The arms race has begun, and the first entrant in the television competition is LG, which will be showing off an eye-popping 88-inch, 8K-resolution display .

While that's not the largest television you can buy, the upgrade to LG's (now paltry-looking) 77-inch 4K display is the first gigantic OLED display with more than 33 million pixels to play with—perfect for all the 8K content you can access, which is none.

As Engadget notes, the OLED display is likely to have super-rich blacks and great contrast levels, and colors should retain their intensity at viewing angles that would otherwise be problematic for LED-backlit televisions.

The biggest drawback for LG's television—aside from needing to carve out a huge section of your living room for it—is likely to be the set's price. LG's 77-inch 4K OLED display, the OLED77G6P, currently costs a mere $20,000. With double the resolution and nine extra inches of display, you can expect that LG's 88-inch 8K OLED television is going to cost quite a bit more.

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There's also the issue of content. It's fair to say that 4K televisions are gaining in popularity, and we're seeing more native 4K content from streaming services and more 4K Blu-rays available for your favorite films. That's not the case with 8K. You can't just go to the store and buy The Lord of the Rings in 8K, nor are you going to be able to stream an 8K House of Cards on Netflix anytime soon. Even if you were to pick up LG's gigantic display for a not-so-insignificant price, you'll be upscaling 4K content at best. And for purists, that's not really the highest quality you can get; native content is much better, but there just isn't any to watch right now.

In other words, it might make more sense to take the tens of thousands of dollars you'd blow on an 8K television and instead buy the biggest 4K display you can get your hands on. Or, at that point, you might as well consider investing in a killer 4K projector if you really need a huge image.

That said, LG's television is more notable for its technology and the simple fact that it exists; CES is about practical technology and a little bit of showboating, and LG's 88-inch 8K display is in the latter camp for 99 percent of the people that will get to sit down and take a look.