‘Is there a point where refresh rate just stops mattering?’: I chat to Samsung’s monitor experts about its crazy-fast 1100Hz gaming display

At Gamescom 2026 in Cologne, fresh off Samsung's reveal of its 2027 Odyssey OLED lineup , I sat down with two of the people shaping the company's monitor and TV strategy: Jeremy Demont, Product Management Director for TV, Sound and Monitor at Samsung UK & Ireland, and Pepe Distra, Head of Monitor for Samsung's European visual display organisation.

We chatted about everything from the prevalence of 1000Hz and higher refresh rate screens to 6K gaming, the brand's ongoing commitment to glasses-free 3D and how important strong partnerships with eSports professionals and studios are to getting the best out of screens. (Image credit: Future) A triple mode screen is more useful than you might think Triple mode gets its debut on the new Odyssey OLED G8, a 32-inch 4K tandem QD-OLED panel that runs at 360Hz natively, drops to 1440p resolution for 520Hz, or goes all the way down to Full HD for 680Hz.

It's a first for Samsung: dual-mode switching already exists on its 6K panels, the ultrawide G9, and other, more conventional choices, but triple mode isn't something that can be patched in later via firmware.

Distra confirmed it's baked in on the panel side.

I pushed on whether this is solving a real problem or just adding a marketing bullet point.

Halving your resolution to double your refresh rate is a genuinely large image quality penalty, so a middle ground – dropping from 4K to 1440p rather than all the way to HD – makes sense on paper.

However, Distra was refreshingly candid about the uncertainty here: "If it's high-end gamers, they'll definitely benefit.

But if the average Joe Bloke buys the gaming monitor, are they actually going to use it practically?" He described it as something Samsung still needs to watch play out once the hardware reaches the market, and said community feedback will directly shape what comes next.

1100Hz might not be the limit, after all The number causing all the excitement is 1100Hz, supported by the new Odyssey G6 G60H – a 1440p Fast IPS panel that runs at 600Hz natively, but which can drop to HD resolution to unlock that 1100Hz ceiling, the fastest refresh rate I've seen on a gaming monitor to date.

It wasn't long ago 500Hz felt like an extreme number, so I put it to Distra directly: is there a point where refresh rate just stops mattering? If you deliver only 1100Hz and focus purely on eSports, that's a small market Pepe Distra, Head of Monitor, Samsung Europe He didn't dodge the eSports-only framing.

"If you deliver only 1100Hz and focus purely on eSports, that's a small market," he told me.