I have spent a lot of time in the world of gaming, in general. This has allowed me to go through various display and other technologies and develop an understanding, as well. Needless to say, if you are looking to get a deeper understanding of everything, you need to know what needs to be brought so you can have a better understanding instead of just randomly trying to figure things out.
Now, it is safe to say that most of us know what DVI and HDMI are, and this has also resulted in a lot of DVI vs HDMI conversations, sometimes, way more than we would like to indulge in. Well, in this post, I am here to take care of everything as we look into what you must know about these things, to begin with.
Well, consider this your lucky day as we are going to solve everything for you so you can have an easier time developing an understanding. Let’s not waste time and have a look, shall we?
What is HDMI?
If you are trying to understand HDMI, it is not really going to be difficult to establish the understanding here. Simply put, HDMI stands for high definition multimedia interface, and it has more or less, become the standard interface in most of the cases that we deal with every day. HDMI is responsible for transmitting audio and video signals between devices, and over the past couple of years, had evolved a lot.
HDMI is now considered as the standard since it is capable of handling most of the applications, and it still is backwards compatible with DVI without any loss of quality. Unlike DVI, HDMI is also capable of delivering high quality audio, and unlike DVI that tops at 1080p @ 144Hz, HDMI can go as high as 120Hz on 4K, provided you have the right cable and supported devices.
The latest HDMI version is HDMI 2.1 that is capable of data transfer of 48Gb/s, it can drive your 8K displays, as well as 4K displays at a higher refresh rate. It has support for auto low-latency mode, variable refresh rate, and more.
HDMI 2.1 is not as common as some of the older variants considering how it is relatively new in the market, but going forward, it is safe to say that it is going to become the standard for all future monitors and displays.
What is DVI?
On the other hand, we have DVI or digital visual interface. DVI has been around for as long as one can remember, to be honest. You can find this port on most of the old monitors, projectors and graphic cards. This technology was created by Digital Display Working Group.
Despite its popularity, DVI is slowly being phased out from the market thanks to newer and better technologies that are taking over.
DVI vs HDMI for Gaming
Now, the main aim of this article is to look at how both of these connections fair against each other. Considering the modernity of the latter, we are still going to compare both of these connection protocols and see how they compare to each other. So, let’s not waste time and have a look, shall we?
You can look at the spec-sheet below to have a better understanding of how both cables compare to each other.
| DVI | HDMI | |
| Audio Transmission | No | Yes |
| Maximum Channels | 6 with Dual Link | 8+ |
| Data Speed | 9.9Gb/s | 48Gb/s |
| Max Resolution | 2560×1600 with Dual Link | 4K/120Hz or 8K/60Hz and up to 10K. |
| Analog/Digital combination | Yes | No |
It is more than safe to say that when you are looking at a direct comparison between both connection protocols, you are looking at HDMI as a winner and there is no denying that this is only going to get better.
Another reason why I would always suggest HDMI for gaming is that it has become a modern standard to a point that nearly every display, GPU, and other devices such as laptops, handheld consoles, and even some chargers now ship with HDMI ports, so you can go ahead and use them in multiple applications and without a concern, to be honest. The point is that when you are looking at an HDMI port, the comparison is a lot in favour of an HDMI rather than on a DVI.
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Conclusion
This is one of those comparisons that can end in a single line but for the sake of having a proper explanation, we had to inform everyone that HDMI is indeed superior along with proper justification as to why it is superior, in the first place.
DVI is something that you do not get to see every day on monitors or graphic cards in the first place, and that is the reason why it has been phased out. Not just that, DVI simply is no longer relevant in the market, and has gotten old as compared to HDMI that is still evolving and getting better with newer features coming with newer standards.
