Do you play games and while you have a DisplayPort port you use HDMI? Don't do it right and see the reasons for DisplayPort's supremacy.
Say out of habit, say out of ignorance, most users while buying a new graphics card continue to use the same old computer - monitor HDMI to HDMI cable. And let them also have one on their screen DisplayPort port.
For watching movies and simple office work the HDMI cable is fine but things are not the same when you enter the world of gaming. If you have a 7900 XTX GPU driving a 4K 240Hz gaming monitor, the HDMI cable is holding you back.
You should use the DisplayPort (DP) port to maximize your gaming graphics. But let's take a closer look at why DisplayPort excels for gaming.
Table of Contents
High quality up to 4K at 240 Hz
High frames per second, or FPS, are essential for players so that in fast-paced scenes they don't have dropped frames and opponents who will never see them. For proper gaming you should buy a 4K monitor with refresh rates set to 165 Hz or higher. If you have such a display to enjoy the possibility of high resolution and detail in motion, you need a corresponding GPU that supports at least the DisplayPort 2.0 standard.
If you have both of the above and stick to the HDMI 2.1 connection (the latest HDMI standard), you'll see an image up to 48 Gbit/s. That means it will let you play games at 4K at 144Hz, at most. On the other hand, DisplayPort 2.0 and above have a maximum limit of 80 Gbit/s.
So with DisplayPort, you can play 4K games at 240Hz. With this massive frame rate increase, you gain an advantage over other players in games like Counter-Stike: Global Offensive, Valorant and other competitive titles, as you can now see the movement of opponents when they are half-hidden and reveal themselves in a flash to supervise the area of action.
Multiple DisplayPort ports
Although many gamers are satisfied with one monitor, using multiple monitors will give you an advantage as a gamer. Not only do you have a wider field of view, allowing you to see more of the field, but you can use your other screens to display other applications, such as flow controls if you're a game player or the game guide, etc.
So if you look at the ports of most mid-range GPUs and above, you can see that they usually only have one HDMI port and several DisplayPort ports. This means it's easier to get multiple displays and connect them directly with DisplayPort cables instead of buying a DisplayPort to HDMI adapter.
DisplayPort supports MST
Even if you only have one DisplayPort port from your graphics card, you can connect multiple monitors to it. For example if you have a laptop that will probably only have one HDMI port and one Mini DisplayPort.
The DisplayPort port has the Multi-Stream Transport or MST technology where you allows you to connect three or more monitors to a DisplayPort so you don't need multiple DisplayPort ports on your device.
And you don't need to connect other monitors directly to your computer if you have MST-capable monitors. You can attach one monitor to another via MST. DisplayPort first introduced daisy-chaining with DisplayPort 1.2, which had a limit of 21,6 Gbit/s or one 4K 60Hz or four Full HD 60Hz displays.
Since DisplayPort 2.0 was now capped at 80Gbit/s, you could theoretically connect up to 16 Full HD displays at 60Hz. And with its development DisplayPort over USB-C, laptops that don't have DisplayPort but use USB-C with DisplayPort alt mode can also enjoy this technology.
MST technology is supported from Windows 7 and later, as well as ChromeOS. macOS and Linux friends unfortunately cannot enjoy it due to driver incompatibility. This is a big minus for Linux.
Easily convert DisplayPort to HDMI
DisplayPort and HDMI are two different standards with two different signal architectures. Therefore, you can't just use a passive DisplayPort to HDMI port unless your computer uses a dual-mode display port.
If your computer has a DP++ symbol, that means its DisplayPort can detect if you've connected an HDMI display to it via a passive adapter. So it will automatically convert its output to something HDMI will understand.
However, if your computer does not have this feature, you must use an active DisplayPort to HDMI converter. Although this cable along with the converter is more expensive, it is still widely available.
Another advantage that DisplayPort has over HDMI is that you can split it into two or three different HDMI signals. You can buy a DisplayPort to HDMI MST hub, connecting multiple displays to one DisplayPort. This is useful if you already have HDMI displays for secondary displays.
However, whether you have an active or passive DisplayPort to HDMI cable, you cannot use it to convert an HDMI signal to a display with DisplayPort.
These were the advantages of DisplayPort over HDMI. If you have a DisplayPort on your computer, make sure you make good use of it.
