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You love gaming. So, you enthusiastically invest into a new monitor and a modern graphics card. And thereafter comes the BIG confusion – The choice of interface. You’re utterly confused as to which cable to use for connecting panel to the PC. Now, talking about display interfaces, there are four major ones that we know of as PC centric - DVI, HDMI, VGA, and DisplayPort. All these cables are available in different combinations for both monitors and video cards.
Sometimes, the above display cables come along with a new monitor. And therefore, you might want to plug in the cable and start gaming without thinking of the results. However, if you are a passionate PC gamer, you need to choose from either display port cables or HDMI. Let’s find out on what parameters you can decide it:
Understanding DisplayPort and HDMI
As we all know, HDMI stands for High Definition Multimedia Interface. Most of the HDMI ports come with at least one video card side and they’re used for connecting electronic devices to a TV. It can be any display device, be it an A/V receiver, a game console or an Amazon box. Several computer-oriented monitors also come with an HDMI input. However, you are more likely to find this port on home monitor as compared to a business-oriented display.
A modern video card features more than one DisplayPort connections. Although you will rarely find Display Ports on TVs and more on computer monitors.
DisplayPort & Gaming: A Perspective
There is no doubt about the fact that DisplayPort 1.4 comes with a great display. Although its 32.4Gbps bandwidth is not quite different as compared to HDMI. It comes with a 3:1 compression ratio, which means its virtually lossless and has the potential to display high definition videos.
Now, in the latest DisplayPort version (Version 1.4), compression enables DisplayPort to work on USB Type C connection which enables one to experience HD video with 8K and HDR. It may also offer superspeed USB over a common cable. One more important feature of DisplayPort is its potential to power more than one display panels.
So, if you make use of USB C with screens that support the cables, you would be able to image data and power through the same cable. It is also important to remember that DisplayPort 1.4 aren’t quite old. So, if you make use of an old model that supports DisplayPort 1.3, you can check out all its features.
Come to the Point, Now!
“Yeah! I heard all the rantings about the usefulness of the two. But now I need a solution.” You might say. Well, the cable that you choose depends on what you currently have and what you intend to have. Sometimes, you might have already decided what you want. So, let’s say you have chosen a GeForce Graphics Card as well as a G-sync monitor. In this case, you will notice that you don’t have a choice when it comes to display technology. Only DisplayPort cables work with G-sync. Hence, for a G-sync display, you might have to stick to DisplayPort for gaming.
And what does the gamer do if both graphics card and PC display have DisplayPort and HDMI on board? The present versions of HDMI support high and maximum resolution. However, to have that, you might need an extremely huge system (which is not available as yet at affordable price) for playing games with the highest bandwidth that HDMI supports. Also, these games should also support these frame rates. Which means, just because HDMI resolution his high, it doesn’t make it the right choice for PC gaming.
DisplayPort, on the other hand might be the right choice if you want to undertake gaming on multiple monitors but have one DisplayPort connection available. It is possible to split the DisplayPort with the help of DisplayPort hub. However, this works only if the monitor supports a feature named – Multi Stream Transport. In short, it would be better to run multiple cables from single video card instead of daisy chaining.
The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) recommends DisplayPort Cable as a replacement for VGA and DVI when it comes to PC oriented gaming. When a group of electronic companies came up with HDMI, they intended it to be for TV implementations.
Concluding…
If any of the above information makes you upset for having only an HDMI port, don’t be. As such, if your monitor is FreeSync or G Sync enabled, you won’t see much of a difference in aspects like latency, frame rate, refresh rate etc. – things that gamers often boast about.
If you are a gamer based in the USA or North America and are looking for gaming cables online, SF Cable is the place to buy from. Check out our collections of HDMI and DisplayPort Cables now!