Which is 'best'... HDMI or DVI?

Montala

Montala

Montala

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Hi,

Just to clarify my question... if a graphics card has both DVI and HDMI outputs available, and a monitor has the same signal input options; is there any advantage in using one rather than the other?

I am asuming that it would be 'better' to use HDMI... but is that in fact the case?

Thanks! :)
 
HDMI is a unifying standard designed primarily for AV devices (i.e. games consoles and Blu-ray players) and also now used on the PC. You should theoretically obtain the same picture quality from either DVI and HDMI and as Bigj2134 says the connector head and cable itself is more 'streamlined'. Unfortunately some GPUs treat anything connected by HDMI as an AV device rather than PC. Nvidia GPUs may send out the wrong colour signal (on most models this is correctable on the Forceware drivers) and AMD models may scale incorrectly (again, correctable on the Catalyst drivers). DVI also currently lifts limitations in its dual-link iterations that prevents current HDMI standards from supporting 120Hz at 1920 x 1080, for example. Unlike HDMI, DVI does not carry an audio signal.
 
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OK, but if the monitor doesn't have any speakers (as most decent ones don't) then the audio signal is not really relevant anyway.

Both only use a single cable, and agree that the HDMI connector is definately much neater. I am using a DVI one at the moment (my graphics card is nVidia based) and was really wondering if I would notice any difference if I tried an HDMI one?

(Reply edited after reading previous post.)
 
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You would either notice no difference or a negative (but usually correctable) one as above.
 
Depends on the resolution. HDMI only goes up to 1920x1080; after that you need dual-link DVI although I suspect monitors capable of more than 1920x1080 won't have HDMI ports anyway.
 
Snapshot said:
Depends on the resolution. HDMI only goes up to 1920x1080; after that you need dual-link DVI although I suspect monitors capable of more than 1920x1080 won't have HDMI ports anyway.
Click to expand...

HDMI 1.4 supports 4096×2160p24 see links:

http://www.cablestogo.com/tech/hdmi-1-4/literature/HDMI-Comparison.pdf

http://www.techradar.com/news/television/hdtv/hdmi-1-4-10-things-you-need-to-know-626951

And don't for monitors like Dell Ultrasharp U3011 it has two DVI-D Input with HDCP support, two HDMI Input & One Display Port Input.
 
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Nightglow said:
HDMI 1.4 supports 4096×2160p24 see links:

http://www.cablestogo.com/tech/hdmi-1-4/literature/HDMI-Comparison.pdf

http://www.techradar.com/news/television/hdtv/hdmi-1-4-10-things-you-need-to-know-626951

And don't for monitors like Dell Ultrasharp U3011 it has two DVI-D Input with HDCP support, two HDMI Input & One Display Port Input.
Click to expand...

true but people dont generally run monitors at 24hz. hdmi 1.4 supports up to 1920x1200p60 max, so above that you will need to use something else - dual link dvi or displayport.

edit: actualy no, that's at 48bit colour isnt it? anybody know what the maximum supported resolution at 30bit colour is?
 
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