[Hardware] DisplayPort vs. HDMI: Which Is Better For Gaming?

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DisplayPort vs. HDMI: Which Is Better For Gaming?
We look at bandwidth, resolution, refresh rate and more to see the differences between DisplayPort and HDMI connections.

The best gaming monitors are packed with features, but one aspect that often gets overlooked is the inclusion of DisplayPort vs. HDMI. What are the differences between the two ports and is using one for connecting to your system definitively better?

You might think it's a simple matter of hooking up whatever cable comes with your monitor to your PC and calling it a day, but there are differences that can often mean a loss of refresh rate, color quality, or both if you're not careful. Here's what you need to know about DisplayPort vs. HDMI connections.

If you're looking to buy a new PC monitor or buy a new graphics card (you can find recommendations on our Best Graphics Cards page), you'll want to consider the capabilities of both sides of the connection — the video output of your graphics card and the video input on your display — before making any purchases. Our GPU Benchmarks hierarchy will tell you how the various graphics cards rank in terms of performance, but it doesn't dig into the connectivity options, which is something we'll cover here. 

The Major Display Connection Types 

The latest display connectivity standards are DisplayPort and HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface). DisplayPort first appeared in 2006, while HDMI came out in 2002. Both are digital standards, meaning all the data about the pixels on your screen is represented as 0s and 1s as it zips across your cable, and it's up to the display to convert that digital information into an image on your screen.
Earlier monitors used DVI (Digital Visual Interface) connectors, and going back even further we had VGA (Video Graphics Array) — along with component RGB, S-Video, composite video, EGA and CGA. You don't want to use VGA or any of those others in 2020, though. They're old, meaning, any new GPU likely won't even support the connector, and even if they did, you'd be using an analog that's prone to interference. Yuck.

DVI is the bare minimum you want to use today, and even that has limitations. It has a lot in common with early HDMI, just without audio support. It works fine for gaming at 1080p, or 1440p resolution if you have a dual-link connection. Dual-link DVI-D is basically double the bandwidth of single-link DVI-D via extra pins and wires, and most modern GPUs with a DVI port support dual-link.

If you're wondering about Thunderbolt 2/3, it actually just routes DisplayPort over the Thunderbolt connection. Thunderbolt 2 supports DisplayPort 1.2, and Thunderbolt 3 supports DisplayPort 1.4 video. It's also possible to route HDMI 2.0 over Thunderbolt 3 with the right hardware.

For newer displays it's best to go with DisplayPort or HDMI. But is there a clear winner between the two?