HDMI vs Displayport which is Better for Gaming: Input Lag, Speed, Features Explained

How's it going everyone welcome to this post, In this post we're gonna be talking about HDMI and Displayport, What their differences are and which one you should be using.

Both HDMI and Displayport serve the overall the same function of just transferring video and audio data. They both also have many different versions so depending which version you look at you might get some different features. And for this post we'll be looking at the most recent version as a filming and to avoid complication of explanations, we're not gonna be talking about the pins and all the data transfers. We're gonna keep this to just features and focus on that just to limit the number of options.

Speed

So let's start with speed, since this is always a hot number thrown around in the computer world it seems fitting to get this out of the way because as you're gonna find out it's not really that important in this case. HDMI 2.1 is the most recent version from today and it came out in 2017 with a maximum bit rate of 48 gigabits per second or around 6 gigabytes per second.

In comparison DisplayPort 2.0 which came out in 2019 has a maximum bitrate of 77.37 gigabits per second which equates to roughly 9.67 gigabytes per second which is a 62% increase over HDMI 2.1. But how fast is fast enough?

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Well a standard 4K display running at 3840X2160 and if we take an even rounder number and make it even larger at 4400X2250, running at 60 Hertz with a 16-bit color depth; that would require roughly 2.23 gigabytes per second. So as you see, we're still way under the limit then we're not even close to reaching that. So if you're sticking with 4K monitors and TVs you'll be fine for a while. Once we get past 4K, that is where the big advantage of DisplayPort 2.0 lies. HDMI 2.1 can only support an 8K display at 60 Hertz while DisplayPort 2.0 has enough speed to allow for an 8K at 120 Hertz or even at 16K at 60 Hertz.

So while HDMI 2.1 is stuck 60 Hertz at 8K you can do double that, 16K and still be running at 60 Hertz. So as for speed DisplayPort takes the lead but it's an advantage that most consumers aren't really going to see and definitely not in anytime soon.

Feature Differences: HDMI vs Display Ports

So one of the best features of HDMI on the other hand is its CEC or consumer electronics control and this is a feature that allows you to control devices that are connected via HDMI. So you can use your TV remote to control your Blu-Ray player or your Game Console or whatever you really have plugged in and it supports up to 15 other devices. So you can just use through HDMI, one remote and control all the devices that are plugged in.

DisplayPort though also added this feature in a similar feature through an aux channel into it spins on version 1.3. So it can actually interpret the CEC commands but you would only be able to use this feature from an HDMI port. So you would still need the adapter.

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Another feature difference is the connectors is a physical one, so DisplayPort actually has a locking tooth that will stop the cable from being pulled out. Now this could be an advantage or disadvantage the way you look at it because if you trip on a cable and it has locking teeth that's either gonna break the TV or whatever plugged into or the cable itself. Whereas HDMI is just you plug it in and you can pull it back out. So personally I actually prefer HDMI, because I don't find very often that these cables are being tugged at and they need to be secured with some locking mechanism. So I'm kind of indifferent there but that's kind of a personal preference.

Conclusion: Which one Should you get HDMI or Displayport?

Now personally for DisplayPort, I prefer it on my computer monitors and HDMI for my TV the CEC feature from HDMI is really designed for televisions and that's where you can take advantage of the feature and DisplayPort is super free to proof and monitors are usually the place where we see these massive increases in 16 or 18K displays first with like high refresh rates. So I figured that's probably better to be on my monitor so that way I am ready for whatever comes next.

That is it for this post guys. I hope this helped you kind of understand that really right now there is no huge difference of whatever you wanted to run. But in the future obviously when we get bigger and bigger displays and faster and faster refresh rates, it'll probably come a little more into play. But really nothing to worry about right now. Anyways if you like posts like this do check out our other posts as well and do subscribe and follow us for more such content. Thanks for reading and please leave a comment below if you have something you want to discuss, talk tech, have a question or literally anything.