8K gaming monitors: here’s why you shouldn’t expect them in 2023
A new series of gaming displays, led by Samsung's Odyssey Neo G9 2023, is finally bringing 8K to gaming monitors. At least, that's the direction Samsung is pursuing with this model. Why haven't we seen more 8K gaming monitors, though, given that 8K isn't new in and of itself and has been part of the public gaming consciousness for almost three years with GPUs and consoles?
The next major gaming destination seems to be 8K as the era of next-gen displays begins to take shape. Don't believe the hoopla, though. There are a few significant reasons why 8K gaming won't take off very soon.
What we have now
There is now only one 8K monitor available for purchase, the outrageously expensive Dell UltraSharp UP3218K. It was released over six years ago, so it's also not really recent. This means that it is restricted to a 60Hz frame rate and lacks connectors like HDMI 2.1 or DisplayPort 2.1.
It's odd that there hasn't been more advancement in 8K monitor technology given how constantly monitors change. The connection requirements have been the most useful justification. An 8K monitor needs about 50 Gbps of data even at a 60Hz refresh rate. DisplayPort 1.4 only provides about 26Gbps, but HDMI 2.1, which allows about 45Gbps of transmission, only became widely adopted in 2020.
Compression is useful for displays like the UltraSharp UP3218K, but there hasn't yet been a cable or connector that can handle the enormous quantity of data that an 8K resolution demands.
That is altered by DisplayPort 2.1. It has a data bandwidth of 78Gbps and can support 8K at 144Hz with High Dynamic Range (HDR) enabled thanks to the connection's support for 3:1 lossless compression. When the UltraSharp UP3218K was first introduced, we lacked a port and cable that could transport enough data for 8K gaming displays. Today, we do.
Currently, the issue with DisplayPort 2.1 is the ecosystem. The most recent RTX 40-series graphics cards from Nvidia do not support DisplayPort 2.1, in contrast to AMD's RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT, which are incredibly powerful GPUs. The Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 are also HDMI 2.1-only devices. These consoles aren't quite powerful enough to drive that resolution (they aren't even powerful enough to drive native 4K), even though that connection supports 8K at 60Hz.
Actually, 8K cannot be driven by even the greatest graphics cards now on the market. The RTX 4090 is the only GPU that makes sense, in large part because it supports Nvidia's Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) 3 technology, which uses artificial intelligence to create fresh frames. It's crucial to keep in mind that 8K has four times as many pixels as 4K, and most GPUs still have trouble rendering native 4K today.
Just before this post was published, AMD revealed exclusive 8K gaming footage of the upcoming Lies of P to emphasize this point. Although it is impressive, is it possible to view the video in 8K? Most people can't, and that is the issue.
The next major gaming destination seems to be 8K as the era of next-gen displays begins to take shape. Don't believe the hoopla, though. There are a few significant reasons why 8K gaming won't take off very soon.
What we have now
There is now only one 8K monitor available for purchase, the outrageously expensive Dell UltraSharp UP3218K. It was released over six years ago, so it's also not really recent. This means that it is restricted to a 60Hz frame rate and lacks connectors like HDMI 2.1 or DisplayPort 2.1.
It's odd that there hasn't been more advancement in 8K monitor technology given how constantly monitors change. The connection requirements have been the most useful justification. An 8K monitor needs about 50 Gbps of data even at a 60Hz refresh rate. DisplayPort 1.4 only provides about 26Gbps, but HDMI 2.1, which allows about 45Gbps of transmission, only became widely adopted in 2020.
Compression is useful for displays like the UltraSharp UP3218K, but there hasn't yet been a cable or connector that can handle the enormous quantity of data that an 8K resolution demands.
That is altered by DisplayPort 2.1. It has a data bandwidth of 78Gbps and can support 8K at 144Hz with High Dynamic Range (HDR) enabled thanks to the connection's support for 3:1 lossless compression. When the UltraSharp UP3218K was first introduced, we lacked a port and cable that could transport enough data for 8K gaming displays. Today, we do.
Currently, the issue with DisplayPort 2.1 is the ecosystem. The most recent RTX 40-series graphics cards from Nvidia do not support DisplayPort 2.1, in contrast to AMD's RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT, which are incredibly powerful GPUs. The Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 are also HDMI 2.1-only devices. These consoles aren't quite powerful enough to drive that resolution (they aren't even powerful enough to drive native 4K), even though that connection supports 8K at 60Hz.
Actually, 8K cannot be driven by even the greatest graphics cards now on the market. The RTX 4090 is the only GPU that makes sense, in large part because it supports Nvidia's Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) 3 technology, which uses artificial intelligence to create fresh frames. It's crucial to keep in mind that 8K has four times as many pixels as 4K, and most GPUs still have trouble rendering native 4K today.
Just before this post was published, AMD revealed exclusive 8K gaming footage of the upcoming Lies of P to emphasize this point. Although it is impressive, is it possible to view the video in 8K? Most people can't, and that is the issue.
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