HDMI 2.2 may mean you’ll need new cables for next-generation GPUs

Your favorite (or perhaps least favorite) connection cable may be receiving a major upgrade early next year. The HDMI Forum, which maintains the HDMI standard, said it will host a big announcement during CES on January 6. If you believe the leaks, the forum will announce an update to its standard, starting with HDMI 2.1a To HDMI 2.2. It may require a completely new cable if you get the highest resolutions and refresh rates on any incoming device Nvidia 50 series GPU.

The day before the HDMI Forum announced its conference, VideoCardz I first noticed that the new cable standard would require an entirely new cable. German language port Computer baseread in machine translation, citing the HDMI Licensing Administration saying there is a “next generation, higher bandwidth HDMI technology,” adding that “it will be enabled by a new HDMI cable.” The Licensing Department is the Forum’s appointed agent for Licensing 2.2, and representatives of the group are scheduled to speak during CES.

There’s not a lot of information to go on. It doesn’t say whether the male port will change from its current form and offers no sense of backward compatibility with HDMI 2.1 (although you’re probably safe with older cables). At the very least, we expect you’ll need the new cable to get all the benefits of the new standard. It will enable a “wide range of high resolutions and refresh rates,” the Forum said in its pre-CES announcement.

Since its debut in 2017, HDMI 2.1a has achieved a bit rate of 48 Gbps. The new standard can also support up to 120Hz VRR and 10240 x 4320 resolution with display stream compression. VideoCardz expects that it will allow for higher resolutions and refresh rates without compression.

The new standard will likely reach DisplayPort 2.1 rates. The DP 2.1 cable should be able to do more than 240Hz at 4K resolution with 10-bit color depth. You can get higher refresh rates at lower color depths, depending on how much you’re willing to trade beautiful graphics for lower returns on frame rates that the eye can’t even perceive.

Some 8K TVs sold by Makers like Samsung It supports a resolution of 7680 x 4320, but there are very few examples of media that support 8K. All current models are essentially more expensive 4K TVs. Sony The PlayStation brand has effectively ceased Announcing the console that supports 8K on the PS5 and PS5 Pro boxes.

An increasing number of 4K screens Support refresh rates higher than 240 Hzbut they are still the expensive minority of monitors you can get on the market today. There’s nothing wrong with higher bitrates, but there’s a reason HDMI 2.1 has remained unchanged for seven years. It represents an interesting change for the long-popular AMD Radeon RX 8000 series and Nvidia Geforce RTX 50-series GPUs. These cards are supposed to arrive at CES this year, and are scheduled to be announced on January 6.

Only current 40-series Nvidia GPUs support DisplayPort 1.4a, although the latest AMD GPUs go all the way to DisplayPort 2.0. Intel’s Battlemage ARC B580 cards Team Blue was launched this month and supports DisplayPort 2.1 and HDMI 2.1. That doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily reach high frame rates at 4K without the severe compromises on those $250 cards.

There are more observers, such as LG’s new UltraGear OLED screen, Which offers refresh rates of 480 Hz at QHD resolution for $1,000. This monitor has DisplayPort 2.1 and HDMI 2.1 and “ensures compatibility with the latest gaming consoles and PCs.” If you plan to achieve these ridiculous refresh rates, you’ll need to use DP 2.1.