Let's cut in Chase-Samsung's latest QD-Oled computer monitor is absolutely great and I love it's on the table for the past month or so. Every game I played looked incredible and quickly became the heart of my battlefield.
Even so, it's still hard for me to recommend 4K premium monitors to people who have to buy and build their own systems. Having a monitor with growing space is the right choice, but the gap between performance and capability can be frustrating if you use budget-friendly hardware. If you're considering an upgrade, the 1440p screen is indeed under $400 and may be better performance for most people.
On the other hand, if you already have the most powerful gaming PC in your friend group and you can get cash, you will be very happy with the Samsung G81SF. It offers the best panel type in the category, the highest resolution and refresh rate that modern systems can reasonably manage as well as matching feature suites.
G81SF has quantum dot OLED technology. (If you want technical details, we have an in-depth explanation of the panel type.) The result is only the best gaming monitor experience you can have right now. The colors are super bright and vivid, and the shadows and dark areas completely disappear into black. This made me want to turn off the lights, put on my headphones, and settle for many hours of movies.
For most people, the QD-Oled screen will be the absolute best gaming experience you can find, but there are other options. If you're just setting it to 4K and 240Hz, Samsung's mini-LED version of the same screen has slower response times and won't have the same beautiful quantum dot-powered color, but can be found for $700 or less. If you are considering this screen, I don't think you'll be impressed, but it does indicate the premium you're paying for the latest technology.
Given the higher refresh and resolution, leveraging adaptive refresh here is crucial to preventing tear, Samsung has the FreeSync Premium Plus instead of the NVIDIA G-Sync. The most obvious advantage of doing this is that it saves some money, and FreeSync screens are usually a bit cheaper than their peers. Another advantage is that it works with NVIDIA and AMD cards, so when purchasing a GPU, you won't bind to one or the other.
For most people, this problem will make the game go smoothly. I'm lucky to have an RTX 5090 (7/10, wired recommendation) for review purposes. Even with the recently released cards currently released by Nvidia, most modern games won't be close to 240 fps at 4K without the need for a lot of tweaks and free use of the framework. If you are using a lower card or an earlier card, you may be frustrated Terraria Run at full resolution and refresh rate. Those with cards that are more than the RTX 20 series should avoid the eyes, as you may not even be able to output at 4K and 240Hz, let alone gaming.
It has a simple platform stand, and its basic cable cycle is very solid given the relatively heavier screen. It has RGB lights in a small ring around its back, but to see them your room will need to be dimmed and your monitor is close to the wall behind it. You can set them from the on-screen monitor, so there is no need for extra software.
New displays will usually work out of the box, with the screen brightness gradually increasing, I recommend reducing it to 20% to 30%. You might be surprised to forgive your eyes during hours of play, which will save you a few dollars on your electricity bill. I also adjusted some other settings, including setting 40 contrast and 20 color rejection.
Touch ports are very important, as both DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.1 rely on digital stream compression to reach 4K at 240Hz. Compression may sound like a terrible word here, but according to VESA, the effect shouldn't be visually obvious. Technically, HDMI ports have higher bandwidth, but I can't tell the difference when switching back and forth between them.