Samsung Odyssey G80HS 6K gaming monitor review: Upping the stakes in pixel density

Since the advent of fixed-pixel flat panel displays, the quest for greater pixel density has not subsided. In times past, a high-res display was 1280×1024 with a 4:3 aspect ratio. Now the gold standard is 4K, 3840×2160. So, where do we go from here?

Traditionally, resolution increases in whole multiples like 1920×1080 to 3840×2160. And there are a few 8K 7680×4320 screens out there. But in the realm of the best gaming monitors, you can have any resolution you want, so why not 6K?

Samsung’s Odyssey G80HS is a 32-inch IPS panel with 6144×3456 pixels at 165 Hz and 3072×1728 pixels at 330 Hz along with Adaptive-Sync, HDR10, and wide gamut color. Pixel density is an impressive 224 or 112 ppi. Let’s take a look.

Samsung Odyssey G80HS Specs

I’ll start with the caveat: the G80HS requires the latest port specification, DisplayPort 2.1 or HDMI 2.1, to run in 6K at 165 Hz. You’ll also need an HDMI cable rated for 48 Gbps, or a DisplayPort cable rated for 80Gbps. You’ll also need a GeForce RTX 5090 to even dream of running over 120fps in 6K. That’s where the dual mode function comes in. Though 3072×1728 is unusual, it is a realistic task for an RTX 5090 or an RTX 4090 to move things along at 240 fps or more. That 330 Hz refresh rate is handy to have.

The panel uses Fast IPS technology with a claimed 1ms response time. It includes Adaptive-Sync and overdrive, but you can’t have both at the same time. I’ll talk more about that later. The good part is that input lag is extremely low, so gamers will get a responsive experience. And running at the higher refresh rate eliminates nearly all motion blur.

The panel doesn’t employ Quantum Dots but manages to cover just over 90% of DCI-P3 with solid out-of-box accuracy. With a few tweaks, I saw reference-level color, gamma and grayscale tracking. The G80HS also has an equally accurate sRGB mode for graphics pros, photographers, and users who want the correct BT.709 color space for SDR content. HDR10 signals are supported as well with expanded contrast and peak white levels around 480 nits.

The G80HS is clearly a gaming monitor with extras like LED lighting, aiming points and game-specific picture modes. You get all the latest video ports too with DisplayPort 2.1 and two HDMI 2.1 inputs. There are USBs for peripherals and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The only thing missing are internal speakers.

Bleeding-edge resolution doesn’t come cheap, but the G80HS isn’t super pricey either at $1,599 to start. Let’s see how it performs.

Assembly and Accessories

The G80HS arrives packed in crumbly foam with a base, upright, and panel that assembles easily, no tools needed. A medium-sized power brick with right-angled cords provides the alternating current, and you get very thick HDMI and DisplayPort cables which are rated for 48 and 80 Gbps respectively.

Product 360

The G80HS has a minimalist aesthetic with only a tiny Samsung logo on the front bezel. The rest of the frame is flush and thin. Coupled with a very slim side profile, one might think they’re looking at an OLED. Internal bits are packed into a central bulge which has generous ventilation. The stand’s fulcrum is ringed by an LED that can play a variety of effects and colors.

The stand is substantial with firm movements and generous adjustments. You get a five-inch height range plus 2/25 degrees tilt and 30 degrees swivel. There’s a 90-degree portrait mode as well. The base has a medium footprint and brings plenty of stability. I noted that the fulcrum had a little wobble when adjusting tilt and rotation.

The screen has an effective anti-glare coating with a matte finish. It is grain-free and provides excellent clarity for the extreme 224ppi pixel density. You’ll need a magnifying glass to see any dot structure from any distance. Sharp and smooth is almost an understatement.

The I/O panel includes a DisplayPort 2.1 and two HDMI 2.1 ports. All of them can manage 6K resolution at 165 Hz if your video card has DisplayPort 2.1 or HDMI 2.1 outputs. USB 3.2 ports are also included, one upstream and two downstream.

OSD Features

The G80HS has a super-efficient OSD that’s controlled by a joystick. A quick menu pops up on the first press, then you click up and select to see the full menu.

Samsung’s gaming monitors all have this cool control-panel-looking menu with signal info at the top in little portholes and a tree-style menu. The G80HS has four sub-menus starting with game options. You can toggle Adaptive-Sync, which is good because if you want overdrive, it must be turned off. This is an unusual choice because at 165fps, you’re going to want both things. The choice is less motion blur or no frame tears. And that will depend on game type. I’ll talk more about that below.

The Dual Mode option switches between 6K at 165 Hz and 3K at 330 Hz. Given my experience, users will be using the 3K mode more often for twitchy shooters and the 6K mode for less frenetic titles. For aiming help, you get two different reticles. And the lighting, called Infinity Core, can play different colors and effects through the LED ring in the back. CoreSync lets you sync the light show with what’s happening on the screen.

The Picture menu starts with 10 picture modes, with Graphic being the default and best choice for all-around gameplay and productivity. It leaves calibration controls accessible and has an Auto color space option which selects sRGB for SDR and DCI-P3 for HDR. This is something I wish more wide-gamut monitors had. For adjustments, you get gamma presets and a very precise set of RGB sliders.

To enhance contrast, there are three different options: Local Dimming, Contrast Enhancer, and Dynamic Brightness. Local Dimming is a bit misleading because the G80HS is not a full-array panel. And tests showed me that it doesn’t do zone-edge dimming either. The best of the three for expanding dynamic range is Dynamic Brightness. That will deliver almost 15,000:1 contrast versus the panel’s native ratio of around 1,700:1. In HDR mode, you can opt for dynamic tone mapping, which improves the image in most cases. I noted that in testing, the Static mode produced reference-level accuracy. You can read more about that on page five.

Samsung Odyssey G80HS Calibration Settings

The G80HS is close to standard out of the box and will display its full native color gamut, 90% of DCI-P3, for both SDR and HDR content. The Picture menu has a single-point RGB control which is very precise. I used it to tighten up grayscale tracking. Gamma is nearly perfect on the zero setting. If you want sRGB for SDR content, change the Color Space option to Auto. Then the monitor will switch back and forth automatically. My recommended settings are below. I noted that I could adjust the RGB sliders independently for HDR mode, and as it turned out, the same settings worked. This is something very few HDR monitors allow.

Gaming and Hands-on

Gaming on the G80HS was a unique experience. On the positive side, it’s the first dual-refresh monitor that I can call truly useful because its resolution only reduces to 3072×1728, which equates to 112 ppi, a tad more than a 27-inch QHD screen. And my GeForce RTX 4090 ran it at around 250 fps, which eliminated any need for Adaptive-Sync or overdrive.

This was fortunate because, as I discovered, playing in HDR mode grays out both options. In essence, you get no video processing with dual mode engaged, but don’t be dismayed. Motion resolution was superb, and the G80HS was super responsive to control inputs. You’ll see why when you read the input lag test results on the next page.

Playing in 6K was not as fun with my setup. An RTX 4090 is fine for 4K where I can get speeds over 200fps. But at full resolution, I could barely crack 100 fps. And with Adaptive-Sync and overdrive out of the picture, motion was just too blurry. There was no hit to input lag; control response was instantaneous. But it was hard to aim precisely at distant targets because unless I stopped moving, enemies were too difficult to make out.

Gameplay experiences aside, the G80HS is gorgeous to look at. With 224 ppi, the picture is uncannily smooth. I could not see the pixels even with my nose next to the screen. Though 4K looks very film-like and realistic, 6K is even more so. It amps up my anticipation and desire for 8K, which will inevitably be a thing within my lifetime.

Working on documents and graphics is such a pleasure when detail and clarity are this high. Though I usually crow more about contrast… Oh wait, the G80HS has a good deal of that. True that it’s IPS, but it delivers around 1,700:1 natively and almost 15,000:1 with Dynamic Brightness engaged. Though it isn’t quite in OLED territory, it is visibly superior to the average LCD panel, and that includes Mini LED monitors with their full-array backlights. The G80HS’s HDR is particularly excellent with balanced color, perfect luminance tracking, and peak highlights around 480 nits.

Takeaway: Though the G80HS’s resolution is somewhat of an “in-between” proposition, there’s no denying its appeal. 224ppi is serious pixel density, and it manifests itself as a super smooth and lifelike picture. Coupled with excellent contrast and pro-level color accuracy, it delivers a truly useful dual-refresh feature where you can play at 330fps at 3K resolution, which equates to 112ppi. So, if you can’t drive it at 6K/165 Hz yet, you can still enjoy it until the next generation of premium video cards comes to market.

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To compare the G80HS’s performance, I’ve mined the highest resolution gaming monitors in my database. They are AOC’s U27G4XM and U32G4, ViewSonic’s VX2730D-4K, KTC’s H27P3, and Asus’ XG27JCG. None are 6K, but the KTC and Asus are 5K (5120×2880) and the rest are 4K (3840×2160).

Pixel Response and Input Lag

Click here to read up on our pixel response and input lag testing procedures.

The Asus was tested before my acquisition of the Nvidia LDAT, so it has been omitted from the response chart. The remaining screens are very close in speed except for the 60 Hz KTC, which is slower for obvious reasons. The G80HS is slightly behind the top three but not enough to make a visible difference. The only consideration is that you’ll need to choose either overdrive or Adaptive-Sync; you can’t have both at once. Overdrive has a tad less motion blur, but there are some frame tears.

In the lag test, the G80HS takes the crown by a significant margin at 165 Hz. Surprisingly, 330 Hz is actually slower. I can only conclude that there is some processing overhead from scaling down to a non-native resolution. Again though, this is an invisible difference. The benefit from 330 Hz is that you get almost no motion blur and you can use Adaptive-Sync because overdrive is unnecessary.

Test Takeaway: The G80HS is a very quick monitor at either 165 or 330 Hz. Running at 6K comes with some motion blur since you can’t use overdrive when Adaptive-Sync is turned on. It also takes more horsepower than a GeForce RTX 4090 provides to even approach 165 fps in a game. 330 Hz comes with decent pixel density and much smoother motion resolution because you don’t need the overdrive, which leaves Adaptive-Sync available. Either way, input lag is lower than other 4K and 5K monitors running at 120 to 160 Hz.

Viewing Angles

The G80HS shows its IPS roots with a slight green tint in the 45-degree horizontal view. This is offset by excellent gamma and brightness retention, as in there is no change in luminance. It’s one of the best IPS panels I’ve seen for off-axis image quality. The top view retains most of its brightness, but gamma is reduced, and there’s a green tint.

Screen Uniformity

To learn how we measure screen uniformity, click here.

My G80HS sample showed minor hotspots in the corners of the screen, which took its average deviation above the 10% threshold. This was difficult to spot in most content, but I could see a little glow in the darkest material. This is a sample-specific issue.

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To read about our monitor tests in-depth, please check out Display Testing Explained: How We Test PC Monitors. We cover brightness and contrast testing on page two.

Uncalibrated – Maximum Backlight Level

Many of the G80HS’s closest competitors have Mini LED backlights and are capable of high peak brightness. But 431 nits is nothing to complain about for SDR content. This was measured from a full field pattern with all dynamic contrast options turned off. Trying different combinations of the three settings, I found that turning Dynamic Brightness on produced the highest peak from a 25% window pattern, 470 nits with a contrast ratio around 14,500:1. But the native ratio of 1,662.8:1 is well above the IPS average. This is excellent performance.

After Calibration to 200 nits

The G80HS has a very low black level after calibration, and I saw a small increase in contrast to 1,706.1:1. The IPS average is 1,000:1, so all the screens except the U27G4XM are overachievers.

The ANSI result is reasonably consistent at 1,308:1. This is partially affected by the corner glow I noted earlier, so other G80HS samples might have a higher intra-image result. This is still excellent performance that is above the IPS average.

Test Takeaway: The G80HS has more contrast than most IPS monitors with around 1,700:1 after calibration. Dynamic Black can take that to over 14,000:1 with peaks of 470 nits if you’re looking for extra punch for games and video. My sample showed slight uniformity errors, so its ANSI score was a bit lower but still above the IPS average.

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The G80HS ships in its Graphic mode, which is backed by a factory calibration report. It doesn’t need to be calibrated, though some slight gains will come from a few tweaks.

Grayscale and Gamma Tracking

Our grayscale and gamma tests use Calman calibration software from Portrait Displays. We describe our grayscale and gamma tests in detail here.

Only the 90 and 100% brightness steps crack the 3dE threshold. That’s the point where errors become visible, though there are very few users who would spot a problem in either test patterns or actual content. Gamma is almost perfectly aligned with the 2.2 reference. This is excellent out-of-box performance.

Calibration of the very precise RGB sliders brings all grayscale errors to below 2dE, which is as good as it gets, even in the pro-monitor category. Gamma remains almost perfect at 2.23. It doesn’t get much better than this.

For the sRGB test, I had already calibrated the G80HS, so it measured just as excellently. This is one of the rare displays that lets you calibrate outside its native gamut mode. Just set Color Space to Auto and it will use sRGB for SDR and native (DCI-P3) for HDR. This is something that all wide gamut monitors should do, but most will gray out the RGB sliders in sRGB mode.

Comparisons

With a score of 1.98dE out of the box, the G80HS does not need to be calibrated. It’s ahead of many other gaming monitors in this test. With a few tweaks of the precise RGB sliders, the error drops to 0.99dE, pro monitor territory. That’s impressive, as is the score of the four other monitors, which are even lower. This is more for ego than anything else. Visually, you won’t be able to tell a difference between any of the six screens once they’ve been calibrated.

The G80HS is a poster child for gamma accuracy. Grayscale can be fixed, but nearly all computer monitors only allow wholesale changes to gamma; there’s rarely a way to fix errors at specific luminance points. When you have only a 0.10 range of values, and the average is 2.23 (1.36% deviation), you’ll see clear detail and texture in all parts of the image. And it improves gamut accuracy too because hue and saturation points are closer to their targets.

Color Gamut Accuracy

Our color gamut and volume testing use Portrait Displays’ Calman software. For details on our color gamut testing and volume calculations, click here.

The G80HS achieves decent gamut accuracy out of the box in Graphic mode. You can see slight undersaturation in red and green, which lets you know that Quantum Dots are not present. But there’s a little bonus blue which makes the sky a little more brilliant. Only slight hue errors in magenta mar an otherwise solid chart.

Calibration not only aligns the magenta hue, but it also improves red saturation. Though the change to grayscale is invisible in neutral patterns, it has a visible effect on color, so it’s worth making the adjustments.

On the sRGB chart, you can see a bit of over-saturation in red, magenta, and blue, but not enough to take the G80HS out of contention as a color-critical-qualified display. With a low 1.15dE error, it can work in a video post-production or photography editing suite.

Comparisons

All the screens score well in the color test, with the G80HS coming in fifth place at 1.91dE. This is well below the visible threshold, so in a side-by-side comparison, all the monitors will look similar. The difference is more one of color volume rather than accuracy. The top three screens have visibly more color, which is most visible in the brightest red and green hues. If you view a lot of HDR content, you can’t have too much color volume. But the G80HS does well without the added expense of Quantum Dots at 90.32% coverage of DCI-P3. And its 102% score for sRGB is near-ideal.

Test Takeaway: The G80HS is accurate enough to be used without calibration, but there are some gains to be had from a grayscale adjustment. Gamma is nearly perfect in either case. There are more colorful screens in the category, but among non-QD displays, the G80HS is very competitive.

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Our HDR benchmarking uses Portrait Displays’ Calman software. To learn about our HDR testing, see our breakdown of how we test PC monitors.

The G80HS supports HDR10 signals with an automatic switch. Unusually, in a good way, it leaves the RGB sliders accessible so you can create an independent calibration if you wish

HDR Brightness and Contrast

Without the advantage of a full-array Mini LED backlight, the G80HS isn’t as bright as some others, but it is brighter than average. Most edge-lit screens manage around 400 nits for HDR content. The G80HS gives you a couple of options for dynamic range. Natively, it will render around 1,700:1, but with Dynamic Brightness on High, it tickles the underside of 15,000:1, a nearly tenfold increase. I measured this with a 25% window pattern in, oddly enough, the HDR Eco mode. Trying the other modes brought no increase in output. In the comparison chart, the Asus shuts the backlight off in its brightest HDR mode when a 0% signal is input, so I couldn’t measure its contrast. The G80HS is one of the better edge-lit LCDs I’ve tested for HDR contrast.

Grayscale, EOTF and Color

The G80HS’s HDR color accuracy is even more impressive. Though I give a free pass to nearly every HDR monitor with over-saturated color, because they look good anyway, I must commend Samsung on its ultra-precise HDR. The grayscale chart is excellent with no visible errors. I did make a couple of tweaks to the RGB sliders, but the default test also had no visible errors. The EOTF is also spot-on with only tiny variations from the reference line.

In the color test, every point on the DCI-P3 chart is on target except for the 100% saturations of green, blue, and cyan, which are off by around 5%. This isn’t surprising given the lack of Quantum Dots. On the BT.2020 chart, the G80HS runs out of color at 85% red, 70% green, and 95% blue. While one might think this approach would be less colorful, it is more balanced and detailed than a monitor that simply pushes everything 5-10% higher. This is excellent performance.

Test Takeaway: The G80HS has some of the best and most accurate HDR color I’ve ever experienced, both in tests and in actual content. The balance is such that pushing saturation points as other monitors do becomes unnecessary. It isn’t as bright as a full-array Mini LED screen, but it is a bit brighter than most edge-lit displays. The Dynamic Brightness option delivers a nice contrast bump from 1,700:1 to almost 15,000:1 without any loss of detail.

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The quest for higher resolution and pixel density is unlikely to end any time soon. We might have been satisfied with Full HD for a time, but the lure of 4K, 5K, 6K and 8K is strong. 8K is still an exotic technology that will someday be more common on the desktop, but not today. For now, we have the in-between.

Since PCs and Macs can render any resolution the user wishes, monitors like Samsung’s Odyssey G80HS will be relevant. Greater pixel density is always a good thing, and this screen boasts 224ppi at 6K and 112ppi at 3K. And that dual refresh feature is super important because this monitor’s capabilities go beyond those of the current crop of top-shelf video cards. Though I found too much motion blur at 6K and 100fps, the experience in 3K and 300fps was excellent.

I was a bit dismayed that Adaptive-Sync and overdrive couldn’t be used together. But playing in 3K mode negated any need for either feature. The G80HS has impressively low input lag, so its gaming prowess is equal to the best competition monitors I’ve reviewed. I was also impressed by its accurate color, both out of the box and after calibration. The ability to switch color spaces automatically between SDR and HDR was a major plus. And though it uses an IPS panel rather than an OLED, it boasts impressive contrast of 1,700:1 native and almost 15,000:1 with an effective set of dynamic options.

Since 8K is still something of a unicorn, I can easily recommend a 6K monitor like the G80HS. It delivers superb imagery, speedy game performance, flexibility, and Samsung’s usual solid build quality. If you want to venture into the realm of extreme pixel density, definitely check it out.

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