The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA ) today announced that it has published the first major update to its widely adopted High-Performance Monitor and Display Compliance Test Specification (DisplayHDR), which is the display industry's first fully open standard specifying high dynamic range (HDR) quality. The updated spec, DisplayHDR version 1.1, includes tighter performance requirements, including for luminance and color gamut, as well as new test requirements, such as for active dimming, to address recent advances in HDR technology. Companies can begin certifying their display products under the new DisplayHDR 1.1 spec today. In addition, VESA will continue to allow products to be certified under the previous DisplayHDR 1.0 spec through the end of May 2020 in order to allow for products already in development that have been designed to meet the original spec, which was published in November 2017.

AOC has added to their CQ lineup of gaming monitors with a 27" option. The CQ27G1 features a 27", curved diagonal (1800R). The VA panel has a 2560 x 1440 pixel density, a 144 Hz refresh rate with 1 ms response time, and FreeSync support (of which the ranges haven't been disclosed). The 250 nits peak brightness won't win any awards, and might be an issue in direct sunlight scenarios, but will be adequate in most situations. The 3000:1 contrast ratio isn't anything to write home about, but it isn't terrible, either.

To keep pricing as low as it is, AOC wisely decided to cut the speakers and USB hub from this monitor, and reduced connectivity options. Available are 1x DisplayPort, 2x HDMI 2.0, and a 3.5 mm headphone jack. The stand features height (±130 mm), tilt (-4° ~ +21.5°), and swivel (±34°) adjustments, and 100 x 100 VESA mounting holes. The AOC CQ27G1 will be available from the usual parties for $279, which seems a legitimate ask for such a monitor.

The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) today announced that it has released version 2.0 of the DisplayPort (DP) audio/video standard. DP 2.0 is the first major update to the DisplayPort standard since March 2016, and provides up to a 3X increase in data bandwidth performance compared to the previous version of DisplayPort (DP 1.4a), as well as new capabilities to address the future performance requirements of traditional displays. These include beyond 8K resolutions, higher refresh rates and high dynamic range (HDR) support at higher resolutions, improved support for multiple display configurations, as well as improved user experience with augmented/virtual reality (AR/VR) displays, including support for 4K-and-beyond VR resolutions.

The advantages of DP 2.0 are enjoyed across both the native DP connector as well as the USB Type-C connector, which carries the DP audio/video signal through DisplayPort Alt Mode. DP 2.0 is backward compatible with previous versions of DisplayPort and incorporates all of the key features of DP 1.4a, including support for visually lossless Display Stream Compression (DSC) with Forward Error Correction (FEC), HDR metadata transport, and other advanced features. The increased video bandwidth performance of DP 2.0 carried over the USB-C connector enables simultaneous higher-speed USB data transfer without compromising display performance. DP 2.0 leverages the Thunderbolt 3 physical interface (PHY) layer while maintaining the flexibility of DP protocol in order to boost the data bandwidth and promote convergence across industry-leading IO standards.

Microsoft extended variable refresh-rate (VRR) to games that don't natively support it, through a new global setting under Graphics Settings. To access this setting, you must have the latest Windows 10 May 2019 Update (version 1903), a display that supports NVIDIA G-Sync, AMD FreeSync, or VESA Adaptive-Sync, and a graphics processor with a WDDM 2.6-compliant driver that supports these VRR technologies. For now, this setting only works with DirectX 11 games in exclusive-fullscreen mode. Microsoft clarified that this setting is not designed to override the VRR options presented by the control panels of your display driver provider (eg: NVIDIA Control Panel or AMD Radeon Settings). The option is disabled by default, and isn't visible to users who don't meet both the hardware- and software-requirements of VRR.

ECS has introduced a new model into their Liva series of Mini PCs - this time, powered by AMD Ryzen APUs. The ECS LIVA A320 is a 1-liter Mini Pc (book-sized, according to the company, but I guess that depends on the books you prefer to read), and makes use of either an AMD Ryzen 3 or Ryzen 5 APU with up to 35 W TDP.

There's a lot to like about this little Mini PC that could, which ECS is marketing at light gaming workloads and all other content consumption and office-related shenanigans. There is a tooless design for easy upgradeability, 2x DDR4 support in the SO-DIMM form factor, internal support for an M.2 drive (which helps save space in such a small enclosure, even though a 2.5" HDD or SSD is still supported). A VESA mount means this can be installed in the back of a monitor or television for your content consumption needs.

NVIDIA today rolled out GeForce 430.39 WHQL drivers, which introduce support for the new GeForce GTX 1650 graphics card launched earlier today. The drivers also add support for the new notebook variants of the GTX 1660 Ti and GTX 1660. Most importantly, the drivers add support for Windows 10 May 2019 Update (1903), which adds a standardized method of variable-rate shading. The drivers add or improve optimization for "Mortal Kombat XI," "Anthem," and "Strange Brigade." NVIDIA tested and approved 7 more VESA Adaptive Sync-capable monitors for G-Sync support added through these drivers (full list here).

Among the other features is the new ability to merge two portrait monitors to a landscape display head. Fixes include MadVR not correctly rendering HDR mode using MPC-HC; a random desktop flicker seen in some multi-display PCs, and memory leaks noticed when launching certain games. Grab the drivers from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 430.39 WHQLThe change-log follows.

The title already says most of it, but here it is: the Acer EI491CR Amy be one of the most impressive monitors to grace this side of 2019, ticking most boxes considered relevant for a great gaming experience. The 49" monitor features a DFHD aspect ratio of 32:9. Those 40" of real-estate are populated by 38440 x 1080 pixels, in a VA panel with 8-bit color reproduction and 4ms gray-to-gray response time. A 1800R curvature keeps all parts of the screen within the same pupillary distance, enveloping your field of vision with what could otherwise be cropped screen edges.

The 144 Hz refresh rate (overclocked from a reference 120 Hz for the base panel this monitor employs) will enable ultra fluid gaming, especially when paired with FreeSync 2. FreeSync 2 that also makes an appearance in the monitor's display of HDR content, through its VESA HDR 400 certification. Typical contrast stands at 3000:1, and typical brightness at 400 cd/m² with color coverage hitting an impressive 90% DCI-P3 rating. 1x DisplayPort, 1x HDMI 2.0 and 2x HDMI 1.4 round out the inputs. The Acer EI491CR will be available, however, for a not-for-all-budgets $1199.

Philips today unveiled the 326M6VJRMB, a 31.5-inch 4K Ultra HD monitor certified by VESA to meet DisplayHDR 600 standards. Backed by an AMVA panel, the monitor puts out 10bpc or 1.07 billion colors, 178°/178° viewing-angles, 4 ms response time, and 3,000:1 static contrast ratio with 600 cd/m² maximum brightness. Two features let you care for your eyes - a blue-light reduction mode that makes the display less irritable to your eyes, and a flicker-free brightness adjustment, which uses a non-PWM method to reduce brightness of the LED backlighting. The monitor features RGB LED-based ambient lighting. You get plenty of inputs, including a DisplayPort 1.4, three HDMI 2.0, an analog audio line-in from your PC, and a USB 3.0 input to drive the 4-port USB 3.0 hub. In-built 5W stereo speakers make for the rest of it.

ASUS today released the latest into their line of ProArt monitors, especially geared for professionals, where color accuracy is paramount. The ProArt PA34VC features a 21:9 aspect ratio over a 3440 x 1440 IPS panel, which guarantees double the widescreen space of conventional 1080p monitors. The panel already comes factory-calibrated, so there's no need to mix things up in post-buy tinkering (though it does support ASUS' ProArt Calibration Technology,

There's HDR 10 VESA certification with 100% sRGB color gamut coverage, dual Thunderbolt 3 ports for video connectivity and data-transfers at speeds of up to 40 Gbps. These Thunderbolt ports also enable Power Delivery of up to 60W to external devices. It also features built-in Picture-in-Picture (PiP) and Picture-by-Picture (PbP). Gray-to-gray response time is being rated at 0.1ms, according to ASUS, while typical brightness caps out at 300 cd/m².

Philips today announced another entry into their ultrawide monitors, with the SuperWide 499P9H piece of kit. This monitor packs a 32:9 aspect ratio, 49", 5120 x 1440 (dual Quad HD) VA panel for accurate colors and unmatchable horizontal screen real-estate. Its 1800r curvature ensures that more of the panel stays in your field of view (and at the same overall distance) without any color gradation or change - which would be hard on a VA panel anyway. It features VESA's HDR 400 certification, the lowest attributable to any monitor, a pop-up webcam for the privacy-minded amongst us with support for Windows Hello.

A USB 3.1 type-C docking station, an RJ45 port por secure communication between devices, and ergonomic features such as a height-adjustable stand with swivel and tilt functions, VESA mount, Flicker-Free technology and LowBlue Mode also make their appearances to round out the package. Connections are taken care by 1x DisplayPort 1.4 and 2x HDMI 2.0 b. The Philips 499P9H will be available starting from £989.00.

The leading global motherboard and graphics card manufacturer, ASRock, pleasure to announce the world's first AMD based Mini STX Platform - DeskMini A300 at CES 2019. It adopts with AMD A300 chipset, not only supports AMD AM4 65W APU, but also provides up to 32GB DDR4-2933MHz high-speed memory, which leads to outstanding computing power and 3D performance. DeskMini A300 offers up to 4 storage interfaces, supports three display outputs simultaneously, M.2 Wi-Fi module and various accessories within 1.9 Liter compact size. DeskMini A300 is an ideal choice to build a home entertainment PC and mini data center.

DeskMini A300 features the brand new A300M-STX motherboard. Continuing the design of the ASRock DeskMini series, the AMD AM4 socket is able to support the Bristol Ridge and Raven Ridge's 65W APU, as well as two DDR4 SO-DIMM slots, which can support up to 32GB of capacity. With overclocking memory module, it will power up 20% of 3D gaming performance even more . Moreover, the DeskMini A300 supports three display outputs simultaneously, greatly improves the user experience.

In case anyone's been living under a rock (and in these times, if you can do that, I probably envy you), NVIDIA at CES 2019 announced it was opening up G-Sync support to non-G-Sync totting monitors. Via adoption of VESA's open VRR standard (Adaptive Sync, on which FreeSync is based), the company will now add support for monitors that usually only support FreeSync. The company also vowed to test all configurations and monitors, with a whitelist of automatically-enabled panels and manual override for those that don't pass the certification process or still haven't been subjected to it.

Now, via a post on NVIDIA's GeForce forums, ManuelGuzmanNV, with a Customer Care badge, has said, in answer to a users' question on Variable Refresh-Rate support for NVIDIA's 9000 series, that "Sorry but we do not have plans to add support for Maxwell and below". So this means that only NVIDIA's 1000 and 2000-series of GPUs will be getting said support, thus reducing the number of users for which VRR support on NVIDIA graphics cards is relevant. At the same time, this might serve as a reason for those customers to finally make the jump to one of NVIDIA's more recent graphics card generations, in case they don't already own a VRR-capable monitor and want to have some of that smoothness.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, has launched the world's first tactical gaming monitor, AORUS AD27QD, today. Heading into a new market, AORUS is well prepared and confident that the exclusive features on the monitor can give gamers a tactical advantage over their enemies while gaming. AORUS AD27QD is a 27inch flat screen frameless monitor.

It uses an IPS panel with QHD (2560x1440, 2K) resolution and a 144Hz refresh rate in 1ms (MPRT) response time. Not only is the view angle up to 178 degrees, it also meets 95% DCI-P3 standards along with 10bits color, so the monitor can provide users astonishingly beautiful pictures. On top of that, the monitor has passed VESA certified DisplayHDR 400 standards which gives users spectacular display quality; With AMD Radeon FreeSync​ technology, the monitor can provide the most fluent gaming experience to let you enjoy your gaming without picture stripping.

GIGABYTE at CES 2019 took the lid of its ultra-secret AORUS monitor, which we covered earlier in January. It's now confirmed to be built around a 27-inch 1440p IPS panel with the flaunted 10-bit color and 144 Hz refresh rate with FreeSync support (here's hoping NVIDIA's G-Sync will support it as well). It is certified with VESA's DisplayHDR 400 (peak brightness of 400 nits). There's RGB lighting throughout the carcass of the monitor, a 90º swivel, gaming features such as Aim Stabilizer, Black Equalizer and Super Resolution, and the AORUS monitor is expected to roll out around $599.

PC World managed to get a hold of NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, picking his thoughts on AMD's recently announced Radeon VII. Skirting through the usual amicable, politically correct answers, Jensen made his thoughts clear on what the competition is offering to compete with NVIDIA's RTX 2000 series. The answer? Vega VII is an "underwhelming product", because "The performance is lousy and there's nothing new. [There's] no ray tracing, no AI. It's 7nm with HBM memory that barely keeps up with a 2080. And if we turn on DLSS we'll crush it. And if we turn on ray tracing we'll crush it." Not content on dissing the competition's product, Jensen Huang also quipped regarding AMD's presentation and product strategy, saying that "It's a weird launch, maybe they thought of it this morning."

Today EPI, the brand license partner for Philips displays and audio, announces two new high-performance monitors to add to its Philips Brilliance Collection. The Philips Brilliance 49'' SuperWide Curved LCD Display with Dual Quad HD 5120 x 1440 resolution and the Philips Brilliance 32" 4K LCD Display are being unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Showcase in Las Vegas.

ASUS at CES showcased their upcoming lineup of ROG Strix gaming monitors specifically crafted for usage with AMD's FreeSync 2. The new monitors look to cater to most of the market with their diagonals and resolutions. These are premium solutions, with the smallest, the XG32VQR, sporting a 32" 1440p panel, 144 Hz native refresh rate, and VESA's HDR400 certification. The XG438Q ups the ante to a 43" panel and 4K resolution screen, with a 120 Hz base refresh rate (overclockable up to 144 Hz) and HDR 600, while the XG49VQ is of the ultra wide variety, featuring a DFHD (3840 x 1080) resolution, 144 Hz base refresh rate, and HDR 400.

All monitors feature a FreeSync 2 range of 48-120/144Hz, all employ a VA panel and a 4 ms response rating. The 43-inch sports 10-watt speakers, the 49-inch model has a pair of 5-watt speakers and the 32-inch XG32VQR lacks the completely. No pricing was available at time of writing, but these are ASUS' premium offering s for the FreeSync ecosystem, and with those specs, they likely won't come cheap.

NVIDIA finally got around to realizing that the number of monitors with VESA adaptive-sync overwhelmingly outnumber those supporting NVIDIA G-Sync, and is going ahead with adding support for adaptive-sync monitors. This however, comes with a big rider. NVIDIA is not immediately going to unlock adaptive-sync to all monitors, just the ones it has tested and found to work "perfectly" with their hardware. NVIDIA announced that it has found a handful of the 550+ monitor models in the market that support adaptive-sync, and has enabled support to them. Over time, as it tests more monitors, support for these monitors will be added through GeForce driver updates, as a "certified" monitor.

At their CES event, the company provided a list of monitors that they already tested and that fulfill all requirements. G-Sync support for these models from Acer, ASUS, AOC, Agon and BenQ will be automatically enabled with a driver update on January 15th.

Update: We received word from NVIDIA that you can manually enable G-SYNC on all Adaptive-Sync monitors, even non-certified ones: "For gamers who have monitors that we have not yet tested, or that have failed validation, we'll give you an option to manually enable VRR, too."

Update 2: NVIDIA released these new Adaptive-Sync capable drivers, we tested G-SYNC on a FreeSync monitor.

In yet another entry to LG's (still upcoming) UltraGear lineup of gaming monitors, the curtains have been shoved aside for the 27GL850G to make its first appearance. While49" and 38" monitors are all well and good, and LG does have the specs on them to make them attractive buying options, some users don't really like to have that big a black mirror in front of them. And that's where the 27" diagonal of the LG 27GL850G comes in handy.

The panel is of the Nano IPS type, with a 2560 x 1440 (WQHD) resolution and support for a 160 Hz refresh rate (after overclocking, via the embedded OSD, from the native 144 Hz ). NVIDIA G-SYNC is present, supporting a variable refresh rate range of 30 - 160Hz. A 1000:1 static contrast ratio, 178° horizontal and vertical viewing angles, and a flicker-free enhanced phosphor backlight round out the specs.It's expected that the 27GL850G, via its Nano IPS tech, covers ~98% DCI-P3 (~135%) color space. Red LED lighting is present on the back of the monitor. A VESA mount is present, and tilt, height and pivot adjustments are possible. 1x DP, 1x HDMI, 2x USB 3.0 ports (with fast-charging - plus 1x USB 3.0 upstream port), a 3.5mm headphone jack and DC power input (external power brick) are present as well.

The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA ) today introduced its new DisplayHDR True Black high dynamic range (HDR) standard, a variant on VESA's widely adopted High-Performance Monitor and Display Compliance Test Specification (DisplayHDR). The new standard has been optimized for emissive display technologies, including organic light emitting diode (OLED) and future microLED displays.

DisplayHDR True Black allows for up to 100X deeper black levels in addition to a greater dynamic range and a 4X improvement in rise time compared to VESA's DisplayHDR 1000 performance tier. This enables a visually stunning experience for home theater and gaming enthusiasts in subdued lighting environments. DisplayHDR and DisplayHDR True Black are the display industry's first fully open standards specifying HDR quality for LCD and emissive displays, respectively.

LG has announced another bang-for-buck entry in their monitor line-up, which is usually one of the best in the specs-pricing department. For the modest amount of $349, the 32QK500-W is a 31,5" affair with a QHD (2560*1440) resolution, which supports AMD's FreeSync technology for synchronized refresh rates and greater fluidity in gaming. There's an 8-bit + FRC IPS panel, with a minimum 250 cd/m² brightness (300 typical), which isn't much, but should be enough to be used in a not-too-bright room.

Of course, some of the panel's specifications do point towards the cost-cutting that needed to be done in order to get it to this price-point; the brightness isn't anything to go by (not even close), the FreeSync support tops out at a maximum of 75 Hz, and the 8 ms response time is enough for casual gaming, but not for cutthroat competitive gaming. Some LG technologies such as Black Stabilizer, Crosshairs, and Reading Mode are available. Output connectors stand at 2x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort, and 1x MiniDP, with an additional headphone jack. The monitor is VESA wall-mountable.

HANNspree, are pleased to announce that its performance series of monitors is set to offer a new 27 inch solution featuring Quantum Dot technology. The enhanced display of the HQ272PQD is ideal for gamers, designers and multimedia professionals, offering visual excellence and enhanced color accuracy for all graphic content.

In addition to a WQHD resolution and HANNspree's active contrast ratio, the HQ272PQD display is enhanced with unmatched color purity and brilliant visual brights. Thanks to Quantum Dot technology the HQ272PQD display recreates the full color palette that your natural eye can see and appears four times brighter than a standard display. With enhanced blue and yellow colors through the panel, the HQ272PQD has a vastly enhanced display ability with 116% Adobe RGB, 110% NTSC, and 156% HDTV BR.709 color to bring you a more 'what you see is what you get' experience. Quantum Dots are also durable, meaning colors won't fade, and are the most efficient light emitting material on the planet, ensuring a longer life display that is almost 100% energy efficient. Furthermore, the HQ272PQD also features HS-IPS technology for super wide viewing angles to ensure you can enjoy high-quality visuals from almost any direction, and an easy to use settings menu of intuitive pre-set picture modes.

Intel processor integrated graphics will get its first major hardware update in 4 years since Gen 9.5 "Skylake," with the introduction of the Gen11 architecture that debuts with the company's "Ice lake" processors. The company confirmed in an XDC 2018 conference presentation that the iGPU will support DisplayPort 1.4a along with VESA DSC (display stream compression), enabling it to support display resolutions as high as 5K (5120 x 2880 pixels) with 120 Hz refresh-rate.

Without DSC, 5K-120 Hz requires 42.4 Gbps of bandwidth (not counting interconnect and protocol overheads), which even DisplayPort with HBR3 cannot provide, as it caps out at 32.4 Gbps. DSC offers "visually lossless" compression of the 5K-120 display stream down to roughly 14 Gbps, which can be comfortably handled by DisplayPort 1.4a. 8K (8192 x 4320 pixels) at 60 Hz also becomes possible. Merely supporting these new high resolutions doesn't imply Gen11 iGPUs can game at those resolutions. Support for them is necessitated by rapid increases in resolutions (pixel densities) and refresh-rates of high-end notebooks and ultra-portable devices.The complete slide-deck follows.

LG unveiled their new UltraGear lineup of desktop, gaming-oriented monitors, which bring top of the line features for gamers. The monitors both feature a 34" diagonal and a 3440x1440 resolution. They both feature a 21:9 aspect ratio; brightness is left at a relatively sparse 400 nits (with VESA's DisplayHDR standard compliance) and static contrast only reaches 1000:1. The G-Sync panel (UltraGear 34GK950G-B) offers up to 120 Hz refresh rates with 4 ms GtG response times (via overclocking, only 100 Hz out-of-the-box), while the FreeSync 2 monitor (34GK950F-B) brings that up a notch to 144 Hz with 5 ms GtG response times.

The usage of nanoparticles applied to the screen's LED backlighting serves to absorb excess light wavelengths and improve intensity, purity, and accuracy of the on-screen colors - LG claims that both LCDs can display 1.07 billion colors while covering 98% of the DCI-P3 color gamut. There's ULMB support for the NVIDIA monitor and a similar technology for the FreeSync 2 display; LG's proprietary DAS (Dynamic Action Sync) which follows TV's Game Mode to cut post-processing of images to reduce lag; and there are brightness presets according to game types (FPS, RTS) for the G-Sync panel, while the FreeSync 2 features a black stabilizer tech.

TechPowerUp and Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS) bring you an opportunity to grab an ECS LIVA Z2 mini PC. The LIVA Z2 can be a great addition to your living room as an HTPC, as its HDMI 2.0-equipped graphics solution is capable of 4K UHD video playback, complete with 10 bpc HEVC hardware-accelerated decoding. We reviewed it recently. Its 802.11ac WLAN serves up sufficient bandwidth for 4K @60 fps video streaming, while Bluetooth 4.1 enables wireless keyboards, mice, and headphones to work in tandem. Its Intel Pentium Silver SoC also makes it sufficiently fast for basic productivity, and its VESA wall-mount lets you mount it behind your monitor and save space on your desk. Here's your chance to get one - simply fill up a form to help us get back to you, if you're the randomly selected winner, at the end of the giveaway on 13th September. Good Luck!

To participate, visit this page.