KVM switch advice

Inkerman_88

Inkerman_88

Inkerman_88

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Joined
5 Apr 2018
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24
Hi,

Firstly, thank you for reading this.

I recently purchased an expensive new gaming monitor - a BenQ XL2546 - to go with my gaming computer which has a GeForce GTX 1070 Ti graphics card.

I have a work/service laptop which is a Dell Latitude 5400, and I now connect my monitor to this work laptop during the daytime. I'd like to buy a KVM switch so that I don't have to keep unplugging and plugging in again my mouse, keyboard and new monitor in the evenings when I want to game.

My question is this:
Will using a KVM switch reduce my picture/image quality? I don't want to feel like I've wasted £460 on the monitor!

At the moment I connect my laptop to the monitor with an HDMI cable, and I connect my gaming PC to the monitor through the DisplayPort.

Thanks again,
Inkerman
 
Interesting question. The quality will not be reduced as both HDMI and DisplayPort are digital, so not subject to degrading the signal.

However, I noticed that monitor has a 240 Hz maximum refresh, and can only achieve that over DisplayPort or HDMI 2.0 - older versions of HDMI don't have enough bandwidth for that refresh rate at its native resolution.

Your Dell laptop only has HDMI 1.4b so already isn't capable of driving the monitor at its maximum refresh rate. If you did get a KVM switch, you'd need to make sure it has HDMI 2.0, otherwise your refresh rate will be capped from the PC too.

I'm running a similar setup with an Acer X34 monitor, in my case with a GTX 1080 Ti on my PC (using DisplayPort) and a work laptop (using HDMI).

The Acer X34 has GSYNC, and I really doubt I could get that working with a KVM switch between the PC and the monitor, so I got a cheap VGA type KVM switch and only use the keyboard and monitor connections on it - the video part is not connected up at all.

When I want to switch between my PC and laptop I press the button on that switch to flip the keyboard and mouse over, and just use the buttons on the monitor itself to switch the input choice from HDMI to DisplayPort (or the other way).

It's not quite as convenient as just pressing a single button, but it does mean no cable swapping and that I can still use GSYNC.
 
Tanin'iver said:
Interesting question. The quality will not be reduced as both HDMI and DisplayPort are digital, so not subject to degrading the signal.

However, I noticed that monitor has a 240 Hz maximum refresh, and can only achieve that over DisplayPort or HDMI 2.0 - older versions of HDMI don't have enough bandwidth for that refresh rate at its native resolution.

Your Dell laptop only has HDMI 1.4b so already isn't capable of driving the monitor at its maximum refresh rate. If you did get a KVM switch, you'd need to make sure it has HDMI 2.0, otherwise your refresh rate will be capped from the PC too.

I'm running a similar setup with an Acer X34 monitor, in my case with a GTX 1080 Ti on my PC (using DisplayPort) and a work laptop (using HDMI).

The Acer X34 has GSYNC, and I really doubt I could get that working with a KVM switch between the PC and the monitor, so I got a cheap VGA type KVM switch and only use the keyboard and monitor connections on it - the video part is not connected up at all.

When I want to switch between my PC and laptop I press the button on that switch to flip the keyboard and mouse over, and just use the buttons on the monitor itself to switch the input choice from HDMI to DisplayPort (or the other way).

It's not quite as convenient as just pressing a single button, but it does mean no cable swapping and that I can still use GSYNC.
Click to expand...

I might end up doing the same thing - buying a cheap KVM switch and only connecting my mouse and keyboard.
 
Just realised I said "only use the keyboard and monitor connections on it - the video part is not connected up at all" which obviously makes no sense :) I meant I only use the keyboard and mouse connections.
 
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