→ Graphics card connections: hdmi, dvi, displayport ...?

If you want to connect the laptop to the TV or monitor, most often you use HDMI. However, there are other graphics card connections such as DisplayPort, DVI, Thunderbolt and VGA (D-SUB), which has existed for almost three decades.

All of these different interfaces have been designed to carry video signals (and audio signals) from one device to another. So what is it that sets them apart? If you think it's the video quality, you may only be right in the case of the VGA. Like other connection interfaces, the video quality is almost the same, although there are interfaces that have some very important features for gaming monitors like AMD FreeSync that others do not.

Index of contents

Most monitors will have a range of different inputs available, and your PC or laptop will also use multiple outputs, so it can be difficult to establish which one is best for you.

The connections that currently exist

In most circumstances, you may get away with using whatever cable you have out there, but if you have more specific needs like displaying higher resolution, improving audio, or outputting a higher refresh rate, you will need to be more demanding with your choice of cable.

Below, we describe the different types of connections and offer different usage situations to help you decide the right one. We will also indicate the best cable and the best connection to choose for 144 Hz.

The different types of graphics card connections can be summarized as follows:

• VGA: Old video connector. Only to be used when nothing else is available. DVI: Video only, ideal for older systems or for 144Hz at 1080p. HDMI: Audio and video signal, ideal for TV to PC connections. DisplayPort: It is the most recommended for an audio and video signal, and can transmit from 144Hz to 4K. Thunderbolt 3 in USB Type C connection: The newest connector for video, audio, data and power. The best connection for laptops. MHL: Connector increasingly used in mobile devices and compatible with USB type-C.

VGA connection

Its abbreviation stands for Video Graphics Array, and today, it is the oldest connection that we can find available on monitors, graphics cards or motherboards with integrated graphics. The truth is that it is practically not used, since no current graphics card implements it, although there are DVI-VGA adapters and others to connect old monitors.

VGA was a video standard introduced by Gaijin Corp and was widely used by IBM in 1988 for its graphics card. This connector has undergone different changes over time, to acquire more capacity and power, such as the evolution to XGA (Extended Graphics Array) or the Super VGA. The initial VGA standard had the following properties and characteristics:

• Its connection interface is analog type. It is the only analog interface that exists today.Maximum standard resolution is 640x480p, although in later connections it can support up to resolutions of 800x600p (SVGA), 1280 × 1024p (SXGA) and 2048 × 1536p (QXGA). In fact, the most normal thing for the latest CRTs on the market was to have a 1024p SXGA resolution. It only transmits a video signal and no sound, so in monitors with built-in speakers we will need a connector that will almost always be a 3.5 mm jack.

The connector of this type of interface, we can identify as a rectangular one (type DE-15) similar to the old serial ports with three rows of contacts making a total of 15. Video data will be transmitted in RGB mode of up to 6 bits per color (262144 colors), and therefore 64 values ​​for each of the R, G and B colors. It will operate at 5V in direct current.

Because it is an analog data signal, they are devices and cables that are quite sensitive to external interference, adding noise signal to the connection due to bad cables or excessive length. At the time it was the best option until the introduction of the DVI interface, which was the first to be digital. You will find it on relatively new Full HD monitors and eventually and on very few motherboards, especially in low-end. We do not recommend its use if we have other possibilities.

DVI connection

They are the abbreviations of Digital Visual Interface and it is a video signal that was introduced with the aim of improving the display quality in the new flat liquid crystal displays, which were already working digitally. This interface is already somewhat more likely to be found on current monitors, and even graphics cards like the RTX 2060 still have one. There are different versions of the DVI connector, although the most widespread currently is DVI-D.

It is a digital data interface that Digital Display Working Group developed, although it is also capable of transmitting in an analog way, and that is why many times computers that bring this type of connector have a DVI-VGA adapter. We also find DVI-HDMI adapters since in both cases they carry a digital signal, although for this there must be audio signals in the DVI socket. Its main characteristics are the following:

• As we have seen, it transports an uncompressed digital video signal. It supports Full HD resolutions (1920 x 1080 at 60Hz) in Single Link mode and WXGA (2560 x1600 at 60 Hz) in Dual Link. In addition to this, it supports resolutions up to 4K, although it is not recommended to use it in them. It also does not transmit an audio signal through the same interface, so a dedicated connector would be necessary unless the socket implements it.

The DVI connector is also D-type with up to 29 pins capable of transmitting digital signals in single or double link. Over time, this connector has undergone several modifications depending on the needs of the monitors and the capacity of each link. In such a case, we will have the following variants:

DVI-I (Single Link) Single Link video mode with digital and analog signal support
DVI-I (Dual Link) Provides 6 extra pins for the double link both digital and analog It is currently the most used connection
DVI-D (Single Link) Analog signal pins are removed to provide a digital only signal
DVI-D (Dual Link) Same variant but for double bond
DVI-A Analog signal variant

DisplayPort

It stands for High-Definition Multimedia Interface. It is a proprietary HDMI Founders video standard that uses uncompressed video and audio data transfer and is, as it were, a substitute for the well-known Scart. Currently, we can find HDMI ports in most products that are used for image and sound reproduction, for example, televisions, DTT, monitors, DVR, Hi-Fi system, etc.

The most recently implemented version is HDMI 2.0b, which supports video output resolutions of up to 4K (4096 x 2160p at 60Hz). But at CES 2017 the creator company announced the new version HDMI 2.1, which will be able to reach resolutions of up to 10K thanks to the bandwidth of no less than 48 Gigabits per second. It also has support for frame-by-frame dynamic HDR, and support for resolutions at 8K at 60 Hz and for 4K at 120 Hz. It is undoubtedly the answer that this standard gives to the powerful DisplayPort 1.4.

The HDMI connector consists of a connector very similar to that of DP, but with two grimaces on its sides and a total of 19 pins distributed in two rows. The communication protocol used is the TMDS (transmits serial data) in a 340 MHz band. There are different versions of this connector depending on its size, HDMI (Type-A), Mini HDMI (Type-C) and Micro HDMI (Type-D). Another version called 29-type HDMI Type-B is also intended for high-resolution monitors, although its use is not implemented, due to the good capacity of HDMI 2.0b

HDMI also has support for AMD FreeSync 2 and Nvidia G-Sync in this latest version implemented 2.0b and is capable of Daisy Chaining for multiple displays, although in this case it is not as simple as with DisplayPort. An interesting feature since version 3.1 is the possibility of transferring data through a 100 Mbps Ethernet link on the same cable, or being able to transmit sound data from a television to a receiver, such as speakers.

Lastly, HDMI also supports USB Type-C alternate mode, though it is less widespread than DisplayPort with Thunderbolt support.

Thunderbolt

It is a very versatile and fast interface designed by Intel that implements video output and the connection of storage devices. It is an interface that uses a USB Type-C or DisplayPort connector in its latest version 3. In addition to screens, we can also find this type of connector on external SSD hard drives and eGPU docks for external graphics cards.

Thunderbolt is in its version 3, and uses a bandwidth of no less than 40 Gb / s, much higher than the classic 10 Gb / s that is capable of transmitting a USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C. In addition, it provides a power of up to 100W at the connector thanks to the USB Power Delibery function, making it ideal for laptops that use this type of interface for charging.

The standard was created in 2011, and above all it is common to see it in Apple's new Macbook Air laptops and other ultra-thin Max-Q designed laptops. In her case, Apple was the first to implement Thunderbolt technology in versions 1 and 2 on their computers through a Mini-DisplayPort interface. It was later, with the arrival of version 3, that Thunderbolt started using USB Type-C.

This interface can also be seen in some motherboards with Z390 chipset to be installed through expansion cards and on board from the enthusiastic range of Intel with its native X299 chipset such as the Gigabyte X299 Designare EX.

A single Thunderbolt port can count on a bandwidth as we say, of 40 Gb / s to be able to transmit a simultaneous video signal to two screens in 4K. It is possible to connect up to 6 devices in a single Thunderbolt port through a Hub with the Daisy Chaning function.

MHL

It comes from the name Mobile High-Definition Link or mobile high definition link. It is an interface created for portable devices for the transmission of audio and video, including mobile phones. MHL could be considered as a version derived from HDMI. It was first proposed by Silicon Image, which also made a significant contribution to the development of HDMI.

The initial version of the MHL interface was capable of offering 1080p digital video output in Full HD, along with audio from up to eight channels. It also had features like HDCP and could be used to control CEC-enabled devices.

The MHL 3 version introduced support for 4K 30Hz video along with HDCP 2.2 and enhanced audio with the 7.1 surround function. On mobile devices, it uses the micro-USB 2.0 port to connect to a display device using an MHL to HDMI adapter, making it an interface with plenty of power using very few pins.

The latest version available is superMHL, which adds support for 8K videos at 120 Hz, Dolby Atmos and HDR. It also comes with a new reversible superMHL connector. Additionally, we can connect multiple displays to a single superMHL port with the Daisy Chaning mode of this interface. Like HDMI, DisplayPort, and Thunderbolt, there is an alternative MHL mode for USB Type-C.

Conclusion and what connectors to use

These are the most commonly used graphics card and multimedia streaming device connections today. With the exception of the VGA connector, which is practically not used, and the DVI connector that has been replaced by DisplayPort and HDMI, they are common ports to see on all our monitors, boards, graphics cards, motherboards and portable devices.

Of course, it's time to take a look at our guides related to the topic:

Today, the most recommended connector for use is the DisplayPort, which thanks to its version 1.4, supports resolutions up to 8K and 4K at 144 Hz compatible with AMD FreeSync 2, a dynamic refresh mode widely used in high-end gaming monitors high. However, HDMI has already captured most of the market, we just have to see that most monitor manufacturers put an HDMI cable instead of a DisplayPort in their purchase packs, and this is also more expensive.

Intel's Thunderbolt 3 is now when it has had the most impact, implemented in many of the new laptops. Also thanks to the compatibility with USB Type-C this connection will be very useful soon for the vast majority of devices. Likewise, MHL is a recently created interface that is not yet widely used, at least on a mobile phone of a different range than the high one.

We leave you some recommended external and dedicated graphics cards:

Gigabyte GV-N208TGAMING OC-11GC, Graphics Card (352 bit, 7680 x 4320 Pixels, PCI Express x16 3.0), HDMI, GeForce 9800 GTX +, Black NVIDIA Turing graphics processor: GeForce RTX 2080 Ti; 11GB GDDR6 dedicated; Rear protection plate 686, 00 EUR GIGABYTE AORUS Geforce RTX 2080 8GB DDR6 - Graphics card (256 bit, 7680 x 4320 pixels, PCI express x16 3.0) Powered by Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 graphics processor; Clock frequency of 1845Mhz; Integrated memory 8GB GDDR6 256-bit EUR 478.00 Gigabyte GV-N2070AORUS-8GC Gigabyte Nvidia AORUS GeForce RTX 2070 8G GDDR6 DP / HDMI Turing VR 4K PCI Express Graphics Card Black Breathable leather lining, classic look and feel 777.66 EUR Gigabyte AORUS GTX 1080 Gaming Box GeForce GTX 1080 8GB GDDR5X - Graphics card (GeForce GTX 1080, 8GB, GDDR5X, 10010 MHz, 7680 x 4320 Pixels, PCI Express x16 3.0) AC input: 100-240V ~ / 7 -3.5 A / 60-50 Hz.

DisplayPort is an alternative in most cases. For Apple, Intel's Thunderbolt is the interface used to pull video content from laptops for display on other devices. What interface do you use for your monitor or laptop?