Samsung’s monitors are known for sometimes breaking ground. Earlier this year they announced the world’s first 4K monitor with a 240hz refresh rate and an OLED monitor so powerful it can stream video games without a computer attached. Now, it is giving us another first — 8K resolution.
As reported by Engadget, Samsung joined AMD in a presentation available on YouTube to tease the next generation of the Samsung Odyessy Neo G9 monitor. This monitor will use DisplayPort 2.1 to provide 8K resolution, which looks to be the next big step forward after 4K. Acer, ASUS, Dell and LG will also be unveiling DisplayPort 2.1 monitors in 2023, but details beyond that were not confirmed by AMD. So, for now, Samsung is the world’s first — and so far only — announced 8K ultrawide gaming monitor.
Regrettably, Samsung provided no further details on the monitor, so it looks like we'll have to wait 'til CES in January 2023 to find out key info like the refresh rate and price.
Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 8K: Will it be overkill?
Getting more pixels is never a bad thing, at least in a vacuum. In our Samsung Odyssey G9 review (previous generation) we could tell right away that the display quality was extraordinary. The color reproduction was excellent and the display was incredibly bright, particularly in HDR mode. The Neo G9 is the newest version and adds Mini LED backlighting for even brighter performance. Adding 8K resolution to a monitor that is already in consideration for one of the best monitors available certainly shouldn’t make those features any worse.
The issue is, will anyone actually need ultrawide 8K resolution when this monitor launches in 2023? Many games won’t support native 8K yet and there’s no guarantee that 8K upscaling will provide groundbreaking results compared to native 4K. AMD did suggest that games such as Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Death Stranding, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 and Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection will benefit from upscaling on its new Radeon GPUs, but the results are very much to be determined at this stage.
Then there’s the cost of it all. While the current-gen Odyssey Neo G9 monitors produce fantastic results, they also cost a lot. The best deal for an Odyssey Neo G9 is currently $1,699 at Walmart. Our best gaming monitor is the Razer Raptor 27, and it is a comparatively cheap $599 at Amazon. Adding 8K resolution will only make the price go up, which means this already niche monitor will become even further out of reach for most people. But at least it’ll look amazing doing it.
