Philips launches 43-inch PC gaming monitor with high-end HDR standard

While consoles and 4K televisions have spent the last couple of years hyping up their support for high dynamic range (HDR) contrast technology, PC gaming is still catching up. But now Philips is rolling out a monitor that supports the DisplayHDR1000 standard, which has the potential to make HDR content burst off the screen. Philip’s Momentum 4K HDR monitor (436M6VBPAB/75) is among the first PC-specific displays with this high-end HDR format.

Up until this point, VESA — the organization that sets standards for consumer electronics — has only identified PC monitors with support for Display HDR 400 and 600. Those are the first two, lower levels of the standard. DisplayHDR1000 is the highest. The number is a measurement of brightness intensity in nits, so DisplayHDR400 is capable of at least 400 nits where DisplayHDR1000 can do up to 1,000 nits. Other monitors, like Samsung’s ultrawide QLED CHG90, have had DisplayHDR600, but iPhilips is the first to deliver the highest level of HDR support.

Philips has only announced the monitor for Australia and Europe, and it hasn’t revealed a price or release date for North America. I’ve asked the company for more details and will update this post with any additional information. In Europe, Philips is charging 800 Euros, which is approximately $1,000. For that price, though, you’ll get the DisplayHDR1000, a 42-inch 4K MVA display, 4 ms response time, and some bonus ambient smart lighting that shines off the back and sides of the Momentum.

The company is also promising support for “Philips Adaptive Sync technology,” which means it should work with AMD’s FreeSync. This is the G-Sync-like tech that matches the refresh rate of the monitor to the render rate of your AMD video card to eliminate artifacts, screen tearing, and distracting stutter. This means that the Philips monitor will work especially well with the Xbox One as well, since Microsoft has worked with AMD to patch FreeSync support into the Xbox One S and X models.

I would expect Philips competitors like Asus, Acer, AOC, and others to follow up with their own DisplayHDR1000 monitors soon. While the Momentum 4K HDR display does a lot, it still leaves a gap in the market for people who want G-Sync with their Nvidia graphics cards. That should come soon.