Nvidia’s BFGDs (or Big Format Gaming Displays, to you and me) are not going to be known as BFGDs. Instead, as of January 2019, these huge 65in gaming shows at the moment are a part of Nvidia’s wider G-Sync Ultimate household, which additionally consists of their considerably smaller (however simply as expensive) G-Sync HDR screens such because the 27in Acer Predator X27 and Asus ROG Swift PG27UQ.
Why the title change? To make issues simpler to know, in line with Nvidia, though between you and me I fairly appreciated the thought of it being the BFG of all gaming shows. And one in all them might be right here tremendous quickly, too: HP’s newly-christened Omen X Emperium. If you’ve been eyeing up this jumbo gaming show, right here’s every part we all know up to now about Nvidia’s BFGD G-Sync Ultimate shows, together with their value (I’ll warn you now, it ain’t fairly), specs and launch date.
Nvidia BFGD: What are they and who’s making them?
First introduced back in January 2018, Nvidia’s BFGD G-Sync Ultimate shows are basically the PC gaming equal of a front room TV – they usually look as if they might be a few of the best gaming monitors of all time.
I’ll get into why that’s in a second, however earlier than we do get into the nitty-gritty of the BFGD’s specs, right here’s a fast have a look at the three fashions which are presently in manufacturing:
- Asus ROG Swift PG65
- Acer Predator BFGD
- HP Omen X Emperium
There are little doubt extra within the pipeline from different producers, however these ones would be the first to reach on store cabinets. They all share the identical specs and the identical panel, so the one factor that’s actually going to distinguish them is how a lot they price and their general design. We don’t know a lot about Acer’s imaginatively named BFGD but, however we do have some early photographs of what Asus’ will appear to be in addition to some precise real-life pictures of what’s presently occurring with HP’s effort.
The Asus ROG Swift PG65 has a conventional, TV-style form, however stays an unmistakable pupil of the ‘gamer’ college of design.
Asus’ PG65 seems to be fairly a chunky previous factor if the picture above is something to go by, recalling the early ‘flat-but-still-incredibly-thick-screens’ of yore. Just have a look at these large vents on the highest and backside.
HP’s Omen X Emperium, in the meantime, has modified fairly a bit from its preliminary idea picture (beneath). What was as soon as slim sufficient to doubtlessly wall-mount has now morphed right into a fairly chunky, soundbar-bearing beast. It’s a fraction extra tasteful than Asus’ ‘l33t gamer’ design, however not by a lot because the rear nonetheless bears all of the design hallmarks of HP’s Omen merchandise, corresponding to their Omen X 17 laptop computer, in addition to a touch of RGB lighting for good measure.
Just in case you didn’t realise the Omen X 65 was ‘for the gamers’, HP have kitted out their tasteful monochrome minimalist front room with their tiddly Omen X P1000 PC, a few gaming figures and a neat stack of manga to present it a little bit of color.
You can nonetheless see the ghost of the Omen X Emperium’s unique design when it from the entrance, although, as right here you possibly can see some pretty slim bezels and a delightful absence of ‘gamer-y’ elaborations. In truth, all you get is a small Omen emblem within the centre.
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- HP’s Omen X 65 didn’t have a built-in soundbar when it was first introduced…
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- …though Nvidia tells me there’ll possible be one other mannequin with no soundbar on sale as effectively.
Nvidia BFGD value
The solely Nvidia BFGD with a confirmed value up to now is HP’s Omen X Emperium, which (brace yourselves) will price $5000 with the soundbar (UK pricing is but to be confirmed). Nvidia have additionally instructed me it’s possible there might be one other mannequin with out a soundbar obtainable, however there’s presently no phrase on how a lot that may price by comparability, or whether or not it should even be obtainable on the identical time.
Asus and Acer’s respective fashions, nonetheless, are nonetheless TBA. We can, nonetheless, take an informed guess. Given that Nvidia’s 27in G-Sync Ultimate shows such because the Asus PG27UQ will presently set you again £2300 / $2000, I’m going to take a really wild guess and say they’ll possible price someplace between $2500-$5000. Specific, I do know.
The design of the Emperium hasn’t modified a lot since Gamescom – it’s nonetheless huge and it’s nonetheless bought that LED strip down the again, too.
Nvidia BFGD launch date
When Nvidia first introduced their BFGDs, they tentatively stated they’d be right here in summer time 2018. Well, it’s 2019 now, and up to now we’ve solely bought a launch date for one in all them. That’s proper, it’s HP’s Omen X Emperium once more, which is because of arrive in February 2019.
We won’t have to attend too lengthy for the others, although, as Asus have now listed the PG65 on their web site (as of July 2018), suggesting it’s presently preparing for launch. There’s no data on its specs tab for the time being, or certainly something which may recommend even the vaguest of launch home windows, however it absolutely can’t be that far off. Watch this area.
Nvidia BFGD specs
So what makes these BFG shows so rattling costly? Well, they’re huge for starters, measuring 65in throughout the diagonal. They even have a 4K decision, however what actually units them aside out of your typical telly is their large 120Hz refresh fee, extremely low response time and G-Sync HDR assist.
That final one is especially particular. We’ve already seen the wonders and delights of what G-Sync HDR can do within the smaller Asus ROG Swift PG27UQ, and the three BFGDs needs to be no completely different in that regard. After all, G-Sync HDR is a hard and fast customary that mixes Nvidia’s adaptive body fee tech for easy, tear-free gaming with HDR (or excessive dynamic vary), so each show that helps it ought to ship precisely the identical sort of expertise no matter display screen measurement.
You can learn extra about within the ins and outs of what HDR is and what it means on your game library in our HDR on PC guide (in addition to what graphics card you need for HDR), however from a specs viewpoint, G-Sync HDR kind of boils down to 2 essential issues: a peak brightness of 1000cd/m2 (the identical as high-end Ultra HD Premium-certified TVs) for brighter whites and extra life-like photographs, and DCI-P3 color gamut protection for extra correct, sensible colors.
Each BFGD can even have its personal Nvidia Shield streaming doodad constructed straight into the again of it, too. Yeah, yeah, massive deal, you say. Hear me out, although.
For me, this is among the massive coups of the BFGDs, because it technically means you don’t even should have a PC related to it to be able to keep it up enjoying your favorite PC games. That’s as a result of, in addition to with the ability to sit again and chill with a little bit of Netflix, Amazon Prime and BBC iPlayer (and, in the event you’re within the US, Hulu and HBO) via the Shield’s Android TV aspect of issues, you may also benefit from its Nvidia GameStream and GeForce Now tech.
The former permits you to stream games from one other GeForce GTX graphics card-powered PC in your house, whereas the latter is Nvidia’s soon-to-be cloud subscription service (it’s nonetheless in beta for the time being) that permits you to stream games you already personal (and are included as a part of the service) with out proudly owning any high-end {hardware} in anyway.
Of course, a big a part of Shield’s streaming attraction will depend upon a) the standard of your web connection, and b) your willingness to doubtlessly add one more subscription service to your life. You may hate the thought of cloud gaming with such a ardour that you just’re compelling to do some vomit in your mouth each time somebody mentions the phrase ‘cloud gaming’ (sorry) or lookup on the sky.
And that’s superb. Streaming isn’t for everybody. But it does open up the BFGD to those that won’t essentially be capable of afford retaining their PC up-to-date on a regular basis. It additionally means you don’t essentially should have a large black field cluttering up your front room for folks to spill drinks on, by chance delete the contents of your laborious drive, or typically get in the best way of every part. And that, for me, is a giant plus in the case of making an attempt to play PC games from the consolation of my couch – particularly when lots of the brand new Nvidia RTX graphics playing cards are so gosh-darned costly.
