The eye-popping gaming monitor Samsung first showed off at CES can be yours next month.
The company’s 4K 240Hz Odyssey Neo G8 monitor pushes the limits of what we’ve seen from displays. While there are many gaming monitors topping 240Hz refresh rates, including fairly cheap options, we haven’t seen a consumer model hitting those speeds while offering a 4K resolution. That changes with the Odyssey Neo G8.
Samsung just opened up a reservation system for the monitor, offering a $50 discount to those who reserve one. The $1,500 display arrives on June 6.
The 32-inch monitor will provide that 4K/240Hz combination alongside a 1ms response time, and Quantum HDR2000, Samsung’s blend of HDR powered by 1,196 Quantum Mini-LED backlighting zones that can bump up highlights and contrast on a more granular level than standard LCD displays. The display will have a 1000R curvature, which is a bit unusual for a monitor without an ultra-wide form factor, especially such a tight curvature. The FreeSync Premium Pro support is less surprising for a pricey monitor of this caliber.
Samsung’s promise of a 4K picture running at 240Hz is part of the natural course of monitor development, but there’s still some question as to how Samsung is enabling this feature for users. The monitor has a DisplayPort 1.4 connection and two HDMI 2.1 ports. Neither type of port is able to support an uncompressed 4K/240Hz signal on its own.
It’s possible the monitor could use a somewhat inelegant solution, combining the two HDMI 2.1 ports for a single input source, Ars Technica suggests. VESA Display Stream Compression (DSC) may be another means of getting extra data pumped through the narrower pipes of HDMI 2.1 and DP 1.4. DisplayPort 2.0 would have been a natural choice for its extra bandwidth, but the standard has yet to show up on displays and graphics cards.
However Samsung ultimately achieves 4K at 240Hz will be clear in just a couple weeks, when the Odyssey Neo G8 hits the market to challenge the best gaming monitors available.
