CES 2023: Samsung Unveils World’s First 57-inch 8K Ultrawide, OLED Gaming Monitors

The annual CES trade show is about to get underway in Las Vegas. This year, it seems like OLED gaming monitors will be a staple at the event. Though the opening keynote isn’t until Wednesday, companies like to get ahead of the avalanche of press releases by coming out of the gate early. The first of these is Samsung, which has announced two new gaming monitors that have audacious specs. We all knew it was planning the world’s first 8K ultrawide, as AMD discussed it when launching RDNA3. Samsung has super-sized it though, going from the previous 49-inch model to a 57-inch behemoth. It also announced a 49-inch QD-OLED monitor, which it says is the world’s first to offer a 32:9 aspect ratio.

Back when we first discussed Samsung’s 8K plans, it was assumed the Odyssey G9 would be a 49-inch monitor. That’s simply because that’s the size of the existing model. However, Samsung has increased its width to 57 inches and dubbed it Neo G9 (model G95NC). This is the world’s first 8K gaming monitor, ready for the RTX 4090 and the new RDNA3 GPUs. Despite being labeled as 8K, it’s not a true 8K resolution in both directions. Its resolution is 7,680×2,160, so it’s 8K horizontally, and 4K vertically.

That’s still a lot of pixels to push around, so we’ll be curious to see how games run on it. The Neo G9 uses quantum mini LED technology like its predecessors, and it’s also the first monitor to sport that snazzy new DisplayPort 2.1 connector. This allows for higher resolutions and refresh rates than the ancient DisplayPort 1.4. The new Radeon RX 7900 series GPUs are the only cards with this connector at this time.

As a result, the Neo G9 is capable of 8K vertical resolution along with a 240Hz refresh rate. It does use compression to achieve that, however. Still, Samsung claims it’s “lossless” and free from distortion. We’ll have to see how that looks in real-world testing, of course. There’s no information on what other connectors the monitor will offer. The panel features a 1000R curvature and meets the VESA Display HDR 1000 specification.

Samsung also announced the Odyssey OLED G9, which it says is the world’s first 32:9 OLED gaming monitor (model G95SC). This is also a huge display, stretching out to 49 inches across. It has a more subtle 1800R curvature and a 5,120 x 1,440 resolution. Like its big brother, it also has a 240Hz refresh rate and features the company’s quantum dot OLED technology. This allows for per-pixel control, and infinite blacks OLEDs are known for producing. This affords it a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio, and a snappy 0.1ms response time.

Also, it’ll also be announcing a smaller G8 QD-OLED monitor that is a bit more palatable, according to The Verge: a 34-inch ultrawide panel with a 21:9 aspect ratio. This works out to a resolution of 3440 x 1440 along with a 175Hz refresh rate. These are essentially the same specs as LG’s current OLED gaming panel offered by Alienware. No pricing info is available on any of these yet, but stay tuned.

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