Enlarge / VESA released the DisplayPort 2.1 specification today.

VESA released the DisplayPort 2.1 specification today. Typically erstwhile an manufacture radical announces a caller standard, it takes months oregon adjacent years for products supporting the spec to beryllium disposable to consumers. But DisplayPort 2.1 products are already available; successful fact, you whitethorn already ain some. VESA besides declared contiguous that immoderate merchandise that was already DisplayPort 2.0-certified earlier today's announcement is present DisplayPort 2.1-certified, too.

"VESA has been moving intimately with subordinate companies to guarantee that products supporting DisplayPort 2.0 would really conscionable the newer, much demanding DisplayPort 2.1 spec," the announcement from VESA, which besides makes DisplayHDR, AdaptiveSync/MediaSync, Clear MR, and monitor-mounting specs, said.

"Due to this effort, each antecedently certified DisplayPort 2.0 products including UHBR (Ultra-high Bit Rate) susceptible products—whether GPUs, docking presumption chips, show scalar chips, PHY repeater chips, specified arsenic re-timers, oregon DP40 / DP80 cables. (including some passive and progressive and utilizing full-size DisplayPort, Mini DisplayPort, oregon USB Type-C connectors)—have already been certified to the stricter DisplayPort 2.1 spec," VESA besides said.

Just similar that, DisplayPort 2.0 products person been bumped up a tick. However, determination aren't galore DisplayPort 2.0 products to talk of close now. DisplayPort 2.0 products were initially expected successful 2019 but, due to the COVID-19 pandemic hurting investigating capabilities, didn't commencement becoming disposable until this year.

AMD Ryzen 6000 is DisplayPort 2.0-certified, arsenic are immoderate MediaTek and RealTek chipsets, DisplayPort cables, and docks, but that's astir it. We don't cognize of immoderate DisplayPort 2.0 monitors readily disposable for acquisition successful the US. Intel's Arc graphics cards, including the Intel Arc A770 and A750, enactment DisplayPort 2.0, but Nvidia's latest GPUs, the RTX 4090 and 4080, and AMD's latest cards, the Radeon RX 6000-series, bash not.

DisplayPort 2.1 versus DisplayPort 2.0

That leads america to the evident question: What's the quality betwixt DisplayPort 2.0 and DisplayPort 2.1?

The caller DisplayPort 2.1 confirms the usage of the aforesaid carnal furniture (PHY) specification arsenic USB4. According to VESA, that alteration volition output much efficient DisplayPort tunneling implicit the latest procreation of USB-C. As USB-C becomes ever much ubiquitous, it makes consciousness for DisplayPort to play nicely with the connector.

“Achieving greater alignment betwixt DisplayPort and USB connected a communal PHY has been a peculiarly important effort wrong VESA fixed the important overlap successful usage lawsuit models betwixt the DisplayPort and USB4 ecosystems,” Alan Kobayashi, VESA committee seat and DisplayPort Task Group chair, said successful a statement.

Further, DisplayPort 2.1 brings an updated bandwidth absorption diagnostic that VESA claims volition let for DisplayPort tunneling implicit USB4 to coexist with different I/O postulation "more efficiently" than before.

The adjacent mentation of DisplayPort besides requires enactment for VESA's Display Stream Compression (DSC) codec and Panel Replay to trim the magnitude of bandwidth required for transporting DisplayPort tunneling packets.

Enlarge / DP40 cables enactment up to a 10Gbps nexus rate, aka UHBR10. DP80 cables enactment up to a 20Gbps nexus rate, oregon UHBR20. 

VESA

Finally, the DisplayPort 2.1 specification brings much stringent requirements to DisplayPort cables, including Mini ones. DisplayPort 2.1 cables operating astatine up to 40Gbps, which VESA dubs DP40 cables, are specified to enactment lengths of "beyond" 6.6 feet (2 m) portion maintaining performance.

DisplayPort 2.1 cables operating astatine the spec's max capableness of 80Gbps, meanwhile, are specified to run astatine afloat show astatine distances "beyond" 3.3 feet (1 m), VESA announced today.

As galore person astir apt noticed, DisplayPort 2.1 doesn't summation max throughput implicit DisplayPort 2.0 and won't bring much precocious capabilities astir things similar max solution and refresh rate. VESA discussed DisplayPort 2.0 being utilized with monitors with solution arsenic precocious arsenic 16K (15,360×8,640 pixels), including astatine 60 Hz with HDR and DSC. DisplayPort 2.0 has besides been associated with speedy, high-resolution displays, specified arsenic 4 K, 240 Hz monitors that don't trust connected compression.