Despite it being the top flagship Samsung TV of 2023, there appears to be a major issue going on with the Samsung S95C OLED that could be a huge detriment to competitive gamers.
The problem, as first discovered by prominent TV reviewer Vincent Teoh (HDTV Test on YouTube), is that the HDMI 2.1 ports on the Samsung S95C are limited to a 40Gbps pipeline, which means that the advertised 4K/144Hz gameplay Samsung promised gamers back at CES 2023 isn’t actually possible.
What appears to be happening, according to Teoh’s dogged reporting, is that the OneConnect Box that’s sold with the TV can’t handle the full 48Gbps signal. The good news, it seems, is that models like the Samsung S90C and Samsung QN95C that don’t come with the OneConnect Box can actually do 4K/144Hz.
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The TL;DR is that reviewers and customers were told that Samsung’s flagship QD-OLED would be capable of 4K/144Hz gameplay when connected to a gaming PC, and now that doesn’t actually appear to be the case based on the evidence Teoh presented.
A Samsung representative has responded to Tom's Guide's inquiry for more information, and says that "The S95C has HDMI 2.1 ports that are certified to reach 10Bit 4K resolution at up to 144Hz, with the use of DSC." (DSC stands for Display Stream Compression and it allows lossless compression of large data stream, in this case 4K video at 120Hz with HDR, to fit through a smaller bandwidth.)
Don’t worry console gamers, you’re still getting the best refresh rate
The silver lining, if you can even consider it that, is that the OneConnect Box does have the bandwidth necessary to pass 4K/120 signal to the TV. That means you’ll be able to play your PS5 and Xbox Series X with the highest possible resolution and refresh rate without having to worry.
Still, the new evidence Teoh presents is bad news for gamers with souped-up PCs looking to use the biggest screen in their home for games like Overwatch 2.
Samsung also faces class-action lawsuit
Moreover, Teoh’s reporting is adding onto the issues Samsung has already had this month due to a class-action lawsuit that alleges Samsung and Best Buy falsely marketed some features on older TV sets — a situation that’s eerily similar to the one we’re seeing unfold right now.
The lawsuit, which was only filed on Monday, July 3, was made public by reporting from Yonhap News Agency and alleges that features like Motion Xcelerator Turbo+, FreeSync and/or HDMI 2.1 were being falsely advertised on TVs that didn’t actually have those features.
We reached out to Samsung last week about those allegations and have yet to hear back from the company.
How Samsung will handle the new evidence presented by Teoh is anyone’s guess. However, if it turns out that Samsung once again misrepresented the feature set of its flagship TV, the company might be in danger of further legal problems.
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