When it comes to video connectors, there are a lot of options available. Until a few years back, the VGA connector was the market leader. But, those connectors reached their saturation point and were replaced by HDMI in the early 2010s. DVI was also introduced as a competent technology to VGA but has slowly phased out. These days, HDMI and DisplayPort connections are the most popular, with the latter drawing a lot of attention from graphics card manufacturers. TVs and consoles still rely on HDMI connections. But, which one is better and which one should you choose for your gaming computer now that it includes ports for both of these connectors?
HDMI 2.0a vs DisplayPort 1.4: The Most Popular Revisions
HDMI 2.0a is not the latest but the most popular revision that is widely in use these days. It was a minor upgrade over HDMI 2.0 and added support for HDR10, thus enabling the users to enjoy High Dynamic Range content and Dolby Vision. HDMII 2.0a has been the popular standard for the last five years, and almost every modern 4K TV from this period uses an HDMI 2.0a connection.
HDMI 2.1 was introduced recently, and it pushed the capabilities of the HDMI connection to 8K resolution. This revision can also be used to power resolutions up to 10K. Both Nvidia and AMD have added support for HDMI 2.1 in their latest RTX 30 series and RX 6000 series of GPUs.
Display Port 1.4 is the most popular DP revision. It was released on 1 March 2016 and brought support for 8K 60Hz and support for high definition content (HDR10). DP 1.4 was also the first time a DisplayPort could be used for both audio and video, although many monitors still do not utilize this feature. The audio support also requires users to download additional drivers and software, making it an unpopular feature.
DisplayPort 2.0 is the latest revision of DP, and it pushes the capabilities to 16K video output at 60Hz. It also supports dual 8K displays, and up to three 4K displays at 144Hz. DP 2.0 was released in late 2020, and following the disruptions caused due to the pandemic, we have not seen widespread adoption to date.
HDMI vs DisplayPort: Which One Should You Choose Today?
It is clear from the above discussion that HDMI is the more viable option as of now. The latest video cards support HDMI 2.1, and monitors supporting this connector will start arriving very soon. The HDMI 2.1 connection is much more capable as compared to DisplayPort 1.4, and we will not see DisplayPort 2.0 compliant hardware before late 2022.
Gamers have preferred DisplayPort 1.4 over HDMI 2.0 because it was feature-rich, and could deliver sharper images at higher framerates. Manufacturers also have preferred DisplayPort over HDMI because the former is not a proprietary connector owned by some companies. Thus, manufacturers did not have to spend money on paying royalties.
Consoles and TVs have used HDMI 1.4 because they are relatively cheaper to manufacture, and had all of the features required by a console player.