The gaming monitor has long been from high-end into a cabbage price, 1000 yuan up and down to get a good product, the money rich point, plus some money 2K high refresh rate, or even 200Hz + refresh rate can easily buy, now also out of the 360Hz refresh rate. However, many partners also reflect, buy the gaming monitor at all no claimed high refresh rate this is how it is? This is actually the display bandwidth and interface selection of the pot, let’s talk about this today.
Display bandwidth, that is, the amount of data transmission required by the display, it is simple to calculate, the so-called refresh rate is actually a second to display how many images, then a screen needs the amount of data × refresh rate is the bandwidth. To the most common 3 primary color pixels, 8bit color depth panel, for example, the amount of data for each color unit is 8bit, the amount of data for a pixel is 8bit × 3, then the formula for calculating the bandwidth is the resolution × refresh rate × 8bit × 3.
So we can do the math, such as the most common 144Hz display, 1080P resolution requires a bandwidth of 7.17Gbps, 2K resolution requires 12.74Gbps, trench partners hope that 4K games also reach 144Hz? It will have to be 28.67Gbps. What if it is the 300Hz+ refresh rate that just appeared recently? Of course, the bandwidth will be more than 144Hz doubled.
Know the bandwidth, we can match the interface, different interfaces, different versions are also different, for example, has been used for many years, basically all graphics cards can support the HDMI 1.4 interface bandwidth of 10.2Gbps, 1080P@144Hz display with little problem, the more recent HDMI 2.0 bandwidth of 18Gbps, more support to 2K@144Hz now.
Some partners probably noticed that why I did not say HDMI 1.4/2.0 can support 1080P/2K@165Hz? Look at the bandwidth should be no problem to say. This brings us to the actual bandwidth issue, because the video interface is also responsible for audio, control signals, HDR and other screen optimization data, plus transmission losses, so the bandwidth left for screen transmission will always be lower than the theoretical value.
More knowledgeable about the display partners may have a question again, HDMI 2.1/DP 2.0 has not been popular, but 4K gaming monitors have long been available. According to this real bandwidth, they use the DP 1.3/1.4 interface is simply unable to get the bandwidth. Here is indeed a bit fishy, in the high refresh rate, these 4K displays will reduce the chromaticity sampling, that is, not to use the full 8bit color display, to save bandwidth by reducing the picture quality.
Then, the monitor can not be on the high refresh rate of the partners should also understand what they should do it. Check out what interface your graphics card actually supports, maybe another interface with more bandwidth, use it to connect the monitor will be able to handle, if all interfaces are not up to the needs of the monitor, so at least you can also get as high as possible refresh. Then, you really need to consider upgrading the graphics card, RTX 30 or RX 6000 in the interface of course, there are upgrades.
