In the race to be the best TV, the Samsung QN900D 8K QLED now supports 240Hz refresh rates at 4K resolution, making it ideal for PC gamers looking to get creative with their setups

If some of the best gaming monitors can do it, why is this important for TVs? Some gamers may be looking for a large screen that also doubles as a home theater Most modern flagship-level TVs max out at 4K/144Hz, but most TVs are not even up to that specification (most of the US market in 2024) Even Panasonic's recent Z95A OLED is capped at 144 Hz

Some TVs, such as some in the TCL 2024 TV lineup, technically reach 240 Hz, but they are limited in resolution, often to 1080p; TCL's Game Accelerator 240 uses dual line gates (DLGs) to achieve 144 Hz, but this is slightly different from what is happening with Samsung's QN900D

Thanks to the NQ8 AI Gen3 processor, which is only found in this display, the QN900D can reach 4K/240Hz; it requires a device that can handle this signal bandwidth, called Display Stream Compression (DSC), which is part It is only available on some Apple silicon and Nvidia GPUs

With this upgrade, the Samsung QN900D has proven to be one of the best Samsung TVs as well as one of the best gaming TVs

Of course, it is not plug-and-play, as it requires a source device that can support the enormous bandwidth required for 4K/240Hz via HDMI, especially one with DSC

With DSC, the signal passing between the device and the QN900D is compressed at virtually lossless video rates The only devices currently on the market that support DSC are Nvidia's RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 graphics cards and several Apple chipsets, including the M2 Pro, M2 Max, M2 Ultra, M3 Pro, and M3 Max processors

To be clear, even the Nvidia RTX 4090, one of the best GPUs on the market, cannot easily achieve the 4K/240Hz threshold; low-load games like “Diablo 4” and “F1 2020” are the only experiences that reach the 4K/240Hz threshold For the most part, 240Hz 4K content is intended for eye strain relief and professional video workflows (Does the advent of 4K/240Hz support suggest that the best OLED TVs will soon adopt this feature? It is hard to say While widespread for monitors, 240Hz is a bit of a stretch for most devices, as noted above

Given the much-publicized 240Hz 4K capability at CES 2024, it is quite possible that LG, Samsung, or Sony will bring a flagship OLED display with this capability to market

Even if announced, a display of that magnitude would likely be expensive Samsung's QN900D itself is an 8K display made with a QLED design for a whopping $4,499 (this is a discounted price via Samsung's own store page) We'll have to wait and see if CES 2025 opens up any exciting new frontiers in display technology, but 144 Hz is going to be the gold standard for a while