[bitmasher9]

It’s interesting that it uses 4 Display Ports and not a single HDMI.

Is HDMI seen as a “gaming” feature, or is DP seen as a “workstation” interface? Ultimately HDMI is a brand that commands higher royalties than DP, so I suspect this decision was largely chosen to minimize costs. I wonder what percentage of the target audience has HDMI only displays.

[Aurornis]

DisplayPort is the superior option for monitors. High end gaming monitors will have DisplayPort inputs.

Converting from DisplayPort to HDMI is trivial with a cheap adapter if necessary.

HDMI is mostly used on TVs and older monitors now.

[ThatPlayer]

I'd say that's a more recent development though because of how long it took for DisplayPort 2 products to make it to market. On both my RTX 4000 series GPU, and gaming 1440p240hz OLED monitor, HDMI 2.1 (~42 Gigabit) is the higher bandwidth port over its DisplayPort 1.4 (~26 Gigabit). So I use the HDMI ports. 26 Gigabit isn't enough for 1440p240z at 10-bit HDR colour. You can do it with DSC, but that comes with its own issues.

Only now are DisplayPort 2 monitors coming out

[unsnap_biceps]

HDMI is still valuable for those of us who use KVMs. Cheap Display port KVMs don't have EDID emulation and expensive Display Port KVMs just don't work (in my experience).

[Ardon]

The only well-reviewed DisplayPort KVMs I'm aware of are from Level1Techs: https://www.store.level1techs.com/products/kvm

Not cheap though. And also not 100% caveat-free.

[unsnap_biceps]

And even those still require a https://www.store.level1techs.com/products/p/dp-repeater-hdm... per port to make it so the computer doesn't detect the monitor switching away.

I have a Level1Techs hdmi KVM and it's awesome, and I'd totally buy a display port one once it has built in EDID cloners, but even at their super premium price point, it's just not something they're willing to do yet.

[mwpmaybe]

I have Linux (AMD RDNA2), Windows (NVIDIA Ada), and Mac (M3) systems hooked up to my L1T DP1.4 KVM[1] without any other gadgets and they all work fine. What problem(s) are you trying to solve/did you solve with the EDID cloner?

1. https://www.store.level1techs.com/products/p/14-display-port...

[unsnap_biceps]

Without the EDID cloner, when you switch the KVM away from the system, it receives a monitor disconnect event. When you switch it back, it receives a monitor connect event. There are OS settings that help make it so that the windows end up back where they started, but not all programs support this well. With a EDID cloner in place, the computer never detects that the monitor shifted at all and so nothing gets repositioned and apps just carry on.

[godman_8]

I have one and it still sucks. I ordered it after the one I bought on Amazon kind of sucked thinking the L1T would be better and it was worse than the Amazon one.

[mwpmaybe]

Say more?

[einsteinx2]

Cheap DP to HDMI adapter cables are easily available if you need an HDMI port for that.

[cjbconnor]

4x Mini DP is common for low profile workstation cards, see the Quadro P1000, T1000, Radeon Pro WX 4100, etc.

[klodolph]

This is the right answer. I see a bunch of people talking about licensing fees for HDMI, but when you’re plugging in 4 monitors it’s really nice to only use one type of cable. If you’re only using one type of cable, it’s gonna be DP.

[zh3]

You can also get GT730's with 4xHDMI - not fast, but great for office work and display/status boards type scenarios. Single slot passive design too, so you can stack several in a single PC. Currently just £63 UK each.

[0] https://www.amazon.co.uk/ASUS-GT730-4H-SL-2GD5-GeForce-multi...

[kasabali]

It's unbelievable that piece of shit is still selling for a ridiculous price.

[accrual]

Yeah, I recall even old Quadro cards in early Core era hardware often had quad mini DisplayPort.

[shmerl]

DP is perfectly fine for gaming (it's better than HDMI). The only reason HDMI is lingering around is the cartel which profits from patents on it, and manufacturers of TVs which stuff them with HDMI and don't provide DP or USB-C ports.

Otherwise HDMI would have been dead a long time ago.

[trueismywork]

HDMI also blocked open source driver by AMD.

https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/02/hdmi_blocks_amd_foss/

[amiga-workbench]

Because you can actually fit 4 of them without impinging airflow from the heatsink. Mini HDMI is mechanically ass and I've never seen it anywhere but junky Android tablets. DP also isn't proprietary.

[dale_glass]

HDMI requires paying license fees. DP is an open standard.

[mananaysiempre]

As far as things I care about go, the HDMI Forum’s overt hostility[1] to open-source drivers is the important part, but it would indeed be interesting to know what Intel cared about there.

(Note that some self-described “open” standards are not royalty-free, only RAND-licensed by somebody’s definiton of “R” and “ND”. And some don’t have their text available free of charge, either, let alone have a development process open to all comers. I believe the only thing the phrase “open standard” reliably implies at this point is that access to the text does not require signing an NDA.

DisplayPort in particular is royalty-free—although of course with patents you can never really know—while legal access to the text is gated[2] behind a VESA membership with dues based on the company revenue—I can’t find the official formula, but Wikipedia claims $5k/yr minimum.)

[1] https://hackaday.com/2023/07/11/displayport-a-better-video-i...

[2] https://vesa.org/vesa-standards/

[Solocle]

See, the openness is one reason I'd lean towards Intel ARC. They literally provide programming manuals for Alchemist, which you could use to implement your own card driver. Far more complete and less whack than dealing with AMD's AtomBIOS.

As someone who has toyed with OS development, including a working NVMe driver, that's not to be underestimated. I mean, it's an absurd idea, graphics is insanely complex. But documentation makes it theoretically possible... a simple framebuffer and 2d acceleration for each screen might be genuinely doable.

https://www.x.org/docs/intel/ACM/

[stephen_g]

I'm not 100% sure but last time I looked it wasn't openly available anymore - it may still royalty free but when I tried to download the specification the site said you had to be a member of VESA now to download the standard (it is still possible to find earlier versions openly).

[KetoManx64]

There are inexpensive ($10ish) converters that do DP > HDMI, but the inverse is much more expensive ($50-100)

[jsheard]

That's because DP sources can (and nearly always do) support encoding HDMI as a secondary mode, so all you need is a passive adapter. Going the other way requires active conversion.

I assume you have to pay HDMI royalties for DP ports which support the full HDMI spec, but older HDMI versions were supersets of DVI, so you can encode a basic HDMI compatible signal without stepping on their IP.

[stephen_g]

As long as the port supports it passively (called "DP++ Dual Mode"), if you have a DP-only port then you need an active converter which are the same as the latter pricing you mentioned.

[hamdingers]

Can't fit 4 of anything else in a half height bracket.

[hypercube33]

USB-C would fit and has display port alt mode, technically. Not much out there natively supports it. Mini DP can be passively converted to a lot however so I assume that was the choice. Also Nvidia workstation cards have similar port configuration.

[glitchc]

The latest DP standard has higher bandwidth and can support higher framerates at the same resolution.

[mrinterweb]

DisplayPort is the interface most gaming monitors use. If you don't need ARC or CEC, mostly used for home theater builds, DisplayPort is preferable.

[anikom15]

Video cards with HDMI don’t support CEC anyway. eARC is only relevant for TV to AVR connexions.

[StrangeDoctor]

There’s also weirdness with the drivers and hdmi, I think around encryption mainly. But if you only have DP and include an adapter, it’s suddenly “not my problem” from the perspective of Intel.

[emmelaich]

My monitor does 165Hz with DP, only 150 with HDMI.

[nottorp]

HDMI is shit. If you've never had problems with random machine hdmi port -> hdmi cable -> hdmi port on monitor you just haven't had enough monitors.

> Is HDMI seen as a “gaming” feature

It's a tv content protection feature. Sometimes it degrades the signal so you feel like you're watching tv. I've had this monitor/machine combination that identified my monitor as a tv over hdmi and switched to ycbcr just because it wanted to, with assorted color bleed on red text.