Will USB-C Replace HDMI Port?
05-30-2023Will USB-C Replace HDMI Port?
USB-C was designed to be the universal de facto connector standard for delivering power and data to, from and between devices. You can see it on the latest smartphones, and laptops with increasing adoption by more device manufacturers. From high-end smartphones to budget ones, high-end laptops to budget ones, TVs and monitors. USB-C ports are popping off everywhere.
USB-C is a reversible connector in the sense that there is no wrong end and it is also symmetrical being that anyhow you plug it, it still goes in. This is in addition to the immense potential it has with its compatibility with USB-PD to deliver up to 240W and at the same time transfer data up to 40Gbps with the USB 4 standard. For example, you can stream a 4K video from your laptop and charge it at the same time with the same USB-C connection.
Furthermore, with support for DisplayPort 2.0, you can output 8k video with USB-C Alternate Mode (Alt Mode) connection with a better refresh rate provided it is supported. DisplayPort 2.0 which can use a USB-C connector can even go up to 16K or two 8K HDR monitors at 120Hz refresh rate compared to HDMI 2.1‘s 4K at 120Hz. This is because HDMI 2.1 has a max bandwidth of 48Gbps compared to DisplayPort 2.0’s 77.37Gbps. Also, via a USB-C connector, DisplayPort 2.0 allows devices to output to two displays without using an adapter thanks to MST (Multi Stream Technology) that way it natively offers more configuration options.
The discussed bandwidth is more of an on-paper feature as it is unlikely you’ll find a device that is capable of that max bandwidth (HDMI 48Gbps or DisplayPort 77.37Gbps) and even if they do finding a compatible device that can fully make use of it is another issue. However. more bandwidth means more pixels at higher fidelity, faster refresh rate, HDR support at higher resolution and other nice features. Nonetheless, Monitors and GPUs (most likely the Nvidia Lovelace and AMD RDNA 3) that support DisplayPort 2.0 are not coming out until later this year. Realistically, the full potential of the DisplayPort 2.0 isn’t supported for now but you can expect it to be better than the HDMI 2.1 standard when it is.
BY ODUNAYO EZEKIEL
