VESA has officially introduced the new DisplayPort 2.1 standard, three years after the introduction of DP 2.0. It enables data rates of up to 80 Gbps. Two 8K displays at 120 Hz and HDR are possible.
DisplayPort 2.1 standard is here
In a press release, the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) has officially unveiled the new DisplayPort 2.1 standard. Version 2.1 is fully backwards compatible with DisplayPort 2.0 and also all corresponding devices with the previous standard are already certified for the new version and can still be used.
Using a total of four UHBR20 (Ultra-high Bit Rate) channels, DisplayPort 2.1 realizes data rates of up to 80 Gbit/s, which are divided equally between the channels. Whether the end devices are connected via a native DP cable, Mini-DisplayPort, USB Type-C or a docking station is irrelevant for the speed.
In addition, DP 2.1 has been directly integrated into the new USB 4 2.0 standard, which enables a more efficient distribution of data and display signals. VESA’s lossless Display Stream Compression (DSC) codec can now provide an additional bandwidth for data signals and reduce the data rate of images by 67 percent without sacrificing quality.
More bandwidth for data and new cables
Even more, VESA’s Panel Replay feature is able to save up to 99 percent of the bandwidth otherwise required for static content without loss, and make it available to tethered USB devices.
A new label on corresponding DisplayPort cables also provides information about the maximum possible data rate at a glance, while at the same time the robustness of the strands is said to have been improved. DP40 cables can now realize up to 40 Gbit/s with a length of more than two meters, the fast DP80 cables with the full bandwidth may be a maximum of one meter long.
