Sweet Baby Jeebus Alienware 55" 4k120 OLED Displayport


I will admit that I was a bit saddened when I heard about the WCCFTech report, but that quote from Dell by pcgamer has me smiling again.

I won't be in the market for a monitor like the Dell Alienware OLED, but it's good to see that at least one major manufacturer will offer an OLED option for those who want to experience that level of image quality for desktop/console gaming.

I'm still really curious how they may justify a $4999 price tag, assuming Dell wants to position it head-to-head against NVIDIA's 65" BFGDs (that's what I gathered from Dell's quote). Gamers will have to ask themselves does a custom TCON and Freesync/G-Sync command a $3000+ premium over a 55" LG B-series OLED that can be picked up for around $1599 on sale.
 
I'm still really curious how they may justify a $4999 price tag

Scarcity- so if they overestimate demand, prices may drop over time.

To be sure there's a heavy early-adopter tax built in, and given the likely narrow ROI, lots of development costs just to get the model out the door.
 
The new LG OLEDs support VRR over HDMI 2.1. No way Dell can successfully charge $5k for their 55” OLED if the only major differentiator is Displayport.
 
The new LG OLEDs support VRR over HDMI 2.1. No way Dell can successfully charge $5k for their 55” OLED if the only major differentiator is Displayport.

Well, that's a pretty big differentiator in that you top out at a Radeon VII for performance on those right now, and you need every ounce of it for that display.

But we should expect tuning for games with huds as well as desktops to be in play. Perhaps higher-binned panels to go along.
 
What the hell are you people talking about? Obviously reading skills need work. There is no price given for the Alienware OLED.
 
What the hell are you people talking about? Obviously reading skills need work. There is no price given for the Alienware OLED.

They gave an estimate in that link where they said it might not be released.

I expected it to be around the same price as Sony's 55 inch OLED because just like Sony, Dell has to buy the panels from LG. But maybe Dell thinks they can charge more because they have DisplayPort and BFGs are LCD.

If they don't release before HDMI 2.1 cards it's DOA.
 
They gave an estimate in that link where they said it might not be released.

I expected it to be around the same price as Sony's 55 inch OLED because just like Sony, Dell has to buy the panels from LG. But maybe Dell thinks they can charge more because they have DisplayPort and BFGs are LCD.

If they don't release before HDMI 2.1 cards it's DOA.

Just stating the price of a 65" BFGD is not "giving an estimate".

The same panel going into the Alienware goes into a $2,000 LG C9 and the $2800 Sony A9F.
 
Getting old mate ;)
I like my screens big and far away.

ps does anyone see the wink smiley at the end of the first line above?
They are missing for me and just show a blank space.
Yes, I see the wink smiley.
 
What the hell are you people talking about? Obviously reading skills need work. There is no price given for the Alienware OLED.

Just stating the price of a 65" BFGD is not "giving an estimate".

The same panel going into the Alienware goes into a $2,000 LG C9 and the $2800 Sony A9F.

Right, we get that, but Dell's answer to PC Gamer provides the necessary context.

From PC Gamer: The company also told me that it will be careful not to position the display with current OLED TVs that are available, noting that the "predominant use case for this monitor is PC and console gaming."

At least in my mind, that means Dell is specifically looking to price the 55" Alienware similar to products like HP's 65-inch Omen X Emperium, which of course is a BFGD. In other words, Dell isn't interested in competing against LG's "low end" OLED TV market, it's aiming at the high / premium end monitor market.

Not saying I agree with any of it, but from Dell's own comment we're able to deduce pretty clearly how they're going to price the monitor. Which is to say, at least twice the price of LG's B-series OLED TVs, on average.

For such a price though, it sure as hell better have:

- HDMI 2.1 / DP 1.4
- G-Synce and/or Free Sync 2
- Nn excellently engineered TCON and other desktop/game-oriented bells & whistles.
 
BACKLIGHTS...........BFGD has a less dense FALD backlight array (384) than a Q9FN tier samsung (512), and way less than a OLED per pixel emissive.
...............................= = = Slightly worse than a flagship LCD TV and OLED per pixel all white"backlight" is far superior (especially outside of HDR content where it is capped at 600nit)
...............................= = = = Suffer a lower fraction of HDR color volume and a dimmer screen on OLED or suffer Bloom or Dim "halos" off of edges with FALD arrays.

VARIABLE HZ......... BFGD has g-sync . Hdmi 2.1 generation tvs in both FALD LCD and OLED should have VRR in both LCD and OLED
...............................LG C9 has VRR on hdmi 2.0 but doesn't support free-sync and even in VRR on xbox one can't do both VRR and HDR at the same time. Future 120hz hdmi 2.1 versions prob won't have this issue.
...............................= = = No gain here.

HIGH HZ.................
.BFGD has high hz. Hdmi 2.1 generation tvs should be 4k 120hz.
...............................= = = No gain here

CONNECTIVITY,..... DELL ALIENWARE OLED reportedly is going to have HDMI 2.1 for future proofing along with dp 1.4 for now. HDMI 2.1 allows full 4:4:4 chroma at 120hz 4k.
...............................BFGD might use compression or it might be just like the PG27UQ 's chroma limitations past 100hz due to displayport bandwidth limits.
.............................Upcoming flagship TVs should all have hdmi 2.1
.............................= = = Dell OLED and Upcoming Flagship TVs have better connectivity / display bandwdith

RESPONSE TIME....BFGD response time - should be pretty low.
...............................A Q9Fn tier TV has 3.5ms response time 80%,15.5ms 100%. According to RTINGs there is no motion trail even at the worst transitions in their tests, probably due to overdrive or other enhancements.
...............................OLED is far superior with .2ms (two 10ths) at 80% and 2.4ms at 100%. Note this does nothing vs sample and hold blur however, but high fps at high hz does.
........................................ultra low response time does help when the frame rate and hz start to outpace the response times of LCD monitors, e.g. 120fps+120hz requires a 8.3ms response time or less
...............................= = = Response times are adequate on all especially considering max Hz and frame rate limitations

INPUT LAG..............
BFGD should have lower latency than "TVs". Samsung Q9Fn tier tvs have fairly low latecy of ~10 ms. C9 OLEDs are about ~ 14ms, gaming monitors are typically lower.
...............................= = = Gaming monitors should have slightly lower input lag, so a gain here but not as much as you might think from a "TV".



HDR COLOR VOLUME / COLOR BRIGHTNESS CEILING and OVERALL HDR PERFORMANCE...............
................................BFGD should have great contrast of 8000:1 to 11,0000:1 or so with dynamic FALD and a 1000 nit HDR color brightness ceiling. FALD suffers glow or dim "bleed" off of bright HDR edges depending on the firmware.
................................A Samsung Q9Fn tier tv has ~ 19000:1 contrast with dynamic FALD and a ~1800nit HDR color brightness ceiling. FALD suffers glow or dim "bleed" off of the bright HDR edges depending on the firmware.
................................A C9 OLED tv has 1,000,000:1 contrast with "zero" blacks and a screen dimming 600nit HDR color brightness limit in order to protect against burn-in. Not bright enough overall to overcome glare in bright windowed rooms.
................................= = = Suffer a lower fraction of HDR color volume and a dimmer screen on OLED or suffer Bloom or Dim "halos" off of edges with FALD arrays.


SCREEN SIZE and PERCIEVED PPI, DISTANCE.......All of these displays are huge and in my opinion and I have 43" monitors on my modded deep desk. IMO these would require sitting back at least 4' or more.
..............................................................................= = = This brings these screens into the category of being mounted remotely with a separate desk island., using super deep desk mod, or using a couchmaster or similar couch desk setup.


EXTRA FEATURES................
............................ The Q9FN tier FALD LCD VA tvs and LG OLEDs have a few extra features which can optionally be turned on that are not found in computer monitors, which include (even at 120hz)
............................ BFI (black frame insertion/flicker)
.............................Interpolation (frame doubling/quasi frame duplication 'tweening' type tech that causes "soap opera effect" in movies which some like and some don't.. but works well for consoles and fps capped games).
.............................Worth noting that the samsung Q9fn can use it's extra features in game mode where some tvs can't. And it does this at very low input considering the features are enabled ( ~ 10.8ms at 1440p 120hz)
.............................= = = TVs have slightly more input lag (still it's down to ~10ms now on LCD, 14ms on OLED), and they may lack some of the overdrive implementation in gaming monitors..
......................................but they have a few extra bells and whistles, especailly if you are going to use them part time for consoles/30fps limited games or for watching movies.


SCREEN COATING.............

.............................BFGD if it has the same coating as the 27" FALD PG27UQ monitors would be "light AG coating" .
.....................................per TFTCentral's PG27UQ review: "The screen coating is a light anti-glare (AG) offering. It isn't a semi-glossy coating, but it is light as seen on other modern IPS type panels.
.....................................Thankfully it isn't a heavily grainy coating like some old IPS panels feature and is also lighter than modern TN Film panel coating. It retains its anti-glare properties to avoid too
.....................................many unwanted reflections of a full glossy coating, but does not produce too grainy or dirty an image that some thicker AG coatings can. There are no visible cross hatching patterns on the panel coating."
.............................Q9FN has a glossy finish but has some kind of mild anti-reflective coating.
.............................LG C8 and C9 OLED are glossy but have a mild anti-reflective coating that adds a slight purple tint (according to rtings).
.............................DELL Alienware Gaming OLED will probably be a similar coating to the LG OLED TVs
.............................= = = pretty similar overall but make sure about the reported purple tint on the OLED coating to see if it would bother you.



PRICING....

....................................BFGD reportedly upwards of $5000
....................................DELL Alienware OLED gaming monitor .. $ ??????
....................................Q9FN tier FALD LCD TV (65") ~ $3200 (at release)
....................................LG C9 tier OLED 55" $2500 (at release), 65" $3500 (at release)


========================================================================================


I know there are more spec categories than this but I wanted to compare some of the most important ones to me.
 
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Right, we get that, but Dell's answer to PC Gamer provides the necessary context.

From PC Gamer: The company also told me that it will be careful not to position the display with current OLED TVs that are available, noting that the "predominant use case for this monitor is PC and console gaming."

At least in my mind, that means Dell is specifically looking to price the 55" Alienware similar to products like HP's 65-inch Omen X Emperium, which of course is a BFGD. In other words, Dell isn't interested in competing against LG's "low end" OLED TV market, it's aiming at the high / premium end monitor market.

Not saying I agree with any of it, but from Dell's own comment we're able to deduce pretty clearly how they're going to price the monitor. Which is to say, at least twice the price of LG's B-series OLED TVs, on average.

For such a price though, it sure as hell better have:

- HDMI 2.1 / DP 1.4
- G-Synce and/or Free Sync 2
- Nn excellently engineered TCON and other desktop/game-oriented bells & whistles.

That is the most wild speculation I've seen in a while. Dell said absolutely nothing about the HP 65" LCD, nor on pricing. The HP display was only brought up as an opinion by the PCGamer writer.

How people have gone in this thread from that simple vague "product position" quote by Dell to the display costing $4,999 (because a HP 65" BFGD costs that? I guess?) logic is an extreme reach. It will OBVIOUSLY cost more than the same size LG TV and wasn't the point.
 
That is the most wild speculation I've seen in a while. Dell said absolutely nothing about the HP 65" LCD, nor on pricing. The HP display was only brought up as an opinion by the PCGamer writer.

How people have gone in this thread from that simple vague "product position" quote by Dell to the display costing $4,999 (because a HP 65" BFGD costs that? I guess?) logic is an extreme reach. It will OBVIOUSLY cost more than the same size LG TV and wasn't the point.

I don't personally have anything against you Vega, but seriously, get off my ass. I read the fucking article, and I'm not trying to be confrontational here. What's wild about it? I'm merely provided a quote directly from PC Gamer, and Dell's own words.

While we don't know the actual retail price of the 55" Alienware, we do know -- quite well -- the retail ranges of other products, whether that's OLED TVs, BFGD monitors, etc. It's not hard to put 2 and 2 together. Dell said it doesn't want to position it against LG's OLED TVs. If you combine the B-series and C-series, that's an effective retail range of $1,499 - $2,499. So right there we can say the 55" Alienware will likely retail north of $2,499.

Will it cost $4,999? Not likely, since the Alienware will be 55" and the HP is 65", and with different underlying technologies (some that favor the Alienware, some that favor the HP), but it gives us a useful price point for non-professional monitors in that sort of rarefied stratosphere.

Personally, I think it'll clock in around $3,500 - $3,999.
 
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Re: pricing, last paragraph of the wccftech article says this (FWIW):

As for pricing, we were told this would be a premium product targeting the high-end segment, upwards of $3K USD. This would make it more expensive than the latest LG OLED TVs it’s based upon.

This allegedly coming from an Alienware executive, per the article.
 
Well, that's a pretty big differentiator in that you top out at a Radeon VII for performance on those right now, and you need every ounce of it for that display.

But we should expect tuning for games with huds as well as desktops to be in play. Perhaps higher-binned panels to go along.
I’m going to guess that nvidia will eventually release cards with HDMI 2.1 though.
 
I’m going to guess that nvidia will eventually release cards with HDMI 2.1 though.

No doubt- they're just taking their time updating their parts. Perhaps the size of the market doesn't justify the retooling, though realistically speaking Turing should have shipped with it.
 
No doubt- they're just taking their time updating their parts. Perhaps the size of the market doesn't justify the retooling, though realistically speaking Turing should have shipped with it.

I don't think certification testing was ready for it to ship with Turing, heck, I think it's still not ready. That said, I fully agree that Turing should have shipped with the hardware that they could then enable via firmware after cert testing was ready.

I'm more concerned about Ampere given the rumors it's coming out as early as Q1 2020. Regardless of when it ships, I will be really unhappy if it doesn't have HDMI 2.1.
 
I hope this monitor does well. Definitely rooting for team emissive.
 
Yeah LCDs were poor in comparison.
I made the best of a bad thing by converting my first LCD into a projector, that was really good fun and worked very well through 2004 to 2007.
I started off with an OHP and its standard yellowish (4000K) 400W lamp (50hrs per lamp lol) and converted it to a 250W Metal Halide (6000K) which lasted around 7000hrs, was much brighter, cooler and had much better colour balance. It got me a 100" gaming/movies display incredibly cheap and better resolution than most projectors at that time. Even replacement lamps were a fraction of the cost.
I used it as my main display with a TV tuner in my PC sat in the top left corner for casual viewing and full screen if I liked the program.
I killed the display panel accidentally and found better ways to reduce light loss so bought a newer better monitor for it and converted to a slightly more efficient 150W metal halide. It was fantastic, glorious days :D

Then I bought a Dell S2209Wb 22" (not the A that was very highly praised) for normal use (not as a PJ) but this display is so good that I used it to help calibrate my Plasma TV I later bought. It is still in use with my security system and has A+ image quality.
But yep, early LCDs were pants.

I lost most of the pictures, this is the best of whats left.
Projector with lighting not adjusted yet, Oblivion with the better lamp and corner lighting improved.
The PJ in action, the first Flatout (I think) with my guitar to show the size.
Final one is the TV app playing Simpsons and My name is Earl playing behind. I'm holding a 12" ruler to show the size.
The camera wasnt that good, the colour quality in real life was a bit better.

View attachment 168455 View attachment 168456

View attachment 168463 View attachment 168464

View attachment 168465
I found a couple more piccys.
First is the OHP converted to a projector, the second Counter Strike 2 running on it.
projector.JPG

Projector CS-2.JPG
 
If it was smaller ... like, 40"-42". 55 too beaucoup. I tried using an LG 55" as a computer monitor a while back and the sheer size of it made it unusable at the distance i sat. The PPI wasn't so great either compared to my 40" 4k screen.
 
Couldn't wait. Just ordered LG 55" C9 OLED. Arrives tomorrow. I currently have a 980ti so I wouldn't be able to use the DP 1.4 interface on this Alienware anyway. I'm planning to run 1440p@120Hz using HDMI 2.0 for now. Will upgrade video card once HDMI 2.1 cards come out.

Really looking forward to having a bigger screen. Been on a 24" 1080p 144Hz screen for a while. Came from triple projector Eyefinity setup (3x36", 3840x800@120Hz) a few years ago. Eyefinity wasn't supported by the FPS I moved to (Overwatch) so that's how//why I landed on the single 1080p screen.

Edit: Hrrmmm bit annoyed that my old post history on Hardforum was lost. I guess my inactivity for a few years has consequences. Oh well ...
 
If it was smaller ... like, 40"-42". 55 too beaucoup. I tried using an LG 55" as a computer monitor a while back and the sheer size of it made it unusable at the distance i sat. The PPI wasn't so great either compared to my 40" 4k screen.

I overlapped a height adjustable kidney shaped/crescent desk on caster wheels over a slim desk in order to add a few 43" 4k VA tvs as desktop/app/browser/media playback monitors. I'm sitting 3' from each to my eyeballs and it's pretty comfortable.

I'm most likely going to swap my middle 32" 1440p g-sync VA for one of the 43" 4k VRR VA gaming screens eventually. As it is now, I view about 50% of the side monitors unless I spin in my chair a few degrees slightly left or right to focus on what's going on on the farther away halves of the side monitors. When I replace the center 32" 16:9, I'll probably have to move the crescent shaped desk back another 6" (or more) just to be able to view the then wider array in a similar way without spinning my chair too much.

Even though my above likely upgrade path would be a big area to view, I still feel like a 55" would be out of bounds for even my current relaxed distance desk setup and would instead require a command center "island" farther away, or a couchmaster couch/lap desk type setup. I would need that distance both to see more of the monitor at once and also to shrink the ppi to the viewing perspective so things would still look tight and 108.8 ppi-ish. I also agree that the big monitors are asking a ton of money considering there will be hdmi 2.1 VRR tvs with considerably low input lag in the next few years and eventually hdmi 2.1 gpus.
 
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Couldn't wait. Just ordered LG 55" C9 OLED. Arrives tomorrow. I currently have a 980ti so I wouldn't be able to use the DP 1.4 interface on this Alienware anyway. I'm planning to run 1440p@120Hz using HDMI 2.0 for now. Will upgrade video card once HDMI 2.1 cards come out.

Really looking forward to having a bigger screen. Been on a 24" 1080p 144Hz screen for a while. Came from triple projector Eyefinity setup (3x36", 3840x800@120Hz) a few years ago. Eyefinity wasn't supported by the FPS I moved to (Overwatch) so that's how//why I landed on the single 1080p screen.

Edit: Hrrmmm bit annoyed that my old post history on Hardforum was lost. I guess my inactivity for a few years has consequences. Oh well ...

The C9 is a very sweet, "future proofed" display. There is OLED and then there is everything else. I hope the alienware offers BFI as that is the only thing, besides display port, which would put it over the c9
 
That's crazy. Why would anyone overpay for that with LG's new sets bringing HDMI 2.1 and VRR to the table? The only benefit to the Alienware that I can see from what you listed, is FreeSync, but at $4,000 who cares?
 
I guess they do have 120Hz, but honestly everything else seems on par or worse than cheaper TVs.

Plus, driving 4K above 60fps is a struggle as it is, as much as everyone wants that it's out of reach for newer games.

I mean, I bought a 55" Samsung for $1,600 and that felt like a big splurge. I can't even imagine dropping $4,000 on a monitor.
 
No HDR support on a display that uses a 2019 LG OLED panel? What the fuck, Dell? Is this some kind of joke?

They were probably too scared about burn-in warranty returns so killed off the HDR brightness to prevent this issue. Remember, Alienware caters to the lowest common denominator to dumb or rich kids who know nothing about how to build a PC or how to properly use/maintain an OLED monitor. They want plug & play with no maintenance and so does Dell.
 
They were probably too scared about burn-in warranty returns so killed off the HDR brightness to prevent this issue. Remember, Alienware caters to the lowest common denominator to dumb or rich kids who know nothing about how to build a PC or how to properly use an OLED monitor. They want plug & play with no maintenance.

Yeah but this just seems like a trap product. So you get 4K 120hz maybe 6 months early, depending on when this actually goes in stock, and in exchange you lose HDR and HDMI 2.1 support and to boot, you pay twice as much what a 55" C9 costs.

Makes no sense. That's a bad deal even by Alienware standards.
 
Yeah but this just seems like a trap product. So you get 4K 120hz maybe 6 months early, depending on when this actually goes in stock, and in exchange you lose HDR and HDMI 2.1 support and to boot, you pay twice as much what a 55" C9 costs.

Makes no sense. That's a bad deal even by Alienware standards.

Yeah I threw up in my mouth a bit. I really like the new Alienware design refresh for the rest of the lineup though. The white look is a refreshing and futuristic look that I dig. I may swap out my 34" Alienware for the newer one even though they're almost the same thing (native 120hz vs overclock 120hz) + the rest of my accessories.

I was honestly holding out on the 55" Alienware. I was hoping it would be this instead:

HDR 1000
G-SYNC or Freesync choice
HDMI 2.1

Dream monitor besides the too large 55" size
 

I called it in another thread that this, as an HDR OLED, wouldnt happen for PCs.
PCs will kill an HDR OLED over 400Nits.
I dont think its a good idea even without HDR unless brightness is kept down.
It will look great for a while :)
I bet the peak brightness of 400nits is for a small window for a short period of time, no way it will be full screen.
 
Rounding things out are the ports, which include DisplayPort 1.2, three HDMI 2.0

Has to be an error in the spec sheet, Neither of those can do 4K at 120 Hz. I assume The display port is 1.4, no reason it wouldn’t be.
 
Update: Dell has gotten back to us, confirming that their original spec sheet was wrong, and that the monitor comes with DisplayPort 1.4 rather than 1.2. So the display does in fact have enough bandwidth for 4K@120Hz with 8bpc color.
 
No idea what you are talking about, tons of people use their LG OLED TVs in HDR mode with their PCs with no issues.
Because they are sensible, knowing a PC can cause severe problems.
Give to someone who doesnt realise ...
 
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