Whats the deal with 2.1 Display Port (Gigabyte monitor + current gen cards)

[OnamCh]

I have read mixed things about Gbytes new monitor and wanted to get some clarification on it. The new monitor by Gbyte supports 2.1 (https://tftcentral.co.uk/news/gigabyte-announce-range-of-new-aorus-oled-gaming-monitors-at-ces-2024) but the 7900XTX has 2.1 DP support too does this mean the card can fully utilise the monitor? I have read that no current gen cards are not "proper" DP 2.1, not sure what they mean by that. I am looking to get an OLED 4K monitor and only recently purchased the 7900XTX so not looking to upgrade anytime soon is it worth forking out for the 2.1 mintor or is it all marketing talk?

 

[Mr Evil]

If someone says "proper" DP 2.1, they probably mean UHBR 20, which is the maximum bandwidth that DP 2.1 allows. There are various lower bandwidths that it supports which are still faster than DP 1.4, and they are all technically DP 2.1. You can see a list of the different bandwidths available to each DP version on the Wikipedia DP article.

That monitor's resolution of 3840x2160@240Hz will work even with DP 1.4, although it requires DSC (compression used by DisplayPort). If my calculations are correct then it will still need DSC even with a 7900XTX, since that card only supports UHBR 13.5, not the full 20. You won't notice the difference though.

Where it does matter is the daisy-chaining feature of that monitor, where two monitors are connected to a single cable. DP 1.4 doesn't have enough bandwidth to do that with two high-refresh rate monitors, even with DSC. If you're not going to use daisy-chaining then there's no real difference.

It will also matter more as monitors increase in resolution, refresh rate, and bit depth (12 bits per channel would be nice).