, this is notwithstanding a 1080p monitor, not the 2560×1440 panel that the Asus ROG Swift PG279Q uses. Nvidia's phrasing, however, suggests that this is an result with One thousand-Sync and high refresh rates rather than one or the other (and the test results from PCPer appear to bear that out.

No word yet on when the driver will driblet, but we expect information technology in the not-also-distant future. Nvidia is usually fairly quick to resolve bugs and accept care of problems. If y'all have a high resolution, high-refresh rate brandish with M-Sync, you tin check the issue for yourself. Just recall to let the computer sit idle at the desktop. Most modern browers employ the GPU for rendering, then you'll see ability spikes if yous're actively surfing the web.