Las Vegas, NV -- Nvidia announced its big format game display (BFGD) initiative at its CES 2018 conference, and the first products are already here. Essentially a 65” 4K TV with G-Sync and an embedded Nvidia Shield, a BFGD will be the ultimate PC and gaming TV.
Aside from being the largest G-Sync screen you can get, the BFGD initiative is Nvidia’s take on what a TV should be. Starting with input latency, it’ll almost certainly have the lowest you can get for a TV, which will be a boon to traditional console gamers. G-Sync will do double duty to improve regular-film picture quality by removing the need for interpolation when the source material’s frame rate doesn’t match the TV’s refresh rate. Finally, the embedded Nvidia Shield not only takes the place of whatever smart OS a traditional TV has to handle content streaming, but also provides Nvidia GameStream and GeForce Now support.
For now, all BFGDs will have the same Nvidia-approved 65”, 120Hz, 4K IPS panel with DCI-P3 color gamut and full-array backlighting. Presumably, this is the only panel Nvidia deemed worthy and with a wide enough refresh-rate range for G-Sync HDR. This means that every BFGD will be more or less the same product until another panel is approved. Still, at least those specs can compete against the best current HDR10 TVs and monitors. And the first BFGDs aren’t going to come from any traditional TV maker; instead they’ll be coming from Acer, Asus, and HP.
Asus was the first to announce its BFGD, the ROG Swift PG65. With styling we’ve come to expect from Asus’ ROG monitors, we don’t know how well the look will hold up sitting in a living room. There’s not much to go on at the moment, as most of what was announced mirrors Nvidia’s provided information. Asus says more details will be released closer to launch, but, given the track record of G-Sync HDR, we doubt we’ll see this thing hit the shelves any time soon.
Asus says the PG65 will be on demo at CES 2018, so hopefully we’ll find out more about how Asus plans to differentiate it. Being from Asus, we think one of its selling points will be sound.
Acer Announces Predator BFGD
Acer also announced its BFGD, but, unless it’s named Predator, it doesn’t even have a name yet. We have no information beyond the picture that was shared. We don’t even know if we’ll see it at CES 2018.
HP Announces Omen X 65 BFGD
HP called its BFGD the Omen X 65 and, of the three, it’s probably the one that looks most like a traditional TV. As with its siblings, we don’t know much about it beyond its name. HP did announce a release window for it though--Autumn 2018.
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Interesting to see new names in the large format displays. hopefully this means good things but with nV backing them...I dunno how that'll work out, could be good, could be their last foray into LFD.
All I want is a decent 31" or 32" *true* 4K IPS monitor that can do better then 60Hz...I'd even be happy with 75Hz...by simple virtue of using the very latest DisplayPort or HDMI specifications.
Too bad the gaming consoles use FreeSync instead of G-Sync. The display is a little large for most PC Gamers unless you are using Nvidia GameStream to play.
Not to be mean, but i would love if they had a 78 curved display with all those features. Currently have a 65. And maybe just a little higher refresh rate. Still waiting on ASUS to release there 35 inch curved HDR monitor. Technology for me doesnt move fast enough.
