One year with the flagship G9 Neo
Last year I managed to grab a Samsung Odyssey G9 Neo monitor for somewhat "cheap". The MSRP of the G9 Neo is above 2,000 EUR so I consider anything below that as "cheap" but keep in mind you can constantly see them selling for far less than that. The Odyssey family is famous among gamers, and I got some extra tax refunds so I chose to spend it wisely. Now that I have had it for a year, it's time to give it a small review. Pre-disclaimer: excellence.
Simulator gaming
I have been wanting to get a 32:9 widescreen for my simulator gaming for a long time. It feels like I spent half of the year of 2021 watching reviews for this particular use only. My 27" 1440p Asus TUF gaming monitor setup was already really good but the view of both mirrors and sidewindows in separate screens wasn't just good enough. For Euro Truck Simulator 2 gaming, the G9 Neo is just pure excellence. It still can't beat the VR experience, but 240Hz widescreen trucking is neat!
I had a Samsung S49A950 49" 120Hz Ultra Wide monitor for a short time, but the G9 Neo's double hertz offering sounded even better. If it was not for the frequency of the panel I really could not tell the difference between these two thingjamins. Okay, perhaps the colour of the backpanel but thats all.
PC requirements
When it comes to the fact you have to think about your PC's capabilities when playing games on this screen, my Ryzen 9 CPU paired with a 6800XT seems to run games surprisingly well at 5120x1440p resolution. Although there are lots of games that I can't run at max settings so I might have a small upgrade coming later this year.
Valheim has various possibilites to get unique screenshots.
Games like Fortnite and Wreckfest had moments that almost hammered my PC. The crash of 50 cars into a tire wall could easily drop the FPS to low 20's, just like Fortnites' destruction of structures and explosions combined together. Fortnites' FPS has dropped to 40's and 30's but never below that. This level of performance can be increased by adjusting the graphics settings in Fortnite, but in Wreckfest there is not much left to do.
Games like Valheim, Arma 2/3 Dayz, Tomb Raiders', Serious Sams', Unturned, RuneScapes', Assassins Creeds', Minecraft and the Forest for example gave a full new gaming experience, but this could be achieved with the 1000 eur cheaper Samsung S49A950 monitor aswell.
The 49" monitor simply gives a flawless new smile to the games that everyone should see at least once. Some people might complain the height of the screen is not enough, but for me this is perfectly fine. Samsung has the Ark family for that use.
More gaming related 49" images can be found in the Virtual fishing comparison blog I made in late February.
Wreckfest can hammer your GPU. Situations like these really affect your FPS.
Warframes' speedy gameplay has already brought challenges to get into, and the wideness doesn't make it any better. If your gaming is based on slow Skyrim combat, you need some time to get along with this.
This is the long-waited Snow Plow simulator. I got access to the beta testing.
Both Spintires and MudRunner were easier to play as your screen rotation lock would be less limiting your gameplay as the vision is at least twice as wide.
Notable pros and cons:
- Simply the best. And you can bet your neighbour doesn't have it.
- Price. You can feel it in your wallet, unless you have lots of patience to grab it from the sales
- Size. The monitor is huge and moving it around without insurance is like walking on a rope.
- Not all games support the resolution, like Fall Guys and Skyrim.
- OS; Windows as an OS is ridiculous. A separate 3 monitor setup might be better if you need multiple app windows open.
Steam surprize
During the Steam summer sale, I grabbed a 512Gb Steam deck. One would get a custom profile background, and to be honest, it is not that bad.
I will be writing a review of that too, but later this year
