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DisplayPort 1.3 Has Arrived, Drives 4K At 120 Hz

By - Source: Tom's Hardware US | B 27 comments

The DisplayPort 1.3 standard has arrived, and it is damn impressive!

Lately, there have been two rushes in display technologies – higher resolutions and higher refresh rates. Going for one at a time is attainable, but trying for both at the same time provides a serious challenge in terms of bandwidth.

The display connectivity protocols that exist are simply not powerful enough to support both of these advancements at once. We might be getting excited over being able to drive 4K at 60 Hz with the upcoming HDMI 2.0 devices, but I think we can do better than that, and the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) apparently agrees. VESA has just announced the DisplayPort 1.3 standard, which should theoretically be able to drive 4K displays at 120 Hz. 

The DisplayPort 1.3 standard increases the maximum bandwidth to a staggering 32.4 Gb/s, which not only offers support for 4K at 120 Hz but can also be used to daisy-chain two 4K 60 Hz DisplayPort 1.3-enabled monitors. Still not impressed? It will also allow you to run a 5K monitor over a single DisplayPort cable. So far, we've only seen one of those monitors from Dell, although we're not sure whether it comes with DisplayPort 1.3 support. Apple might also have a 5K display in the works. We've reached out to Dell for an answer, and we'll let you know when we hear back.

In order to ensure that the standard is a little more future-proof, VESA has also given it native support for the 4:2:0 sampling method. With this compression, you'll be able to drive a future 8K display from what will then be an antiquated DisplayPort 1.3 output. This is similar to what Nvidia has done in order to achieve 4K at 60 Hz over an HDMI 1.4 interface.

When we reached out to VESA to ask when we'd be seeing DisplayPort 1.3-enabled devices hit the market, we were told that it would happen throughout 2015. Hopefully, the upcoming GTX 980 and GTX 970 graphics cards have DisplayPort 1.3 interfaces, because otherwise it will be a long wait before this announcement becomes relevant. VESA has made the DisplayPort 1.3 standard available for free to all members of the association.

Follow Niels Broekhuijsen @NBroekhuijsen. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

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Top Comments
  • 15 Hide
    redgarl , September 15, 2014 1:29 PM
    I cannot understand the industry to not dump HDMI 2.0 for Displayport. The only 4k TV available with a Displayport 1.2 is the Panasonic AX800. A damn shame since it is the only option to plug your 4k PC to a screen bigger than 30 inches.
  • 11 Hide
    TheMentalist , September 15, 2014 2:08 PM
    Glorious!
Other Comments
  • 15 Hide
    redgarl , September 15, 2014 1:29 PM
    I cannot understand the industry to not dump HDMI 2.0 for Displayport. The only 4k TV available with a Displayport 1.2 is the Panasonic AX800. A damn shame since it is the only option to plug your 4k PC to a screen bigger than 30 inches.
  • Add your comment Display all 27 comments.
  • 3 Hide
    ssdpro , September 15, 2014 1:35 PM
    This might excite dozens of users.
  • 6 Hide
    dstarr3 , September 15, 2014 1:46 PM
    I, for one, welcome our new interface overlords.
  • 11 Hide
    TheMentalist , September 15, 2014 2:08 PM
    Glorious!
  • 1 Hide
    aberkae , September 15, 2014 2:17 PM
    Im not holding my breath, I'm predicting pascal launch time frame for a 12 bit 120hz 4k monitor.
  • 2 Hide
    SirKnobsworth , September 15, 2014 2:18 PM
    Any word on the new micro DisplayPort connector?
  • 6 Hide
    Traciatim , September 15, 2014 2:37 PM
    Cool, now we just need single video cards that are able to drive games at that resolution and frequency.
  • 5 Hide
    Sparq17 , September 15, 2014 2:43 PM
    The best Tom's news I've read all year!
    Asus, will you pretty please make a 120Hz 4k IPS in time for Christmas? :-)
  • 1 Hide
    Doug Lord , September 15, 2014 3:26 PM
    When will we see this on a video card? 2020?
  • -6 Hide
    drezzz , September 15, 2014 5:02 PM
    No mention of display syncing as part of the standard. What happened to AMD's answer to GSync?
  • 5 Hide
    Traciatim , September 15, 2014 6:06 PM
    Quote:
    No mention of display syncing as part of the standard. What happened to AMD's answer to GSync?


    No mention because it's a tiny part of the spec and not even a product and was introduced in 1.2a so it's not like it would be a big announcement for it to still be in 1.3.
  • -1 Hide
    StormyIV , September 15, 2014 8:19 PM
    Single gpu setups still have trouble running games at 60 fps at 4k let alone 120 fps. I'm not going to be excited until a 1440p IPS panel with Gsync and acceptable response times come out.
  • 3 Hide
    soldier44 , September 15, 2014 8:31 PM
    Just skipped right over us that have been using 2560 x 1600 (2K) displays for many years now with the 120hz option. Will have to move to 4K over 30 inches at 120hz as soon as someone makes one for less than 2 grand.
  • 0 Hide
    jaslynn , September 15, 2014 8:54 PM
    Useful invention...This display port will be useful for many people..
    Thanks.
    Jaslynn from Bizbilla b2b portal
  • 1 Hide
    ohim , September 16, 2014 1:50 AM
    You guys are going bananas over 4k and 120hz , i wonder how many of you guys have a rig that can push 120 FPS at 4k ? :) 
  • -1 Hide
    ubercake , September 16, 2014 6:26 AM
    I guess it's good to have a cable with the bandwidth to push 120Hz on a 4K monitor, but there's no reason to drive a 4K monitor at 120Hz if you have a monitor with an adaptive sync technology such as G-sync. Freesync monitors are also supposed to become available in the near future. Acer will be releasing a 4K G-sync monitor next year.

    If you think of it 4K is the equivalent of 4 1080p screens. For 4K, you'll still need 3 or 4 980s (if initial specs are correct) to drive the most demanding games on ultra at frame rates consistently above 60 and a lot of times you won't be anywhere near the 120fps mark. In 5-10 years, it will be a different story.

    For now, I think monitor manufacturers should focus on adaptive-sync technologies as they really make a huge difference in performance and provide more value for more people.
  • 1 Hide
    prince_david , September 16, 2014 7:34 AM
    Yet these HDTVs also have antiquated VGA connections isntead of Display Port
  • 0 Hide
    Avikbellic911 , September 16, 2014 7:40 AM
    will anyone reply me if gtx titan black supports 1.3 display port or not?
  • 0 Hide
    Merry_Blind , September 16, 2014 8:57 AM
    Good.

    Personally I'm perfectly fine with 1080p60fps though... Just need better motion resolution and better displays overall. An OLED 1080p60hz display with a good Strobing technology for motion clarity would be perfect.
  • 2 Hide
    haftarun8 , September 16, 2014 9:22 AM
    They'll never put displayport on conventional HDTVs as long as "big content" has its way. The sole purpose for HDMI's existence in the first place was for its built-in copy protection and handshaking; a way they can control who sees what and who can transfer what over what. Displayport to my knowledge has no mandatory DRM scheme like HDMI, so Hollywood and media creating corporations will forever lobby the FCC against making displayport a standard connector in the US at least.
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