At NAB 2025, the 8K Association in partnership with AMD, Maingear and Samsung demonstrated 8K 120Hz gaming on an 8K TV for the first time.
8K has faced a challenging start but the industry continues to push forward as evidenced by recent advancements showcased at the annual NAB trade show in Las Vegas earlier this month.
In a notable milestone, the 8K Association believes this to be the world's first public demonstration of 8K 120Hz gaming on an 8K TV.
Horizon Forbidden West in 8K 120Hz
In collaboration with AMD, Maingear and Samsung, the 8K Association showcased Horizon Forbidden West running at 8K 120Hz on a Samsung TV.
The 8K LCD TV was custom-modified by Samsung for the demo. The 8K 120Hz signal was transmitted from the PC to the TV via HDMI 2.1b using Display Stream Compression (DSC), necessary due to HDMI 2.1's bandwidth limitations.
Horizon Forbidden West in 8K 120Hz on a modified Samsung 8K TV. Photo: rAVe
- "The 8K Association was at the show with several areas of interest. At one end of the booth, there was a demonstration of real time gaming using an AMD-based gaming PC and a special 65″ TV flown in from Korea by 8K Association member, Samsung, that supported 120fps display. The game was Horizon Forbidden West and the TV was a modified Neo QLED 8K set," said the 8K Association.
The Maingear PC featured an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPU and an AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT GPU. The game was rendered at 5K and upscaled internally using AMD’s ML-based FidelityFX Super Resolution 3. Steam's analytics overlay was used to confirm the 120fps output.
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How long will it take?
While the demo relied on a customized Samsung 8K TV, it signals Samsung's progress toward enabling native 8K support beyond 60Hz, something that will become more viable with HDMI 2.2, which in the coming years will double HDMI 2.1’s bandwidth.
Current 8K TVs are typically limited to 8K 60Hz. In 2021, MediaTek announced a Pentonic 2000 chip capable of supporting 8K120, but it is unclear if it ever made it to any commercial 8K TVs.
To maintain true 8K – or even 4K – motion resolution, frame rates above 60fps are needed.
Horizon Forbidden West in 8K 120Hz on a modified Samsung 8K TV (right). Photo: 8K Association
- Source: 8K Association, YouTube (rAVe)
