All HDMI and DisplayPort Versions EXPLAINED

displayport and hdmi two of the big display connections packed into some of the latest graphics cards this year is an igame rtx 3070 in white it's beautiful this isn't a review i said i'd hold off on those but we're going to talk about display standards the two most popular again hdmi dp displayport whatever you call it but what about the versions of each of these hdmi 2.0 2.1 is 2.0 better than displayport 1.4 yeah therein lies the problem a lot of confusion i understand that we'll discuss the relevant versions of each display type and the supported resolutions and refresh rates of each display type in this video stick around activating windows is as simple as hopping on over to scdkey's vip site where you can purchase an oem pro key for a little over 10 us dollars use a secure payment method like paypal receive your key in a matter of seconds and activate your os here to remove that annoying watermark click the link below to get started and use my offer code gsl for a sweet discount so let's start off first with hdmi this one's the most popular for tvs and actually is used in a lot of graphics cards as well though you'll typically see modern skus lean more toward displayport or have more displayport ports than hdmi ports and we'll discuss that later i had originally written this script to elaborate on all updates from hdmi 1.0 to 2.1 but i've decided to just create a handy chart from here for reference and we'll kind of skim through each so the first iteration obviously is hdmi 1.0 that was released in 2002 with a maximum bit rate of 4.9 gigabits per second it supported resolutions up to 1080p at 60hz along with 8 channel audio so the big whoop about hdmi at the time it unified video and audio into a single cable and that was yeah it was a big deal apparently two years later came hdmi 1.1 which merely added support for dvd audio transmission from the player to the tv you can see how old these versions are that's really about it for v 1.1 next came 1.2 which added compatibility for low voltage sources like graphics cards which is a good thing in pcs and also added newer color spaces this jump was intended to compete with the emerging displayport interface and d restricted formats for increased compatibility we'll skip hdmi 1.2 a which was a thing but really only had to do with cec compliance hdmi 1.3 was the next big leap released in june of 2006 bandwidth increase to 10.2 gigabits per second or roughly double that of hdmi 1.0 and added features like 10 bit 12 bit and even 16 bit color depths depending on again the resolution it also marked the introduction of a new mini connector but the increase in bandwidth overall created problems with signal degradation over distances beyond roughly six meters for systems running on older standards right so uh people tend to look at this update with a bit of disdain especially if you were you know just a random person who happened to have a cable box and then you had like this new hdmi standard your old cable doesn't work why am i getting picture you can imagine the horror that ensued the extra bend with however opened up possibilities for frame rates and say 1080p up to about 120 hertz and 720p at 240hz 4k 30 was actually possible here though support wasn't officially added until v 1.4 we'll skip hdmi 1.3 a for similar reasons as before much of this had to do with cec compliance and the mini connector modifications uh it changed nothing about resolution and refresh rate most of the a and b iterations here do not in 2009 though came the next big step in hdmi versions 1.4 it still had the bandwidth constraints of version 1.3 but it bumped maximum supported right keyword supported resolutions to cinema 4k or well c 4k that's like true 4k 40 96 by 2160 yep instead of 3840 by 2160 so it's slightly uh slightly wider aspect than 16x9 but that's true 4k if you ask anybody who's into video editing content creation they're going to tell you that's true 4k even though we use 4k for technically not true 4000 pixel horizontal pixel length anyway yeah just it's kind of confusing but this is where 16x9 2160p that's 3840x2160 that's monitor 4k at 30hz support was added as well as 1080p at up to 120 hertz now the bit rate in this chart suggests that 144 hertz would be possible in 1080p here but we also need to account for raw encoding headroom and and there's a bit of an inefficiency involved here and then the encoding of this video signal meaning that only about eight gigabits per second is actually available for video here version 1.4 included a channel for internet connectivity as well between devices uh arc or audio return channels were added and as well as support for 3d which really didn't take off um that was something that people were very polarized about some people got headaches just watching like the fake 3d that was on tvs and yeah it didn't really vibe well this update also boosted the number of supported color spaces for rich natural looking images the high speed cable that you needed for version 1.3 and 1.4 was also notable you needed a new cable to get the full experience with the exception of the ethernet channel which required again another unique cable but anyway this launch also i know another thing included a new connector this is micro hdmi here and this isn't frequently used by today's uh modern cameras and some portable devices hdmi 1.4 a essentially added support for additional 3d resolutions and refresh rates again 3d was one of those that's like a big thing back then uh and hdmi 1.4 b marked the shift in production standards from hdmi licensing llc to the hdmi forum which is an open trade association that guides the future direction of hdmi technology and specifications and from that we've got hdmi 2.0 now actually what's in this card is hdmi 2.1 but some of the last generation of cards even some apu's that have motherboards with hdmi ports on them are hdmi 2.0 ports and that's important because hdmi 2.0 added support for 4k 60 hertz and they were able to pull this off because bandwidth increased to 18 gigabits per second so again 4k 60 and then that was even yeah 24 bits per pixel so that's 8 bits per sub pixel that's 8 bit color right red green blue that's that's true color more or less 32 audio channels are supported along with officially 21x9 aspects and dual video streams a majority of modern graphics cards again and onboard video hdmi outputs support version 2.0 keyword modern but you should always check to be sure especially if you plan to use your pc for media consumption on a 4k television and you want the full 60 hertz experience you don't want to be locked to 30 when you think you're getting 60. trust me 2.0 boss enough bandwidth to hold up to 1440p at 144hz this is important for pc gamers 1080p at 240hz and 720p at this one's kind of a crazy high refresh rate no one at this point probably cares about it but it's theoretically possible in 2015 hdmi 2.0 a added support for hdr video and 2.0 b the following year expanded it to include hybrid log gamma by 2017 hdmi 2.1 had been introduced and with it came a plethora of resolution refresh rate updates firstly 4k at 120 frickin hertz was now possible 2.1 is what the rtx 3070 all ampere cards all rdna 2 cards have hdmi 2.1 ports so 4k 120 hertz is possible via this hdmi port something we're not used to it could even technically support 8k at up to 30 hertz lossless or 60hz with a roughly 3-1 compression this was all possible thanks to a doubling of the signal rate and the addition of a fourth dedicated data channel allowing for an aggregate bandwidth of 48 gigabits per second that's more than double that of hdmi 2.0 arc was revamped for dolby atmos and dtsc and enhanced refresh rates including variable refresh rates were supported now for this enormous leap an ultra high speed hdmi cable may be needed for more demanding resolutions so make sure that you're using the more not not you know not the thousand dollar ridiculous hdmi cables that really do nothing extra for you but make sure you're using what would be called an ultra high speed hdmi cable if it's rated for that it should out of the box support resolutions up to the ones we just showed you speaking of resolutions 1440p is theoretically supported up to 360 hertz like what the heck and any resolution below 1440p ventures into uh pretty crazy refresh rates and now finally we move on to the displayport interface there are three of these on this card and only one uh hdmi port what what's up with that well you gonna find out so these connectors are indented on only one side and are retained with much larger clips than hdmi counterparts hence the need for manual levers in most displayport cables you have to push a little button to latch and unlatch them version 1.0 launched in 2006 and supported a maximum bandwidth of 10.8 gigabits per second via four data lanes it could handle 4k playback technically up to 30 hertz that's something hdmi by the way couldn't do until version 1.4 which was launched three years later and 1080p at 144hz the following years came versions 1.1 and 1.1 a maximum bandwidth for these versions remained the same but additional link layers including fiber optic lines were supported to mitigate signal degradation so the longer the cable the worse the signal gets over time the fewer resolutions and refresh rates are supported at those longer distances and uh that's kind of more or less been displayport's achilles heel uh just sheer cable length because it supports so many resolutions natively so this advantage offered additional breathing room for set up spanning larger distances you could just kind of splice fiber optic lines in between and yeah not see as big as signal loss displayport 1.2 came in 2010 and doubled the band with the version 1.1 this is a pretty big deal it's a lot for gameplay and playback it up to 4k 60. that's probably why you thought it was a big deal and 1080p 240 freaking hertz along with 1440p at up to 144. colored up was improved and daisy chaining became a thing between multiple monitors so something that was actually really cool if you only had one displayport out and you had multiple monitors that supported the displayport interface with that version you could just connect one displayport cable from your card to the first monitor and then another displayport cable from that first monitor to a second monitor and not have to have two displayport cables stemming from the same card so uh it was more or less like an efficiency thing it was uh just it was just simple you know it was just something cool something that set displayport apart well something else that sets the displayport apart displayport is really cool um if i had it my way i'd just make everything displayport at this point now version 1.2 came out in 2013 that added amd freesync support via vesa's adaptive sync technology is a big deal for gamers it's not a requirement of 1.2a but it did quickly become popular for pc gamers interested in a free alternative to nvidia's at the time fully proprietary g-sync technology the following year displayport 1.3 was released featuring an insane 32 gigabits per second worth of bandwidth at roughly 8 gigabits per second per lane before encoding overheads and the efficiency here was roughly 80 this gave way to a plethora of new streaming and gaming resolutions including 4k uhd at 120 hertz and 5k at 60 hertz and get this 8k was even possible at 30 hertz uncompressed and this was back in 2014 right 8k wasn't possible through the hdmi standard just for reference until 2017 that's again three years later hdmi has been about two to three years behind displayport since the inception of displayport and that right there what i just said is why most graphics cards have more displayport ports is that you're supposed to say is it display ports or displayport ports then hdmi ports because these can do more and they've traditionally been ahead by a few years and this makes sense from a graphics card design standpoint as well if your card is capable of 120 hertz and 4k output right so maybe it can it can push out 120 frames per second in that resolution you don't want to be limited by port selection back here like if all you had was hdmi ports at the time maybe around 2016 if if you were talking well that would have been pascal generation thereabouts you would have been limited by the hdmi port you wouldn't have been able to experience on screen the full potential of the card if you were you know lowering in-game settings in 4k not that at the time there were many 4k 120hz monitors available but still you don't want the connection interfaces to be the bottleneck and that's why displayport again is so popular with these cards now you might be asking why tvs don't all have display poor connections then what's the point the difference is tv media consumption usually revolves around 30 to 60 hertz picture video and graphics cards are capable of much more than that gamers typically prefer refresh rates much higher than 60 hertz trust me you go above 60 hertz can be really freaking difficult going backwards even if you're bumping the resolution up to say 4k i prefer personally 1440p 144hz over 4k60 when it comes to a vast majority of the games out there that i've played and that's just it so it's more or less appealing to a different audience whereas when it comes to television general television consumption 30 to 60 hertz is just fine for most people now displayport 1.4 launched in 2016 and that included support for display stream compression 1.2 or dsc which is an encoding technique in displays that results in virtually lossless quote unquote playback of ridiculously high resolutions and refresh rates requiring some degree of compression because those refresh rates and resolutions cannot be contained in whatever that bitrate cap is and this ratio in dsc 1.2's case is three to one thereabouts and if this sounds familiar it's because i just mentioned it earlier with regards to hdmi 2.1 so that version of hdmi and dp 1.4 both support it uh displayport just got to it first now it seems like it didn't because we're going in reverse here we're talking about displayport after hdmi but yeah displayport was there much much earlier than hdmi was and so dsc prompted support for 8k at 60hz uh or even 4k hdr at 120 hertz though they aren't officially listed in this chart because they aren't considered lossless version 2.0 that's the granddaddy of all updates was actually delayed by a few years on a kind of hdmi advancements with its version 2.1 update and when dp 2.0 finally released it tripled rates compared to 1.4 the data rates up to roughly 80 gigabits per second which is in freak insane just to put this into perspective for you this is significantly higher than the current hdmi 2.1 standard right and allows for some pretty crazy resolution refresh rate combinations for instance you could run a single 16k monitor at 60 hertz in 10 freaking bit with dsc you could run two 8k displays at 120 hertz in 10 bit with dsc or you could run three 4k monitors at 90 hertz a piece in 10 bit uncompressed no dsc needed you could theoretically hit refresh rates over 1 000 hertz in 1080p and well over 2000 hertz in 720p it's just freaking mind-blowing i mean this is from a single displayport connection and all on the back of significantly improved link efficiency over historical trends much higher than the 80 average meaning we can utilize much more of that 80 gigabits per second than usual it's it's nuts and i wish this was supported by the latest graphics cards in late 2020 i do just just for the laws not that we need it but uh the technology is just too new to incorporate to incorporate that version into a card like this we'll be waiting probably another generation or two before support is included and besides something like this rtx 3070 here isn't capable of outputting anywhere near 240 frames per second in 4k lossless to make the 240hz refresh rate support meaningful um it just just wouldn't make sense and i apologize if i'm more or less inconsistently alternating between refresh rate and frames per second obviously frames per second that's the amount of frames that the card pushes to the screen but you need a refresh rate as high as the fps being generated by the card to actually see that number of frames on the screen we have a video talking about it's a very old video i apologize but uh it should clear things up for you now there's always gonna be some in the comments that says oh i can get uh 4k 240hz on my rtx 37 if i just drop a ton of in-game settings i'm talking about practical applications here okay no one's going to open up a 4k game and drop all their settings to ultra low so they can hit 240 fps what's the point of 4k if all you're doing is increasing the resolution of a game that looks like crap because you're playing it ultra low it just doesn't it it's again it's not practical if you're talking something like minesweeper okay sure but uh aaa titles it's just it's it's not attainable yet especially in something like an rtx 3070. so hopefully this video is cleared of any concerns you might have had regarding monitor refresh rate and video output compatibility always reference the version of the connector before buying or risk either being resolution or refresh rate limited or both actually the most recent that i can remember there's an issue with some motherboards i believe they had hdmi ports that were only version 1.4 supported but they were motherboards for ryzen apus or they supported ryzen apu's and the apus themselves supported 4k 60 but hdmi 1.4 only supported 4k 30. so people were buying you know these combos thinking oh i'm gonna get 4k 60 playback for a media system whatever in my living room and that wasn't the case they were limited to 30 and it wasn't because of the cpu it wasn't because the cpu couldn't keep up with that it was because of the port the interface hdmi 1.4 doesn't support it hdmi 2.0 does that would have been a case where knowing about the resolution refresh rate supports between versions of the interface would have come in handy anyway uh probably a little late for that one but i imagine the issue will come up again in the future and that's another reason why i wanted to make this video but if you're buying modern hardware for the most part you shouldn't hopefully you don't run into these issues and again it doesn't hurt to double check though and make sure that you've got a cable that's rated for said version you don't want to be cable limited either especially if the cable is pretty cheap to upgrade i've included a link to these charts here that you're seeing in the video description if you want to check those out maybe reference in the future i also included a bandwidth calculator just you can play around with and kind of see how things work out mathematically if you enjoy this one or at least learned a thing or two consider leaving a like and subscribing i would appreciate that leave a comment down below join our public discord server that's also linked and stay tuned for the next one my name is greg thanks for learning with me

Channel: Greg Salazar

Views: 175,673

Rating: 4.9476509 out of 5

Keywords: hdmi 2.0, hdmi 2.1, hdmi vs displayport, displayport vs hdmi, hdmi 1.4, hdmi 2.0 vs 2.1, displayport 1.3, hdmi 2.0 120hz, hdmi 2.0 vs displayport 1.4, hdmi 2.0 vs 1.4, hdmi 2.0 xbox series x, hdmi 2.0 cable, hdmi 2.1 monitor, hdmi 2.1 cable, hdmi 2.1 to displayport 1.4, hdmi 2.1 vs displayport 1.4, hdmi vs displayport for gaming, hdmi vs displayport linus, hdmi vs displayport gaming 144hz, hdmi vs displayport for monitor, hdmi explained, all hdmi, explained, displayport

Id: anLY_KKjy_M

Length: 18min 45sec (1125 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 15 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/mailjozo]

Can somebody explain the sponsor of this video? How is something that seems so grey-market still mentioned as a reliable product?...

[u/macetfromage]

wtf i googled it this morning

[u/42points]

These are the kind of videos I like. Still like reading the wiki pages better but it's nice to listen to.

[u/thurmin]

Huh, TIL