 Let's start with what you already know. A good gaming monitor is going to feature variable refresh rate to prevent tearing and black frame insertion to combat motion blur. But no monitor supports enabling these two awesome features at the same time. Now here's something that you may not know. ASUS is the first to launch a monitor that blasts past this limitation with the VG27AQ, a monitor from their budget tough gaming lineup, featuring what they're calling ELMB sync. We're gonna see if this is something we just can't live without right after this message from our sponsor Pebblehost. You in the market for a hosting provider? Try Pebblehost! They balance price to performance with VPS hosting starting at $2.75 per gigabyte and game hosting starting at just a buck a gigabyte. Use code LTT at the link below and save 15%. This is the VG27AQ. It's a 27 inch 2560 by 1440p IPS panel that supports adaptive sync. So whether you use AMD or Nvidia graphics, you can expect to get buttery smooth variable refresh rate like you see here. But you'll also be able to turn on backlight strobing for reduced motion blur. Two features that have always been mutually exclusive unless you were some kind of wizard. Speaking of exclusive, you can only get this merch right here at LTTstore.com so check it out. But let's back up for a second. Why do we even need dedicated motion blur reduction features in this day and age anyway? Given that we just reviewed an LG monitor that also has adaptive sync, but with much less motion blur than we're accustomed to seeing on IPS monitors due to its faster 1 millisecond pixel response time. Is motion blur reduction going extinct? I'm betting on not and that's because there's more motion blur than just fast pixel response times. In fact, most of it has to do with the human eye. You see, our eyes are programmed to track moving objects keeping the object centered in your field of view. But because of image persistence, objects can appear to be moving continuously even if in reality they're not. You know, like how all movies work, even though they're usually at 24 frames per second. This effect creates motion blur in games because while you're waiting for the next frame to arrive, your eyes have continued tracking along where they think the object will go and persistence of vision brings an impression of the actual object along for the ride creating a perceptual blur. So what can a monitor do to combat this so that we can get clear images and better kill-death ratios? Well, a high refresh rate really helps. For example, a 120 Hertz monitor is feeding fresh data to your eyes twice as often as a 60 Hertz display, cutting the eye tracking blur in half. This monitor actually does a little better than that, drawing at 144 Hertz natively with a 155 Hertz overclock advertised right on the box. But even though 155 Hertz IPS monitors were unheard of just a few short years ago, this frame rate still isn't high enough to remove all the eye tracking motion blur. So despite lower and lower pixel response times, this is where motion blur reduction, aka ELMB for ASUS, aka ULMB for Nvidia, aka black light strobing, aka black frame insertion, comes to the rescue, even today. So how does it work? Well, LCDs use a technique called sample and hold, whereby new frames are drawn right over top of old ones with no gap in between. This means that the backlight that illuminates the displays pixels is on all the time. But on monitors like this one, the backlight can actually strobe on and off at a rate that's synced with the monitor's refresh rate. In our case, with adaptive sync off, ELMB is supported at 100, 120, 144, and 155 Hertz, a pretty generous range. That way, only new, fully drawn frames are shown, and only for an instant before the screen goes black again. This reduces motion blur because when the screen's black, there's no visible image for your tracking eyes to smear around. And as a bonus, the black period also gives the pixels an extra instant to refresh, which takes some of the pressure off of pixel response times and hides ghosting. If you think this is weird, fun fact, CRT TVs have very little motion blur because they, too, spend most of the time showing black. And if you're interested in future display tech, subscribe now because we're planning a video with a micro LED company that you won't want to miss. Now, of course, the fact that the screen is spending at least half of the time displaying just black is the reason that it's so much dimmer with this feature turned on. But on the bright side, the VG27AQ does not lose any color accuracy with ELMB sync turned on. So as long as you're in a darker room, you should have no problems. So then, the fact that gamers no longer have to choose between variable refresh rate on the one hand and motion blur reduction on the other is pretty dang cool. But why did it take until 2019 for this tech to hit the market? Well, the challenge is consistent brightness. Think about it with regular motion blur reduction, the screen and the backlight are refreshing at a regular interval, which allows the backlight to illuminate at the same brightness every time. But the backlight can't do that if the refresh rate is variable, right? Or else the screen would be brighter at high frame rates and then dimmer when the FPS dips. So to tackle this problem, Asus actually partnered up with AU Optronics, their panel provider, to, quote, change some of the inner panel parameters and find suitable components to enable ELMB sync, adjusting the duty cycle to extend the period of time that the backlight spends turned on at lower frame rates in order to equalize the perceived brightness. But with all this new tech, you might be surprised to learn that Asus has launched this monitor as part of their entry level tough gaming lineup. That's right. This puppy is just $429 USD. It's counterintuitive, but the reason is that at the high end, Asus monitors are focused on HDR, and those displays use completely different direct backlights with full array local dimming, like the one that Linus brought home the other day. The VG27AQ does support HDR technically, but only insofar as it's able to interpret an HDR signal because the peak brightness is just 350 nits, something we call HD aren't. But that won't stop me from recommending this monitor for gamers because the VG27AQ is more about getting kills than Netflix and chills. The plastic stand offers a generous degree of articulation across four axes, and I'm not even mad at the fairly Spartan I.O. since it's so rare that a new feature like this debuts at a price point that's a lot easier to justify. This may just be my next monitor. But what about my next VPN? You can hide your true IP address with private internet access. PIA lets you bypass geo-restrictions and censorship by making you appear like you're browsing from somewhere else. You can connect up to five devices at once, and they offer an internet kill switch if your VPN gets disconnected involuntarily. Subscriptions also include Mace, PIA's built-in malware blocker, and they offer multiple levels of encryption. PIA is available as an app on Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, and even as a Chrome extension. So check it out at lmg.gg slash PIA Linus 2. So thanks for watching, guys. Give us a subscribe. Team LTT. See you next time.