I’m So Rattling Bored with Screens With Excessive Refresh Charges and Nothing Else

Huge numbers meant to advertise massive, costly displays are set to bore my eyes out of their sockets. The fabled 8K decision stays a pipe dream when no firm desires to make native content material that helps it. Now Samsung is again providing one other “world’s first” blistering fast QD-OLED monitor with its new Odyssey OLED G660SF that appears excessive by itself provide due to a 500Hz refresh charge. It’s the brand new, prime instance of why efforts to create the highest-refresh monitor flip our consideration away from true improvements in show design.

The Samsung Odyssey OLED G6 G60SF’s massive promoting level for almost $1,500 is its 500Hz refresh charge. In any other case, it’s a QHD, 2,560 x 1,440 decision panel with a 0.03ms response time and a claimed peak brightness of 1,000 nits with HDR. For the uninitiated, a refresh charge determines what number of occasions a show can refresh a picture per second. Primarily, Samsung’s newest costly OLED can refresh a picture 500 occasions in a second. That mixes with the frames per second (fps) of what number of occasions a sport renders a picture in a sport. So for those who in some way handle to push a sport as much as 500 fps, Samsung’s monitor can technically show each body.

There have been a number of 480Hz OLED shows, like LG’s UltraGear 27GX790A-B. Not that you’d really be capable to discover the distinction at these excessive refresh charges. The typical layperson would barely be capable to distinguish the distinction in easy gameplay after reaching 120 fps. Solely gaming execs may probably discover such qualities as much as 240 fps operating on a 240Hz monitor. Some video games like Overwatch 2, Apex Legends, or Valorant might profit very barely from 360Hz shows, however solely when you’ve got a gaming machine beefy sufficient to hit above 240 fps with natively rendered frames.

Skilled avid gamers received’t purchase a monitor with completely different specs than the one they play on at a stay event. Monitor maker Zowie supplies a lot of the displays for a lot of first-person shooter tournaments. For years, that monitor was the Zowie XL2540, however lately the corporate proclaimed its XL2586X+ 600Hz is the brand new normal for Counter-Strike 2 tournaments going ahead. These panels aren’t OLED, both. They’re fast-TN LCD monitors, that are optimized for prime pace and low response time. They’re not constructed to look the perfect, particularly in comparison with the deepest, inky blacks typical of natural light-emitting diode expertise, both.

Samsung’s G60SF has built-in warmth pipes which might be supposed to cut back the uncommon danger of OLED burn-in, however with out the 500Hz refresh charge, it’s merely a 1440p OLED monitor which you’ll find for a 3rd of the value at 240Hz. The brand new 500Hz monitor shall be out there in Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia, with rollout to “further world markets” someday later this 12 months. When you’ve got $1,488 readily available, you’re most likely higher off getting any variety of high quality 4K shows and nonetheless saving a whole bunch of {dollars}.

This 12 months was the arrival of the 240Hz, 4K decision OLED monitor. Virtually each main monitor maker launched what I might take into account the right specs for gaming on a flatscreen. I reviewed the $900 Alienware AW2725Q QD-OLED monitor earlier this 12 months, and it was a strong possibility in each approach that issues. I’ve had the prospect to see a number of manufacturers’ 4K shows in individual, together with Samsung’s $1,300 Odyssey OLED G81SF. There was nothing flawed with it based mostly on my temporary time with the show, although it’s a dear panel in comparison with related merchandise from different manufacturers.

Avid gamers are already spoiled for alternative, and that’s an issue for these bigger corporations with their determined want to face out. The true monitor improvements are already right here, however they’re way more area of interest and lack the massive quantity draw of high-refresh shows. I’ve seen head-tracking displays from Lenovo for the aim of directional sound. There’s a rising variety of lenticular, 3D shows from Lenovo and Samsung as effectively. The $2,000 Samsung Odyssey 3D is a really distinctive viewing expertise, although the cool depth impact you get in video games is marred by a restricted variety of supported titles. There are different displays to be enthusiastic about, like LG’s 5K2K bendable OLED, which the Gizmodo group saw at CES 2025 this 12 months.