If you’re in the market for cable, make sure you don’t overspend on expensive HDMI cables that offer no benefits and that you don’t fall for “fake” HDMI 2.1 cables.ĭisplayPort is similar to HDMI in that it is a wholly digital standard for carrying audiovisual data. If you have a laptop you may find yourself stuck with a different HDMI output like mini-HDMI, which requires a specific cable but works in much the same way. If you don’t have an HDMI 2.1-compatible display you’ll be limited to HDMI 2.0b speeds, which caps your output at 4K resolution with 60Hz (and support for full HDR). To use HDMI 2.1, you’ll need a TV that supports the standard on at least one of its HDMI ports and an HDMI 2.1 source like the Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5, or NVIDIA 30-series graphics card. It supports variable refresh rate (VRR) technology like AMD FreeSync and NVIDIA G-SYNC, plus a native form of VRR defined by the HDMI 2.1 standard. The standard can also carry an 8K resolution at 60Hz, or a 10K resolution at 30Hz.

The latest iteration of HDMI is version 2.1a, which provides a total throughput of 48Gbps, which is enough to transport 4K resolution video at 120Hz with full high dynamic range (HDR) support.

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