Question about Displayport

[Lespaul678]

Hello, I'm going to be getting this monitor soon and had a question about it. I have a GTX 980 ti acx 2.0 video card and it has a displayport on it. I'm currently using HDMI, but I want to try out displayport. I see that there are thousands of displayport cables on newegg. I have no idea which one to get and I heard that they are definitely not created equal.

I don't know which kind of displayport cable to get to go with this monitor. I also hear that there are different versions, so now I really have no idea. Can someone help me out by telling me which cable goes with this monitor. Preferably one that is great quality and will get me a good picture.

I know the community knows way more about this than I do, so I'll just trust you guys.

Thanks.

 

[R_1]

is the one that comes with it crap?

 

[Lespaul678]

is the one that comes with it crap?

Yes, I believe so, based on some reviews I read, usually the cables that come with monitors do a poor job and are inferior to a good quality one.

 

[nigelivey]

Unless you are pushing a 4k screen at high Hz and have no wish for sound I'd stick with HDMI. There is no obvious benefit to swapping to DP

 

[Lespaul678]

Unless you are pushing a 4k screen at high Hz and have no wish for sound I'd stick with HDMI. There is no obvious benefit to swapping to DP

Ok, so no new and improved type of HDMI cable then? Just the one I am already using?

 

[weilin]

Generally speaking, Displayport cables are more or less the same... It's another 19 pin cable, the cable doesn't care what protocol is being used (HDMI vs DP), its either connected or not. BUT... The way the connector is defined, there's 20 pins... You're only supposed to connect 19 of them across the cable, the 20th pin shouldn't be connected. What's the 20th pin for? Not too sure, but my guess is for active cables (built in repeaters for really long cables).

The reason pin 20 shouldn't be connected is because both the source (graphics card) and the sink (display) drives +5v to that pin. Now if both source and sink have the exact same 5v, then everything is A OK. But, we live in the real world, so the graphics card 5v may be 5.02v and the Monitor 5v may be 4.98v. Both are within spec... But suddenly the monitor that's expecting to be driving pin 20 is suddenly receiving current (or vice versa)! If the device was designed well, that minor trickle will be handled and you can use a bad cable no worries. If not... well behavior is undefined...

When you look in the forums concerning this issue, having 20 pin connected can cause things like random PC reboots, screen flickering, etc.

Now with the lecture out of the way, I'm afraid to say that I don't have any recommendations for you on which cable to get. What I can say is you can always use a multi-meter to test the cable before using it. pin 20 should be a dangle for a properly manufactured cable.

unless you need have specific needs, HDMI and DP are essentially the same to the consumer. The only defining reasons to use DisplayPort over HDMI is if you need UHD resolution or high re-fresh rates.

To the manufacturer, DisplayPort is a open standard and thus has no licensing fee whereas HDMI/DVI is not (I believe its a per instance fee). That doesn't really impact you the user though...

 

[nigelivey]

Unless you are pushing a 4k screen at high Hz and have no wish for sound I'd stick with HDMI. There is no obvious benefit to swapping to DP

Ok, so no new and improved type of HDMI cable then? Just the one I am already using?

Would need to now what you are using!! If its HDMI 1.2,1.3 or 1.4 you are fine HDMI 2 exists but no GPU's are equipped with a HDMI 2 interface as of yet.