Samsung Odyssey 3D G90XF review: No 3D glasses required but at what cost?

Note: This review was first published on 26 May 2025.

There’s something both nostalgic and futuristic about the idea of 3D displays, or in the case of this review, gaming monitors. The tech just refuses to die a natural death. Every now and then, a tech company reintroduces 3D visuals with a promise that this time, it’ll stick. Remember the Nintendo 3DS? Yeah, most of us ended up playing games with the 3D slider down after the novelty wore off. So when Samsung revealed the Odyssey G9 3D G90XF, a monitor that promises glasses-free stereoscopic 3D gaming with modern hardware and eye-tracking, not many of us at HWZ were enthralled by it at first. But Samsung is banking on the idea that it can do 3D properly – finally – on a high-end gaming display, and it’s asking you to pay S$2,998 (launch price) for this privilege.

Out of the box, the Odyssey 3D doesn’t scream experimental. That’s an achievement on its own. Samsung has dressed the panel in the same aesthetic language as the rest of its high-end Odyssey range, which is very, very nice by the way. Think clean silver finish, angular base, and an overall design that feels polished without being ostentatious. There’s a visible bulge on the top bezel – that houses the dual infrared cameras for head-tracking – but it’s integrated neatly into the chassis. If someone walked past your desk, they’d likely assume it was just another premium gaming display, and not some strange, one-off tech oddity, which I guess is that point that the Samsung designers were trying to make.

The display itself is a 27-inch IPS panel, with a native 4K resolution and a 165Hz refresh rate. It’s a shame that it’s not using an OLED panel and even its VESA certified DisplayHDR level is at the minimum 400 – it won’t impress HDR fanatics. Unfortunately, I do not have the necessary specialised equipment to test the Odyssey 3D’s peak brightness and colour reproduction, but what I can say with my experienced eyes is that the monitor has excellent colour reproduction that is comparable to other high-end 4K gaming monitors out there. Its main weakness, however, is the lack of true blacks that OLEDs are capable of. For movie buffs and perhaps some gamers used to an OLED display, this could be a deal breaker.

That said, the star attraction of the Odyssey 3D is its ability to project 3D effects without the need for glasses, which Samsung brands as 3D Reality View. It’s powered by a combination of a lenticular lens array layered over the panel and a real-time head-tracking system driven by those two aforementioned infrared cameras. The idea is to simulate stereoscopic depth by sending slightly offset images to each of your eyes, adjusting dynamically as you shift in your seat. Unlike the old-school 3D glasses approach, there’s no wearable component, no colour filtering, and no crosstalk ghosting – at least, not when it’s working properly.

And it does work. Surprisingly well, in fact.

Set up correctly, the 3D illusion is effective in a way that’s hard to describe until you’ve seen it. Game HUD elements float subtly above the screen. Characters appear to exist within the space behind your monitor. There’s a sense of layering and dimensionality that doesn’t feel like a parlour trick. It's not about things flying at your face, like in some gimmicky 3D films. It's about space and immersion – think less rollercoaster and more diorama.

It helps that the eye-tracking is responsive. As long as you stay within the optimal viewing range (between roughly 70 to 100 centimetres), the image adjusts fluidly to your head position. You’re not locked into a rigid sweet spot, though there are limits. Move too far off-axis or too close, and the illusion starts to fall apart. There’s no support for multiple viewers, so this is very much a solo experience.

To activate 3D mode, you’ll need to install Samsung’s Reality Hub software. It acts as both a content launcher and system controller and scans your installed games for compatibility. But the Reality Hub is a bit clunky in my opinion, and its interface feels more like a work-in-progress than a polished front-end at this time of writing – but it does the job. Once launched, it offers options to adjust 3D depth, convergence, and toggles for eye-tracking.

And then comes the hard truth: game support is severely limited. It’s the same exact reason why 3D never really takes off in gaming. Right now, Samsung says there are just 12 officially supported titles. Some of these are smaller indie or family-oriented games such as The Smurfs: Dreams, SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake, and so on. Not games that make you spend three grand on a gaming monitor to play on. Sure, there are a few more recognisable names like Palworld and Stray, but even these are relatively niche. Samsung did more are coming, with about 50 total games with 3D-ready support by the end of 2025. 11 of those are expected to be co-developed in partnership with the respective studios.

That last bit matters. “Co-developed” in Samsung’s terms means the game’s developers worked directly with Samsung to optimise for the 3D system, beyond the generic Unreal Engine 4 compatibility layer. Only one such game is available now – The First Berserker: Khazan. And it’s arguably the most compelling reason to try this gaming monitor.

With The First Berzerker, you can immediately see what Samsung is aiming for. The 3D in the game feels purposeful. In the snowy prologue, particles swirl convincingly around the protagonist. There’s parallax layering in the background. Enemy animations pop with depth cues that I felt actually enhance gameplay rather than distract. It feels like a true proof of concept, that this is what 3D gaming could be, not just what it has been. After playing the game for a while, my eyes adjusted to the third dimension in a way that makes returning to 2D feel oddly flat.

Of course, most of your time won’t be spent playing The First Berserker. And that’s where the point of this gaming monitor gets murkier. The reality is that most users will still be using the Odyssey 3D as a conventional monitor most of the time. Thankfully, it performs as well as one would expect from a top gaming monitor. Whether you’re editing video, browsing the web, or gaming in non-3D, the display output remains crisp, colour-accurate, and smooth. Input lag is low, motion clarity is solid at high refresh rates, and viewing angles are what you’d expect from a high-end IPS panel.

There are downsides, of course. I’ve already pre-emp its underwhelming HDR performance. The panel doesn’t have the contrast ratio or peak brightness to deliver any kind of punchy HDR experience, and more importantly, HDR must be disabled to activate the 3D feature. It comes with two HDMI 2.1 and one DisplayPort 1.4 inputs, not the latest 2.1b for both, and while the rear joystick handles the OSD navigation just fine, I thought having it positioned at the bottom of the monitor just makes it easier to reach.

Outside of gaming, the Odyssey 3D can also convert 2D content, such as photos and recorded videos, into simulated 3D using AI-driven depth mapping. It’s not magic, and the results vary wildly depending on the source –you’ll occasionally see edge artefacts or strange ghosting where the AI guesses wrong. It’s a fun parlour trick at best, but a novelty at worst. And in case you’re wondering, DRM-protected content is off-limits for 3D conversion, so don’t expect to watch Netflix or Disney+ in stereo depth.

Still, during casual browsing, watching YouTube trailers, or even on Zoom calls there’s a definite wow factor. The potential is there, even if the execution feels early. You get glimpses of what a 3D operating system might look like someday – widgets layered at different depths, windows floating intuitively around your desktop – but we’re not there yet. Not by a long shot.

Which brings us to the most pressing question: who is this monitor for?

At $2,998 $2,498 (via Samsung’s web store), the Odyssey 3D is selling for a premium even at that Samsung discounted price. For that money, you could buy almost any 32-inch OLED gaming monitor and still have loose change that you can save up for a GPU upgrade. Speaking of GPU, Samsung recommends a minimum NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card to get the best out of the 3D experience. That’s another potential hurdle for many gamers. In short, it feels like you’re paying a significant early adopter tax, and that makes this a difficult sell for anyone outside of the enthusiast segment. The 3D experience is undeniably interesting, and in the case of co-developed titles like The First Berseker, genuinely compelling. But it’s hard to justify the cost given the current content drought and platform limitations.

Still, I find it refreshing when a tech giant like Samsung takes a risk. Surely, the company would have known that the Odyssey 3D gaming monitor won’t sell like BTS’ records. It could even be a one-off tech show off, despite a Samsung exec proclaiming to me at a close-door media event that this monitor won’t be the last we’ll see of this technology. But nonetheless I applaud their meaningful attempt to solve long-standing issues with 3D tech – namely, comfort, accessibility, and immersion. And even if it’s not perfect, the Odyssey 3D moves the needle further than most efforts I’ve seen in recent years.

So no, you shouldn’t rush out and buy the Odyssey 3D. But if you’re curious – and I stress that that you have to be truly curious – about what’s possible when 3D is treated as more than a novelty, then this gaming monitor is the most convincing attempt yet.

The Samsung Odyssey 3D G90XF is available with an SRP $2,498 (launch price was $2,998) at Samsung’s e-store. Click here to buy.

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