Hands-on with ASUS and MSI's NVIDIA G-Sync Pulsar gaming monitors at CES 2026

NVIDIA unveiled G-Sync Pulsar at CES 2026, a new gaming monitor technology that's touted to be able to take a 360Hz refresh rate display and make it feel like you are using a 1000Hz gaming monitor.

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Being on the ground at CES 2026 gave me an opportunity to try out two of the Pulsar-ready monitors, which were from ASUS and MSI. Each of these test units was running Overwatch 2 in the firing range, and I was given several minutes on both units to try Pulsar enabled, versus disabled. At first, I didn't notice much difference, but then I noticed the image the display was producing was far clearer during movements that required fast motion of the in-game camera, such as swiping the mouse in a direction to hit a headshot.

This difference was immediate for me, especially after performing the exact same movement after switching Pulsar off. I wasn't able to determine a quality difference between the ASUS and MSI displays, which both performed extremely smoothly during my preliminary limited testing time. For those who don't know, NVIDIA's Pulsar technology is attempting to fix one of the biggest problems with gaming monitors, perceived blur caused by moving objects and a mismatch of the colors produced within frames.

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By adding a variable backlight strobing in the form of a pulsating light, hence the name Pulsar, NVIDIA claims it's able to significantly improve perceived blur by fast moving objects, which results in 4x motion clarity being experienced.

While it's still too early for me to say if this is a new revolutionary gaming monitor technology that competitive gamers will absolutely need to run out and buy to get an edge over their opponents, but from what I have experienced it's extremely promising, and certainly one of the most impressive pieces of new technology I have seen at the show.