Samsung Odyssey G80HS

Introduction

Today we’re reviewing Samsung’s new Odyssey G80HS, a 32″ sized 6K resolution monitor offering a dual-mode function and a high refresh rate that we’ve not seen available in this segment before.

6K resolution (!) you might ask yourself? Who needs that? Surely that’s going to be impractical for gaming?! Over the last 6 months or so we’ve seen a growing number of 27″ 5K dual-mode monitors enter the market, offering a great combination of exceptional image detail for productivity and general tasks, along with a very useable dual-mode configuration that offers a decent secondary resolution on that screen size and a nice bump in refresh rate to go with it. We’ve talked about the pros of this configuration quite a lot in the past, do check out our video linked for loads more detail on why 5K dual-mode monitors are a really interesting choice for many people.

But, what if you want something larger than 27″? Well, the next step up would be a 32″ screen size but offering that larger size with a 5K resolution isn’t enough really, you lose the “retina class” pixel density at the larger size, and the 1440p dual-mode function suddenly becomes less attractive, offering a low resolution on a 32″ sized screen. That’s where the Samsung Odyssey G80HS comes in, it boost the native resolution to 6K (6144 x 3456) which restores the retina class pixel density, and improves the dual-mode function to 3K (3072 x 1728). We’ll talk more about why this is so important on both counts through this review.

This is also the first 6K resolution monitor to be released to market with a high refresh rate, making it far more suitable to gaming and not just highly detailed professional applications. That high 165Hz refresh rate even provides improvements to user experience in general day to day tasks, not just for gaming. It’s also the first to offer a dual-mode function, making it a potentially strong candidate for a hybrid work and gaming screen in the 32″ space. Let’s see how it performs in our full testing.

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Key Specs

• 31.5″ screen size (32″ class), flat format
• IPS-type LCD panel
• 6144 x 3456 “6K” native resolution, 224 PPI pixel density
• 165Hz native refresh rate
• Dual-mode function for 330Hz at 3K (3072 x 1728)
• Wide colour gamut covering ~95% DCI-P3
• Video connections: 1x DisplayPort 2.1 (UHBR 13.5), 2x HDMI 2.1
• Other connections: 2x USB-A data ports, 1x headphone jack
• Fully adjustable stand with tilt, height, swivel and rotate adjustments

The use-cases for a 6K monitor

Let’s cover this topic up front, as we’re sure a lot of people are wondering whether a 6K screen makes any sense at all. Isn’t 6K going to be ridiculously hard to power for games? Does 6K really offer any benefit over the wide range of 32″ 4K models on the market? What makes this new Samsung monitor different to previous 6K options on the market?

Let’s start with gaming, and yes, 6K (6144 x 3456) is incredibly hard for even the most powerful systems to run high frame rates in games. 6K has 21.2 million pixels, whereas 4K has “only” 8.3 million. That’s more than 2.5x as many for your system to power, and getting to anywhere near 165fps is going to be incredibly tough. However, we don’t think this is the right way to look at this screen really.

6K for office and professional applications

The 6K mode of this screen is not really aimed at gaming, it is primarily aimed at general and desktop uses, professional and productivity applications and so on; and it offers a very impressive picture quality with super sharp and clear images, text, icons and everything else. 32″ 4K is already excellent, but you can see the improved sharpness and image detail in side by side comparisons quite easily. On a screen this size, 6K resolution offers what Apple would call “retina class” pixel density, with a 224 PPI and that means from a normal viewing position it should be impossible to see individual pixels. It really is a very sharp and crisp image and it looks amazing in these kind of uses.

The other good thing from a Mac user point of view is that this resolution allows integer scaling at 200% from Mac OS, and would be recognised with the logical resolution of 3072 x 1728, with that integer scaling offering a more optimal performance on Mac systems than other scaling factors. For instance if the native resolution had been 5K and you’d scaled it at 150% instead to reach a comfortable text size, it wouldn’t look as sharp and crisp in some situations. Mac users typically aim for integer scaling, but it’s less of a problem on Windows OS.

Having such a large resolution also means that you can view 4K content in photo apps like Photoshop, or video editing apps like DaVinci for instance without any scaling, while still leaving you ample room around the edges for interfaces, controls and so on. You can’t do that on common 4K screens, the image has to be scaled to fit your viewable area. That avoids any challenges with scaling, allowing you to see all the detail of the 4K image natively.

There’s been a few 6K resolution monitors released before, including the new Apple Pro Display XDR for instance, but these have all been limited to 60Hz refresh rate. Even in desktop apps and general uses you can see and feel the benefit in having a higher refresh rate, and so the improvement here to 165Hz should not be under-estimated. It’s not just for gaming. This is the first time a higher refresh rate has been offered for a 6K monitor and that in itself could be attractive to many users who want a more fluid and comfortable desktop experience.

Gaming at 6K

For gaming 6K is probably only going to be suitable for much slower-paced titles and more casual gaming because of the system demands of such a high resolution. In dynamic content you probably won’t see as great an improvement in image detail compared with 4K. This is where people seem to immediately jump to objections about how it’s going to be so hard to power 6K for gaming, but we think this is a pretty narrow view.

Keep in mind that you don’t have to play games at 6K, you could of course lower your in game resolution, play at lower settings or use technologies like NVIDIA DLSS from lower resolutions while improving your frame rates. You’re not locked to only using 6K for everything, but at least that option is there for usage away from gaming where it offers a benefit.

Dual-mode provides a far more suitable gaming configuration

So think of the 6K mode as being primarily about improving image quality and detail for static content, professional apps and work. Much more relevant for gaming will be the dual-mode function, providing a far more sensible resolution to power for games (3K = 3072 x 1728) while also offering you the ability to double your refresh rate to 330Hz when reducing your resolution by a quarter. You’re not capped to the native, lower refresh rate when using dual-mode like you would be if you simply lowered the resolution on a standard 6K screen. Getting that refresh rate boost is only possible via the dual-mode operation.

Another important point here is that by having a 6K native resolution, when you use dual-mode it’s only dropping to 3K. On a 32” sized screen like this, that’s still a very useable resolution, providing basically the same resolution density of ~112 PPI as a 27″ 1440p monitor.

This is the same principle that means 27″ 5K dual-mode monitors make sense, the dual-mode operation doesn’t leave you with a really low resolution, it still offers an appropriate and comfortable resolution density for the screen size. It’s a much better option for instance than typical 32” 4K monitors we’ve seen which have to drop to 1080p and leave you with a very low resolution on those larger screens.

We’ll talk more about performance in both native and dual-mode operation throughout this review in various places.

Design and Features

The Odyssey G80HS comes in a black design with a 3-side borderless panel. This has a thin black edge of ~9mm along the sides, 8mm along the top and then there’s a thicker 12mm black bezel along the bottom. There’s a small ‘Samsung’ logo in the middle at the bottom but no other labels or buttons.

The rear is encased in a matte black plastic with a simple design. It’s nothing super fancy, but it looks overall simple and professional we think. There’s an ‘Infinity Core’ RGB ring light around where the stand attaches but this can be disabled in the menu if you want as well. There’s a cable tidy hole in the back of the stand, and you can see the joystick toggle in the bottom left area for controlling the OSD menu.

The foot of the stand is finished in a matte black plastic too and provides a pretty big base to the screen, perhaps a little chunkier than we’d like but it does at least offer a nice stable support for the big screen.

Connectivity

Tucked away on the back are the connections which are listed above. Note that there’s a DisplayPort 2.1 connection here (UHBR 13.5) which is needed to be able to support 6K 165Hz, 10-bit. This requires the use of DSC as well, and the panel spec would be beyond the capabilities of even the top UHBR20 tier without DSC, so having the 13.5 speed is perfectly fine here.

Note that if you only have a DisplayPort 1.4 system, the max you can reach even with DSC is 6K at 60Hz it seems. Any DP 2.1 capable graphics card should be fine for full spec support, as long as it supports at least UHBR10 as a minimum. Make sure you’ve got a suitable certified DP 2.1 cable as well applicable for your connection speed.

Update 5 Sept 2026: The other connection option would be to use HDMI 2.1 which also supports full 6K 165Hz spec using DSC when we tested this from our RTX 50 series card, although we’ve had users report that from older RTX 30 and RTX 40 series cards the maximum is again 6K 60Hz. There must be some GPU limitation here that restricts maximum refresh rate even though the connection in theory has sufficient bandwidth. We are looking in to this a bit further.

There’s unfortunately no USB type-C connection offered on this screen, so connecting laptops and other devices is a little more tricky unfortunately. A USB-C with a high power delivery could have been a useful addition here we think on a high-priced premium screen like this. There’s a couple of USB-A data ports and a headphone connection, but note that there’s no integrated speakers on this model.

The stand offers a full range of tilt, height, swivel and rotate adjustments. These are all smooth and pretty easy to use. There’s a little bit of wobble from the stand when you move it around or use the OSD controls, but overall the screen feels sturdy.

OSD menu

The OSD is controlled through a single joystick toggle on the back of the screen. This is tucked away quite high on the back when you’re trying to use it from the front, so it’s not especially easy to get to and find, although you get used to it. There’s quick access by pressing the toggle in different directions including for input selection, brightness/contrast/sharpness, volume (for headphones) and the dual-mode function.

The quick access to dual-mode is useful if you want to quickly switch to that mode, but it is a bit annoying that you can’t customise these shortcuts as sometimes you can accidentally press the joystick right (mapped to dual-mode) without meaning to, and the screen will switch over to dual-mode for you. What makes this even more annoying is that pressing right again then takes you to dual-mode at a simulated 24″ screen size, before another press takes you back to native 6K mode. Each time it changes you have to wait for the menu pop-up notification to disappear before you can press it again. A minor thing perhaps, but being able to customise those shortcuts would have been useful.

OSD Menu
Joystick toggle controller
Quick and snappy
Intuitive to use
User updatable firmware
Software application

The main menu is quick and easy to navigate around and there’s a good range of options and settings available. It did feel like a lot of these were bunched up in to the ‘picture’ menu and could perhaps have been spread out a bit more in to other sections. Overall the menu is fine though and quick and simple to use.

Samsung Display Manager software

Samsung offer a ‘Display Manager’ software which offers some control over the screen from your PC, although not all of the settings in the menu are available here at the moment. The screen does support firmware updates via a download from Samsung’s website, but not (it seems) via Display Manager.

Firmware note

Note that this review was conducted using an updated 1000.3 firmware which was not publicly available at the time of testing, but is being internally validated and finalised and should be released soon. This offers a number of performance improvements to SDR and HDR accuracy and our results below reflect that.

Testing Methodology Explained (SDR)

Performance is measured and evaluated with a high degree of accuracy using a range of testing devices and software. The results are carefully selected to provide the most useful and relevant information that can help evaluate the display while filtering out the wide range of information and figures that will be unnecessary. For measurement, we use a UPRtek MK550T spectroradiometer which is particularly accurate for colour gamut and colour spectrum measurements. We also use an X-rite i1 Pro 2 Spectrophotometer and a X-rite i1 Display Pro Plus colorimeter for various measurements. Several other software packages are incorporated including Portrait Displays’ Calman color calibration software – available from Portrait.com.

We measure the screen at default settings (with all ICC profiles deactivated and factory settings used), and any other modes that are of interest such as sRGB emulation presets. We then calibrate and profile the screen before re-measuring the calibrated state.

The results presented can be interpreted as follows:

• Gamma – we aim for 2.2 gamma which is the default for computer monitors in SDR mode. Testing of some modes might be based on a different gamma but we will state that in the commentary if applicable. A graph is provided tracking the 2.2 gamma across different grey shades and ideally the grey line representing the monitor measurements should be horizontal and flat at the 2.2 level, marked by the yellow line. Depending on where the gamma is too low or too high, it can have an impact on the image in certain ways. You can see our gamma explanation graph to help understand that more. Beneath the gamma graph we include the average overall gamma achieved along with the average for dark shades (0 black to 50 grey) and for lighter shades (50 grey to 100 white).
  
  
• RGB Balance and colour temperature – the RGB balance graph shows the relative balance between red, green and blue primaries at each grey shade, from 0 (black) to 100 (white). Ideally all 3 lines should be flat at the 100% level which would represent a balanced 6500K average colour temperature for all grey shades. This is the target colour temperature for desktop monitors, popular colour spaces like sRGB and ‘Display DCI-P3’ and is also the temperature of daylight. It is the most common colour temperature for displays, also sometimes referred to as D65. Where the RGB lines deviate from this 100% flat level the image may become too warm or cool, or show a tint towards a certain colour visually. Beneath this RGB balance graph we provide the average correlated colour temperature for all grey shades measured, along with its percentage deviance from the 6500K target. We also provide the white point colour temperature and its deviance from 6500K, as this is particularly important when viewing lots of white background and office content.
  
  
• Greyscale dE – this graph tracks the accuracy of each greyscale shade measured from 0 (black) to 100 (white). The accuracy of each grey shade will be impacted by the colour temperature and gamma of the display. The lower the dE the better, with differences of <1 being imperceptible (marked by the green line on the graph), and differences between 1 and 3 being small (below the yellow line). Anything over dE 3 needs correcting and causes more obvious differences in appearance relative to what should be shown. In the table beneath the graph we provide the average dE across all grey shades, as well as the white point dE (important when considering using the screen for lots of white background and office content), and the max greyscale dE as well.
  
  
• Luminance, black depth and contrast ratio (static) – measuring the brightness, black depth and resulting contrast ratio of the mode being tested, whether that is at default settings or later after calibration and profiling. We aim for 120 cd/m² luminance which is the recommended luminance for LCD/OLED desktop monitors in normal lighting conditions. Black depth should be as low as possible, and contrast ratio should be as high as possible.
  
  
• Shadow detail – this is evaluated with the screen configured to a 200 nits white luminance for consistency between different monitors, and viewed in a dimly lit room. This first 16 greyscale shades are measured using our UPRTek MK550T spectro device (0.002 nits lower limit) for shades near-black, and the results are plotted on a graph relative to a target gamma curve (usually 2.2 gamma). Where the measurement line crosses the 0.01 nits point on the Y-axis is typically the visual threshold for where we would start to be able to detect luminance compared with black (0.00 nits). We combine these objective measurements with visual tests using a grey shade test pattern to determine the first visible shade, and then rank the shadow detail performance accordingly.
  
  
• Gamut coverage – we provide measurements of the screens colour gamut relative to various reference spaces including sRGB, DCI-P3, Adobe RGB and Rec.2020. Coverage is shown in absolute numbers as well as relative, which helps identify where the coverage extends beyond a given reference space. A CIE-1976 chromaticity diagram (which provides improved accuracy compared with older CIE-1931 methods) is included which provides a visual representation of the monitors colour gamut coverage triangle as compared with sRGB, and if appropriate also relative to a wide gamut reference space such as DCI-P3. The reference triangle will be marked on the CIE diagram as well.
  
  
• dE colour accuracy – a wide range of colours are tested and the colour accuracy dE measured. We compare these produced colours to the sRGB reference space, and if applicable when measuring a wide gamut screen we also provide the accuracy relative to a specific wide gamut reference such as DCI-P3. An average dE and maximum dE is provided along with an overall screen rating. The lower the dE the better, with differences of <1 being imperceptible (marked by the green area on the graph), and differences between 1 and 3 being small (yellow areas). Anything over dE 3 needs correcting and causes more obvious differences in appearance relative to what should be shown. dE 2000 is used for improved accuracy and providing a better representation of what you would see as a user, compared with older dE methods like dE 1994, as it takes into account the human eye’s perceptual sensitivity to different colours. 

Brightness and Contrast

These results were taken in the default ‘ECO’ preset mode with local dimming turned OFF in SDR mode.

The screen offers a wide adjustment range for the backlight with a maximum SDR luminance measured at 461 nits which was a fair bit higher than the 350 nits typical spec. At the bottom end of the adjustment the screen can reach 73 nits luminance which is not especially low and may be a little restrictive for those using the screen in darker room conditions perhaps. Probably fine for most normal users though.

The IPS-type panel delivers a strong IPS contrast ratio of 2168:1 average, which remains very consistent across the brightness adjustment range. This was more than double the advertised spec of 1000:1, and is reaching “IPS Black” type levels which is very good for this technology. You can find higher contrast ratios from VA-type LCD panels, and of course from OLED technology of course but we were pleased with the decent IPS contrast ratio here.

SDR Performance

Default performance – ECO mode

The screen comes out of the box in the ‘ECO’ preset mode and offers a very accurate gamma close to the 2.2 target. The RGB balance was weighted slightly towards red and a little too warm, but not by much and we had a good greyscale accuracy with dE 1.7 average. Note that the screen comes out of the box in the ‘warm1’ colour temp mode, we will look at the others in a moment.

The screen has a wide native gamut, extending a considerable way beyond the sRGB reference with ~132% relative coverage measured. Samsung only list a 99% sRGB colour space on their product page which implies maybe this is a standard gamut screen only, but it’s not. The wide gamut performance offers more vivid and saturated colours which many people will prefer for gaming and multimedia especially, and the capability to support wider gamut content properly, not being restricted to sRGB only.

With the wide native gamut this leads to the expected over-saturation of red and blue colours especially, and results in only moderate accuracy for sRGB colours. That is to be expected on any wide gamut screen and we will look at ways to more accurately work with sRGB / SDR content in a moment.

The colour space is closer to the DCI-P3 wide gamut reference, although a little short in blue shades and with a little over-coverage in greens. With the close match though, DCI-P3 colour accuracy was overall good. The blue shades are where there’s the most error.

There isn’t sufficient coverage of Adobe RGB (89%) to make working with content in that specific colour space viable though unfortunately.

Graphic mode

The ‘Graphic’ preset mode provides a slightly improved grey scale with a better RGB balance and so provides a slightly more optimal setup than the ‘ECO’ mode. Colour gamut and accuracy remain unchanged. We believe this is the mode which carries the factory calibration, although at the moment the OSD menu lists the ‘custom’ mode, which is definitely incorrect as that’s drastically different, mainly in colour temp.

sRGB emulation

As with other Samsung screens we’ve reviewed in the past, there’s no specific ‘sRGB’ preset mode or option in the menu to switch to this colour space. However, there is a setting for ‘colour space’ available with options for ‘native’ and ‘auto’. Switching to ‘auto’ activates the sRGB emulation mode, although it would be probably useful if the labelling of this could be changed in the menu we think for clarity.

Using this setting in the ‘Graphic’ preset mode, there’s no change to gamma or greyscale, they remain very good as before. The real change is to the colour space and you can see that the native gamut has been clamped back now to be close to the sRGB reference. There’s a small amount of over-coverage (106% relative) but not much, and we had very good overall colour accuracy for sRGB content with dE 1.3 average measured. This is a very usable sRGB emulation mode which also leaves you with full access to the other OSD settings for brightness, contrast, gamma and colours which is great news.

Colour temp control

We also tested the different colour temp modes while using the ‘Graphic’ preset mode. Nothing else was changed other than this setting and you can see the corresponding white point measurements for each mode in case you wanted to target a different colour temp potentially.

Shadow Detail

We tested the near-black shadow detail which can sometimes be a challenge on any monitor, especially on IPS-type panels which have a weaker black depth than competing VA and OLED panel technologies. For these tests screen was configured to 200 nits white luminance, and we tested the screen in several colour space modes.

Shadow detail was reasonable on this screen with mostly decent tracking of near-black gamma in native mode. Switching to the ‘Auto’ colour space setting for sRGB emulation made no difference by the way.

There are two settings in the OSD menu which can adjust shadow detail, both seem to offer the exact same adjustment. There’s ‘Black equalizer’ in the game section, and ‘Shadow detail’ in the picture section.

Shadow detail setting

The shadow detail setting is set to 0 by default, but moving it up 1 notch improves the luminance tracking near black as shown on the original graph above, although it doesn’t change what the first visible greyscale shade was. You can move it all the way up to 5 which raises luminance further and that’s done without raising the black point at all which is great news. This does improve shadow detail quite nicely and you can make out RGB 1 when set on the maximum 5 setting. The levels between 1 – 4 basically just fit in between the 0 and 5 lines on the graph in slightly increasing increments.

Black equalizer setting

Black equalizer offers the exact same behaviour as the shadow detail setting, but it’s not available in all the preset modes (for instance it’s not available in ‘Graphic’ mode). It is set to 5 by default, but moving it up 1 notch (to 6) improves the luminance tracking near-black to match the target gamma. Moving it up further (max 10) improves shadow detail and makes darker content brighter in the same way as the shadow detail setting does. Useful perhaps for darker games and movies. Note that you can stack both settings if you want to boost things even further.

Calibration

Calibration and profiling can produce some very good overall results and could be useful if you wanted to operate the screen within its native wide gamut mode, but then map the colour space back to something else like sRGB or Adobe RGB for instance for colour-aware applications (e.g. Photoshop). You would need a suitable calibration device and software for this, or you could also try our calibrated ICC profile.

The screen was profiled to 2.2 gamma, 6500K colour temp and to the sRGB colour space. The screen was left in its native wide gamut mode, but this profile will be used in colour-aware applications to map back to sRGB in this instance. Overall the calibrated results were excellent as you’d hope.

beenhere

ICC Profiles and Monitor Calibration Database

Find the recommended settings and a calibrated ICC profile for your display.
[View here]

Best Settings Guide

• On our Patreon Insider tier and above you can find our full ‘Best settings guide’ for this screen which includes all our recommended calibrated settings and ICC profile for SDR mode, as well as other best settings guidance for other configurations, modes, HDR, gaming and everything else.
• Please note that you have the option to either join our Patreon on a subscription basis, which will also open up access to other locked posts on our page; or you can purchase just the single post for these best settings as a one-off if you’d rather.
• If you only want just our standard SDR settings and calibrated profile, that is available via our ICC database (without all the other best settings guide).

General and Office

The screen is very well-suited to office and general uses with a very high resolution and pixel density that we talked about earlier in this review. The image looks amazing – really sharp and clear and a decent, noticeable improvement compared with 4K which was already very good.

Being an LCD panel, you don’t have any of the concerns you might have with OLED panels around image retention, burn in or abnormal sub-pixel layouts which is good news, and the panel uses a standard RGB stripe layout so text clarity is excellent, especially with the 6K resolution pixel density offered here (~224 PPI).

You’ll need to use OS scaling to avoid super-tiny text and icons, but at the Windows-recommended 200% you get the same desktop area as a theoretical 3K (3072 x 1728) monitor, just with a much higher pixel density for a very sharp and clear image, 175% or perhaps even 150% scaling would give you some further desktop space as long as it doesn’t look too small for you.

This model has a standard light anti-glare coating as with other modern IPS LCD panels, which provides good glare and reflection handling with minimal visible grain.

Viewing angles are wide thanks to the IPS panel and when viewing dark content from an off-angle, there are also low levels of IPS glow too. This seems better than many IPS screens we’ve tested and we’d consider this to be a “low-glow panel”. When viewing bright content like all white backgrounds in some apps, the viewing angles can cause parts of the screen to look darker due to the gamma shift, something unavoidable really on a large screen like this. Colour and greyscale gradients were smooth with no noticeable banding issues either horizontally or vertically.

Feature set

	Features	Notes
USB type-C connectivity (DP Alt mode)
USB type-C power delivery
Daisy chaining support
KVM switch
PiP and PbP support
USB data ports		2x USB-A
Easy access USB data ports
Integrated speakers
Audio output / headphone out		1x headphone connection on back
Mic input
Integrated webcam
Ambient light sensor
Motion sensor
Stand adjustments		Tilt, height, swivel, rotate
VESA mount support		100 x 100mm via provided bracket
Integrated power supply		External brick
Tripod socket
Firmware updates
Fan-less design

There’s a fairly limited range of features and extras on this screen for a modern, high-end monitor of this type. Most notably there’s no USB type-C connection here which is a shame, as that could have been useful for connecting laptops and other devices. Thunderbolt connectivity is also missing which could have been useful for Mac users.

Without USB-C there’s also no KVM switch, and despite the very high resolution and large screen size, there’s unfortunately no PiP/PbP modes on offer. That feels like something that should have been included here. There are a couple of USB-A data ports, a headphone connection and a fully adjustable stand though.

Note that there is a feature in the menu called ‘dynamic brightness’ which might imply there’s an ambient light sensor on this screen, but that is not the case here. Samsung tell us that the ‘Dynamic Brightness’ setting is a brightness adjustment function via histogram designed to mask panel black mura apparently.

Backlight dimming

Flicker
Flicker free verified
PWM / flicker frequency	n/a

We also confirmed the screen operates with a flicker free backlight at all brightness settings when local dimming is disabled, free from any PWM dimming which is great news.

With local dimming enabled, as soon as you lower the brightness setting from maximum (50), PWM dimming is introduced which could potentially cause flicker or eye strain problems for some users. That’s not an issue in HDR as you’d be leaving brightness on max anyway, but if you were tempted to use local dimming in SDR it might present an issue. This operates at 510Hz frequency, with the amplitude of the flicker varying depending on the brightness level. Local dimming doesn’t offer much benefit anyway in practice due to the low number of dimming zones so you’ll probably not want to use it much, if at all (see HDR section later for more info).

Spectral distribution and blue light

Blue light output
Blue peak wavelength	448 nm
Blue light portion	30.59%
Low blue light modes available

Spectral distribution is shown above at a calibrated 6500K white point. The Blue light peak is at 448 nm wavelength. There is a low blue light function available via the ‘Eye saver’ menu with settings for low and high available.

Eye Saver = Low

Blue light output
White point measurement	5275K
Blue light portion	25.56%
Luminance	158 nits

Eye Saver = High

Blue light output
White point measurement	4570K
Blue light portion	21.78%
Luminance	99 nits

The main issue with the Eye saver modes is that pretty much all the other screen settings become locked and unavailable, you only have access to contrast and sharpness now. This means they have a locked brightness which makes them very inflexible. At the very least, brightness control should be opened up when using these modes we think, otherwise they are probably unusable for most people. This has been done though to meet specific certification tiers Samsung tell us.

The ‘low’ mode has a 5275K white point and so is noticeably warmer and more yellow in appearance. Luminance is measured at 158 nits. High mode is a little warmer again at 4570K, looking a little more yellow but also oddly looking quite washed out. Luminance was measured at 99 nits in this mode.

A more flexible option would be to configure a mode to your normal usage using ‘warm 1’ colour temp normally for ~6500K white point, then switch to ‘warm 2’ as a warmer, lower blue light mode for evening use or lots of text work if you need, which still gives you full access to all the other settings.

Panel uniformity

Luminance uniformity of our sample was mediocre with 60% of the screen within a 10% variation from the centrally calibrated 120 nits. The left and right sides of the screen were darker than the middle region causing a slight vignetting effect, and you can see this in tests with static colour blocks as well. It’s not that noticeable during most normal usage and certainly not in dynamic content like gaming, and results could vary between samples. You can see it more when viewing white background apps full screen though.

There were no noticeable issues with dirty screen effect (DSE), banding artefacts or other uniformity issues on our sample.

HDR

HDR Technical Capabilities
VESA DisplayHDR certification level		No certification
Multiple HDR formats supported		HDR10 and HDR10+
Local dimming		Yes, but limited
High number of local dimming zones		6 zones only
Increased peak brightness		400 nits spec
Reaching advertised peak brightness		~480 nits measured
Wide colour gamut >90% DCI-P3		~95% coverage measured
10-bit colour depth support		Supported

There are very limited HDR local dimming capabilities on this screen with a basic 6-zone edge-lit backlight. There is no Mini LED FALD available here and so dimming capabilities are restricted unfortunately. This is probably the main weakness of the screen considering it’s high price point and market positioning as a flagship monitor.

The screen supports HDR10 and HDR10+ content, and in HDR operation most of the settings remain available which gives good flexibility and configuration options. You can still change brightness, contrast, colours etc if you want. Brightness setting is remembered independently between SDR and HDR modes which is important, and defaults to max 50 setting with an HDR input.

An additional option for ‘HDR tone mapping’ becomes available with options for static and active available. There is a ‘local dimming’ setting in the menu as well which defaults to ‘high’ in HDR mode and is remembered independently between SDR and HDR modes which is very useful.

Peak white luminance is the same in both HDR tone mapping modes. The luminance reaches up to ~480 nits peak in most scenes, but it is dimmed down to 190 nits for small sample areas (represented here by a 1% APL window) to help avoid blooming and halos which is common behaviour on LCD monitors with any form of local dimming (including Mini LED backlights).

The theoretical maximum contrast ratio is very high if you conducted a white box on black background test, but in real-world HDR content, the contrast never reaches any significant improvements as you rarely get true 0 nits black content, and rarely for large areas of the screen sufficient to allow the limited 6 zones to dim the backlight. You do get some small improvements in black depth visible in scenes where there are larger areas of dark content / black, but in most scenes there’s very little visible difference when switching between the off and on local dimming modes. This is down to the limited number of local dimming zones available here, only really activating where there are large enough areas of dark/black to trigger the dimming behaviour.

PQ EOTF tracking was overall good in HDR mode, showing a small amount of under-luminance in mid shades but only slight. Shadow detail was poor though as we were only able to make out RGB 8 when local dimming is active. This can however be improved further by using either the shadow detail or black equalizer adjustments in the menu (best case = RGB 3 visible). RGB balance and greyscale temp were very good and we had a nice accurate greyscale with dE average of 1.0 which was very good.

Tone mapping = Static

Tone mapping = Active

The HDR tone mapping option makes a small change to the EOTF tracking, brightening some of the mid to light shades slightly which increases real scene brightness a little, but only marginally. It causes some minor loss of detail in some parts of the image though as a result.

Real-scene brightness measurements are included above. Both modes behave very similarly to one another in real world content, with the ‘Active’ tone mapping mode having a slightly brighter appearance in some brighter, higher APL scenes. It does cause a little crushing of mid tone detail because of the raised EOTF but it is a brighter overall experience.

The main limitation with HDR though as we said is the very limited number of dimming zones, never really being able to improve real scene contrast unfortunately. That remains a weakness of the overall spec without a FALD / Mini LED backlight.

The colour space remains the same as in SDR mode offering decent DCI-P3 coverage which is the colour space used for a lot of HDR content. Colour accuracy in HDR mode was very good, with dE 1.0 average measured if we ignore the pure 100% Rec.2020 shades that the backlight cannot cover.

Gaming

The 6K resolution provides an amazingly sharp and clear image for gaming, with a high pixel density on a 32” screen like this, and combined with a decent 165Hz refresh rate it’s a potentially interesting combination for graphically focused gaming titles and for gamers who are looking to push resolution and image detail.

6K looks sharper and clearer than common 4K resolutions on screens of this size, although as we discussed earlier, powering high frame rates at 6K is going to be a massive challenge on modern games. It might be more more useable for older game titles though where the resolution is often still supported, and frame rates can still be pushed pretty high.

(at native resolution)	Refresh Rate
Maximum Refresh Rate DisplayPort	165Hz (native) 330Hz (dual-mode)
Maximum Refresh Rate USB type-C
Maximum Refresh Rate HDMI	165Hz (native) 330Hz (dual-mode)
VRR range	48 – 165Hz / 330Hz
ClearMR certification tier

More useful for gaming for many people, especially on newer titles, is the dual-mode function which operates at a more reasonable 3K resolution, still offering a decent resolution density on a panel this size which is equivalent to a 27″ 1440p display. That also gives you access to a higher 330Hz refresh rate, offering room for higher frame rates and the improvements that this can offer to motion clarity and other gaming performance metrics.

Dual-mode offers a sharp and clear image overall, you wouldn’t want to use it for desktop apps (why would you when 6K is available?!) but it’s still clear and sharp for gaming and looks good. Certainly a lot better than lower resolution options we’ve tested in the past like the 32″ 4K monitors which have to drop to 1080p.

Dual mode does not operate with true integer scaling, and there’s minimal added blur and overall we think this helps ensure a clearer and more comfortable image anyway. It’s not possible to get the same image quality and sharpness in dual-mode 3K as if the screen was native 3K, it just doesn’t look like that, and a small amount of softening is needed to avoid jagged edges and text. The key improvement here is the relative resolution density, with 3K on a 32″ screen looking great. In gaming and dynamic content it looks very good.

	Other Features
Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) support	NVIDIA G-sync Compatible AMD FreeSync Premium
Black Frame Insertion (BFI)
Dual-mode support	3072 x 1728 (3K) at 330Hz max
Dual-mode integer scaling
Gaming extras	Preset modes Black Equalizer Virtual Aim Point (crosshair)
Emulated gaming sizes	24.5″ (dual-mode only)

Certification is awarded under the NVIDIA G-sync Compatible and AMD FreeSync Premium schemes for VRR. Being an IPS LCD panel there was no noticeable VRR flicker even during extreme frame rate swings that we could detect.

Apart from the dual-mode function, which is especially useful here, there is a modest range of gaming extras and settings. There’s some preset modes, a black equalizer and crosshair setting, but no FPS counter or timer that you might find on other gaming screens. Unfortunately there’s no strobing blur reduction mode on this screen either which is a shame.

There is a 24” screen size emulation mode (which actually operates at 24.5″ size) but this is only available as a secondary option when using dual mode function. It remains operating at 3072 x 1728 by default but you can also lower the resolution to 1440p, 1080p or so on as you want. You will not get 1:1 pixel mapping with this, you would need a resolution of around 4784 x 2691 for that, but this smaller screen area is aimed at faster paced competitive gamers, and they’d want to use 1440p or 1080p. All these resolutions look more blurred and less sharp in the 24” mode which is to be expected, not suitable for desktop apps/office use, but should be adequate in most dynamic content and gaming situations.

Response times

The following response time tests were based on our improved measurement approach described in our article here. This provides G2G and overshoot figures which more accurately reflect real-world performance than traditional approaches.

Like on other Samsung monitors we’ve tested in the past, the ‘response time’ setting in the OSD menu is only available if you disable adaptive-sync from the OSD menu first. Otherwise the setting is locked during VRR, and that’s likely to be the most relevant configuration. For completeness we disabled VRR first of all to test the different response time modes at the native 165Hz refresh rate:

Native mode (6K) – adaptive-sync OFF

With adaptive-sync turned off, the response times are very good in the standard mode at 165Hz, with 4.7ms G2G measured and basically no overshoot. Refresh rate compliance was very good (response times can keep up well with the frame rate well), and this seemed a very good performance.

Moving up to the ‘faster’ response time mode offered some minor improvements to G2G speeds, but at the cost of some overshoot, remaining reasonable overall but visible in some situations. There wasn’t enough improvement in G2G speeds over ‘standard’ mode to make this worth the trade-off in overshoot we didn’t think. ‘Standard’ mode is also preferred for lower fixed refresh rates like 60Hz for external input devices, consoles etc as overshoot becomes too problematic in the higher modes, so if you are turning VRR off for whatever reason, stick to this mode.

The ‘Extreme’ mode pushed G2G response times too far, resulting in very high levels of overshoot with noticeably pale and dark halos. This mode is not useable, but that is very common on LCD screens.

Native mode (6K) – adaptive-sync ON

When you enable adaptive-sync you lose access to the response time control altogether and at 165Hz the performance seems to be a bit slower than even the ‘standard’ mode. We had 6.4ms G2G average now instead of 4.7ms G2G. This results in worse refresh rate compliance and only 53% of transitions are now within the refresh rate window which is a shame, resulting in some slight additional added smearing to moving content. We’ve feed this back to Samsung to suggest that response time control is made available on future monitors, and perhaps to see if some tweaks can be made to response times in VRR mode, to make them closer to the ‘standard’ mode if possible.

With the fixed response time setting in adaptive-sync mode, the response times remained consistent as frame rates lowered during VRR situations, overshoot never become noticeable at all in 6K mode which was great news.

Pursuit camera photos are captured above in each mode, capturing real-world perceived motion clarity. You can see there’s some slight improvements in clarity in the ‘standard’ mode compared to the locked adaptive-sync mode, offering a little less blurring and a slightly sharper image. This would be a better baseline performance for adaptive-sync if response time needs to be locked we think. The overshoot is very obvious in the extreme mode with dark and pale halos visible in many situations as you can see.

Dual-mode operation (3K)

In dual-mode you cannot actually disable the adaptive-sync setting in the menu any more, it’s locked and so you are stuck with that enabled and without any access to the response time setting still. You can disable VRR from your graphics card if you don’t want to use it, but it’s strange that it’s locked by default in the menu for dual-mode.

In dual-mode operation, overdrive seems to be configured to a level somewhat similar to the ‘faster’ mode we’d measured earlier in native mode. Measured at 4.4ms G2G at 330Hz these were reasonable, and there was no visible overshoot at this refresh rate which was great news. The refresh rate compliance is not great though at 40%, and so some slight smearing is added to moving images as a result. Ideally G2G speeds would be faster to meet the demands of these higher refresh rates but the actual motion clarity is significantly improved compared with 165Hz mode still (pursuit camera photos below).

The main problem in dual-mode operation is that during VRR situations, as the refresh rate lowers the response times improve slightly (4.4ms G2G down to 3.7ms G2G) but the overshoot levels increase significantly. By the time they reach down to about 170Hz and lower, the overshoot is too high and causes problematic pale halos in practice. At the bottom end of the refresh rate range the overshoot levels are very bad. If response times were improved for the 330Hz refresh rate in order to offer better refresh rate compliance, this would likely make these overshoot challenges even worse we expect so this is a difficult balance. Variable overdrive would be one solution, allowing you to control overshoot better as frame rates lowered, but that’s not offered here.

This currently makes dual-mode a little limited in use unless you can push higher frame rates consistently, really being only suitable if you can power around 200 fps or above during VRR situations we felt, otherwise overshoot becomes a problem and distracting. You could disable VRR (from GPU) and game at fixed 330Hz refresh rate to avoid that, but that could introduce other problems like tearing if you can’t reach high frame rates.

The pursuit camera photos capture the significantly improved motion clarity at 330Hz compared with the native 165Hz mode and an example 120Hz refresh rate also shown here. The moving image is sharper, easier to track and smaller details like the moving text are also clearer and easier to read. You can see a bit of smearing behind the yellow part of the UFO especially where the response times are not quite fast enough to keep up with the higher frame rate demands. This would be a bit cleaner if they were faster and could keep up but the overall clarity is very good.

At lower refresh rates (120Hz used as an example here) overshoot starts to become a problem, resulting in pale halos. This gets progressively worse as frame rate lowers further as explained earlier. Motion clarity also decreases as frame rates lower as expected. Dual-mode is optimal for between around 200 – 333Hz.

Lag

We measured lag at various refresh rates and this shows the total display lag, made up partly from signal processing delay, and partly from the response times of the panel.

At native 6K 165Hz and in dual-mode 3K 330Hz operation there is very low lag, <1ms of signal processing delay which is excellent. Those figures are applicable during VRR situations too. It remains pretty low for fixed 60Hz input devices as well, although the 24″ simulation mode adds some additional lag due to how scaling is handled.

Console support

	Console Gaming
Native panel resolution	6144 x 3456 “6K”
Maximum resolution and refresh rate supported	4K @ 120Hz
4K at 24Hz support
4K at 50Hz support
HDMI connection version	2.1
HDMI connection bandwidth	48Gbps
HDMI-CEC auto switch	Auto Source Switch+
VRR (variable refresh rates)
HDR10 support
Dolby Vision HDR support
Blur reduction mode available
Integrated speakers
Headphone connection
Ultra high speed HDMI 2.1 cable provided

Modern games consoles can function up to their maximum 4K 120Hz which is good news, and the panel has a high enough resolution to support that natively, scaling it to fill the screen. The most notable gaps in performance are support for 4K 24Hz and 4K 50Hz signals, useful for some multimedia and movie viewing from modern consoles. The screen lacks integrated speakers and unfortunately does not have a strobing backlight blur reduction mode, which could have been useful for improving motion clarity for 120Hz console gaming.

HDR10 content is supported but not Dolby Vision, although that’s not really missed as the HDR hardware capabilities of the screen are limited, with only 6 local dimming zones. Had this been a Mini LED or OLED monitor we would have commented on the value of adding Dolby Vision support but it’s an unnecessary addition here we think.

Conclusion

The Samsung Odyssey G80HS provides a unique offering in the 32″ sector at the moment, being the first high refresh rate 6K monitor released, including a very useful dual-mode function as well. The 6K mode is excellent for general and office applications, providing a super clear and sharp image, “retina class” pixel density and being well suited to both Windows and Mac scaling approaches. The picture quality is excellent for these tasks, a noticeable step up from 4K even, and combined with the IPS panel it offers a great all round image.

6K mode is definitely a challenge for gaming, although the 165Hz native refresh rate offers improved experience even for static desktop apps. The dual-mode function is really useful for gaming though, dropping you down to a reasonable 3K resolution while giving you a nice boost in refresh rate. This resolution still looks very good on a 32″ screen size, it’s not a massive sacrifice like some previous dual-mode approaches have been, and the image looks sharp and clear for dynamic content. Motion clarity is noticeably improved thanks to the higher refresh rate, but the response times are restrictive for the lower end of the refresh rate range which is tricky to manage on an LCD panel. This mode is best suited to gaming at >200fps ideally. Input lag is very low too, but it’s a bit of a shame not to see a strobing blur reduction mode on offer.

The main limitation with this screen considering its market position and price point is its HDR local dimming capabilites. We’d love to have seen a Mini LED backlight used here, but alas the limited edge-lit local dimming doesn’t offer much. HDR content is at least handled well with good accuracy and colours, but you don’t really get any improvements in brightness, black depth or contrast because of the limited dimming.

The screen is far more suited to SDR content, with a huge desktop space available and great support for working with 4K content. Factory calibration was very good, and there’s a higher contrast ratio than advertised, and wider colour gamut too. Viewing angles are wide and the panel even has low levels of IPS glow which is pleasing. The feature set is reasonable, although we did miss a couple of things like USB-C which could have added additional value here, or should perhaps be included given the price point.

The G80HS has a standard retail price of ~$1,600 but has been on offer recently for $1,300 USD which we think is a more appropriate price point. In the UK it’s still on offer, down from £1,299 to £999 GBP There’s a few other options in this space, such as the LG UltraFine evo 32U990A we’ve reviewed in the past, but none with a high refresh rate and dual-mode support. You can check out latest pricing and availability for your region using our affiliate link above.

Pros	Cons
6K resolution looks excellent for office and productivity apps, with a high refresh rate also adding value	Limited HDR local dimming capabilities
Dual-mode offers a decent 3K res and nice refresh rate boost	No strobing blur reduction mode for gaming
High contrast ratio and low glow for an IPS panel	Missing USB-C connectivity and a few other modern features you might find elsewhere

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