Post
by SirParcival » 28 Jan 2026, 10:49
I was similarly initially "non-wow'd" but after a good 8 hour gaming session, I'm not going back to OLED.
This MSI Pulsar has better colors, more vibrant colors, the best blacks I've ever seen on a non-OLED non-VA panel, the perceptible input delay is as low as any OLED monitor I've ever used, and my god... the motion clarity is just bananas. Now I'm starting to take it for granted I did some tests going back to my QD-OLED, and it's not even close. With every other flat panel monitor I've used, you always had to stop moving the camera to reveal the "max level" of detail for any scene. Now it just always exists as your eye naturally tracks.
Also, why dear god does everyone only ever consider Asus? They're a garbage brand that pushes 2.5GB of spy/shovelware just to use basic features of their motherboards, their GPUs are ludicrously overpriced and underbuilt, not to mention have serious flaws, thheir routers had an FBI/NSA warning against them letting known backdoors into your network that took them ages to fix (how many people will ever read that and update their router firmware? lol!), and their monitors use the same panels as everyone else.
Please, vote with your wallets, Asus is poo poo tier. People have already been talking about possibly defective Pulsar monitors in this thread, and some have audible noise that comes from it. My MSI is silent, has no cloudyness to the blacks in any corner, the colours look possibly the best I've ever seen in a monitor? That's counting against QD-OLED. /rant
BTW, I'm pretty sure that this isn't just THE BRIGHTEST MONITOR I've ever seen, I think it takes the crown for the BRIGHTEST SCREEN I've ever seen. Consumer-level at least. Seeing a 540 nit 100% white window is just... surreal. Everything else feels super dark now, even all the OLEDS. Even my 65" LG OLED TVs can't hold a candle. A bright scene is actually bright.
So NO this doesn't make 120hz feel like 360hz, but what it does is make 120hz feel as playable as 360hz to me. I can react quickly, as i would normally at high refreshes, and yes there's fewer frames, that's easily seen, but I can see them perfectly clearly. And g-sync kinda takes care of perceived smoothness. You're just missing the ultra-fast feeling of a mouse being an extension of your body like you get with true high refresh, it's just updating faster. That part doesn't change, but genuinely at lower FPS even comp FPS games feel pretty good to play, better than they ever have before at those frames.
Only issue I can see if I'll have to sell this once they come out with a 240hz 4k panel. 240hz is actually "enough" for me, with the additional clarity of Pulsar. And I can't wait to see what that looks like revealing how crisp native 4k game content looks, now with no smearing.
BTW, did those Anno 1800 tests, even my wife could notice it. It was like you can appreciate every pixel of every house, tree, and person when the camera was still, but without Pulsar when you move the screen everything kinda feels like it goes from "4k" to 1080p, and then pops back to 4k once the camera stops. With Pulsar it stays at "4k". She even mentioned that she "usually kinda naturally glaze over my eyes when the camera is moving anyways, cause it's always been a bit blurry. You focus when the camera stops to see everything."
And now I just don't have to ever do that again.
It's a strange feeling to get used to, I'll say that much. It's not what I expected, but now that I'm growing used to it, there's no going back. This feels like a 60 to 120hz moment, where at first you're not really prepared for it, and you have to re-train your eyes and brain to process more information now. Maybe 4k resolution with this clarity could honestly be too much. I've been finding 240hz 4k OLED to be hitting that upper limit of what "too much" is for my brain.
Anyways, try out the Acer and the AOC. Let's hear how they are. Don't just blindly always buy the ASUS.