Cables

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Joel D
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Cables

Post by Joel D » 23 May 2020, 14:27

The long awaited convo ! lol

Searched and didn't see anything in detail related to these Q/A's.

What brands do you all like best for highest end, boutiquey level competitive gaming ? I know this questions always causes the roller coaster ride of debates, lol Those who believe high end cables are better and those that believe it’s impossibleto be better or worse if it’s digital info being passed through. Lets leave those opinions aside. Being in the music industry for decades, we all had those debates too. Especially once digital hit. Supposedly you shouldn’t be able to tell a difference of quality cause 0's and 1's are not like analog transference. BUT from personal and professional variable free triple blind testing for years I found that to be a totally wrong assumption. Somehow, for some reason there IS a difference. The debate can only be: do you like the difference or not. Not whether or not there is a difference, cause there IS a difference for sure.

(side note, even the $600 A/C power cables DO make a difference from the normal stock $10 power cables. Yes, lol a power cable can make a difference. So again, there IS a difference. Whether that difference is important to the listener/viewer though is another story.) - Again, lets leave that debate out.

First off, DisplayPort Cables. Having a issue. Getting my first 240hz monitor (1920x1080) and want to get the absolute highest quality best DP cable for it. (I'm sure what comes in the box is generic). So I been searching. Issues is, everywhere it says DP 1.4 cable it says its max hz and resolution supported is 2k @ 144hz in the description.

So what cable do I get to TRUELY support 2k@240hz and overkill would be nice. Also high end brand. Which is it ? I also searched to get a DP 2.0 cable and couldn't find one. Where are they ? What brand is best ? Links, send links !

Next question. Same question for HDMI 2.1, USB and CAT6 Ethernet cables (anyone using CAT7 ?). Share your cable ventures !

(To add further confusion - the monitor I'm getting says its DisplayPort is 1.2a - And in another graph I see that 1.2 or above would support 2k@240hz. So why the discrepancy ? Which is it ? BUT either way, I want a DisplayPort 1.4a cable or higher just for the hell of it. And for when I upgrade my equipment)

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Chief Blur Buster
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Re: Cables

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 25 May 2020, 10:58

Joel D wrote:
23 May 2020, 14:27
First off, DisplayPort Cables. Having a issue. Getting my first 240hz monitor (1920x1080) and want to get the absolute highest quality best DP cable for it. (I'm sure what comes in the box is generic). So I been searching. Issues is, everywhere it says DP 1.4 cable it says its max hz and resolution supported is 2k @ 144hz in the description.
Resolution and refresh rate in cable specifications should be ignored.

Look for "Gigabits Per Second" instead. That's the important number.

Cables are just bit buckets. Any cable that supports single-link 4K 60Hz can do 1080p 240Hz. It's the same bandwidth in number of pixels per second (four times the pixels at one-quarter refresh rate).

Cables don't know resolutions and refresh rates. They just handle number of pixels per second. The bit rate.

The fastest DisplayPort cables are about 77 gigabits per second (DisplayPort 2.0).

All cables capable of 8K 60Hz are simultaneously capable of 1440p 240Hz, because 8K 60Hz is higher bandwidth than 1440p 240Hz.

If you look in a Custom Resolution Utility, you'll see something called "Pixel Clock" or "Dot Clock". For the common 24bit color (8bpc) without Display Stream Compression (DSC), multiply this number by 24 to get your gigabits per second. Add approximately 25% overhead just to be safe, and that's the minimum bandwidth you should look for. For example, a 600 megahertz pixel clock (generous dot clock allowance for 240Hz) will require raw 14.4 gigabits per second, multiply by 1.25, and you got about 18 gigabits per second. In practice, with slightly reduced porches, 1080p 240Hz fits just barely within the DisplayPort 1.2 "bandwidth budget" of 17.28 gigabits per second, so the overhead can vary quite a bit, but headroom is always good.

So basically look for a high-rated reliable 8K compatible DisplayPort cable, and you will be fine for 1440p 240Hz.

Including overheads (DisplayPort overheads, blanking interval overheads such as porches and sync settings):
8K 60Hz = approx 60 gigabits per second
1440p 240Hz = approx 30-35 gigabits per second.

While you only need DisplayPort 1.4 bandwidth for 1440p 240Hz -- those "32.4 gigabit" cables (or faster) will handle 1440p 240Hz, but you'll probably prefer extra headroom like 77 gigabits per second, and are more likely to be more strongly engineered (e.g. better shielding, higher quality conductors, better connectors). There is a scientific case to spend extra for things like silver conductors/gold contacts/overkill shielding.

Other than that, I would focus on real engineered quality, scientific measurements, real-world reviews, and actual performance rather than a luxury tax. Many hyped three-figure-priced cables (of designer brand names) may just be as good as those well-engineered 40-to-80 dollar cables (of more boring brand names), behaving more of a luxury tax on an already-good cable. Many of those 40-to-80 dollar well-reviewed cables are already vastly superior to those 7 dollar generic chinese cables.

Several DisplayPort 1.4 cables can do DisplayPort 2.0, if it's sufficiently overengineered, with all the wires connected properly, but your mileage may vary (ala, YMMV). Now, having actual well-tested headroom is better, though...

The magic number you're looking for in the fastest 8K 60Hz capable cable is "77 gigabits per second", the number of DisplayPort 2.0 ... It can do 8K 120Hz with DSC. More DisplayPort 2.0 cables are advertised as 8K 60 Hz cables instead of DisplayPort 2.0 cables, so you will find cables much more easily this way. The slowest 8K 60 Hz capable cable is 32.4 gigabits per second (but requires DSC or non-4:4:4 in order to get 8K 60Hz), which is still enough for 1440p 240Hz.

Thusly, your google-fu search terms [Amazon, eBay, MonoPrice, etc] are:

"DisplayPort 8K 60 Hz"

You're welcome.
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Joel D
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Re: Cables

Post by Joel D » 25 May 2020, 14:18

Chief Blur Buster wrote:
25 May 2020, 10:58
Resolution and refresh rate in cable specifications should be ignored.

Look for "Gigabits Per Second" instead. That's the important number.

**edited - please see original post above for full reply**
I totally get what you're saying. Its exactly how I think too. Overkill is always best and never does you wrong. That said, I before googled exactly what you linked me to, and thats how the confusion started. Several cables say DP 1.4, yet specifically say 4k @ 144hz , etc.. and I know DP1.4 should be capable of more than that. (to another white paper graph I seen on all DP versions).

But now that you said to ignore that and just go by Gb/s, that makes all the sense in the world. As its the data transferring ability that is the real answer to anything. I get it. And I can get away with 17Gb/s for 2k@240hz, BUT overkill to 77 Gb/s and I'll not only be further proof BUT the general design of that cable has to be a better build. I like it. And yes thats what I want to do.

So the next issue is, even in the link you provided, none of those cables say DP 2.0 or 77Gb/s abilities. And they are all $17 or so.

I've searched and searched for DP 2.0 cables, and can't find one anywhere. The final question to that is - what BRAND do you use in a 77Gb/s DP cable ?

And could you give me a link to that cable being sold ? Looking for 6ft.

(PS - oh and does "Vesa Certified" matter ? I like the concept, to make sure from 3rd party testing that the product we buy meets its advertised spec claims - BUT if its anything like the messed up food labeling certifications and laws, that means its all BS - so curious if Vesa Certifications are legit ?)

Joel D
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Re: Cables

Post by Joel D » 31 May 2020, 15:39

Can I get a direct link to the 77Gb/s DisplayPort cable (and brand) you use/stand behind ?

I've searched and searched for literally 5 days straight with 0 results. They all say 32.4 Gb/s max on Amazon.

I found one, one time and thought I'd remember its name, and fell asleep. Woke up and now can't find it again. I swear it was Nexus or something very close like that. It looked high quality too. Vesa Certified as well.

THANKS !

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Re: Cables

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 31 May 2020, 15:54

Blur Busters does not yet use any 77 Gbit/sec DisplayPort cables yet as they're not needed by any of my displays in the lab yet.

You may have to search "16K DisplayPort cable" (16K coming after 8K), because that's where all the 77 gigabit comes from.

Here's one of them. www.amazon.co.uk/PremiumTech-DisplayPor ... lurbust-21

Way overkill for current monitors on the market, and manufacturers haven't started shipping me lab displays needing such a cable (yet...), but there you go.

I currently don't advise most users pay out of the wazoo for a $100 DisplayPort cable yet, but if people are very fussy, here's the manufacturer's site for a 16K DisplayPort 2.0 cable.

This cable will be capable of 1080p 1000Hz 24-bit 4:4:4 uncompressed. :D

But these $100 cables will be $20 by the time the 1000Hz monitors arrive in ~2025-2030...
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Joel D
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Re: Cables

Post by Joel D » 31 May 2020, 16:16

Chief Blur Buster wrote:
31 May 2020, 15:54
Blur Busters does not yet use any 77 Gbit/sec DisplayPort cables yet as they're not needed by any of my displays in the lab yet.
**edited - see original post above for entire reply**
Haha, ohhh ok. I misunderstood your previous post and thought you said you were recommending that, cause you use it for overkill cause the build is just better.

It seems to only be in Europe offered now, the Euro dollar, etc.. So I can see it might be a little too early still to go that overkill quite yet. lol My bad.

So may I ask this - when you want to test something and absolute build quality and confident of true advertised performance is needed, what is the brand and DisplayPort cable you use for such a vigorous test ? Link would be nice - thanks !

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Re: Cables

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 06 Jun 2020, 12:24

Joel D wrote:
31 May 2020, 16:16
So may I ask this - when you want to test something and absolute build quality and confident of true advertised performance is needed, what is the brand and DisplayPort cable you use for such a vigorous test ? Link would be nice - thanks !
For cables, we typically aim at high-rated cables on Amazon -- we usually leave cable reviews to other websites and to aggregate user reviews (something with 4.5+ stars over 1000+ user reviews).

However, a general rule of thumb, we try for reasonable overkill above our needs if a not-too-expensive DisplayPort cable. For example, an 8K capable DisplayPort cable for 1080p 240Hz. (Bandwidth of 32+ gigabit, more than twice what is needed for 1080p 240Hz).
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Joel D
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Re: Cables

Post by Joel D » 06 Jun 2020, 17:30

Chief Blur Buster wrote:
06 Jun 2020, 12:24
For cables, we typically aim at high-rated cables on Amazon -- we usually leave cable reviews to other websites and to aggregate user reviews (something with 4.5+ stars over 1000+ user reviews).

However, a general rule of thumb, we try for reasonable overkill above our needs if a not-too-expensive DisplayPort cable. For example, an 8K capable DisplayPort cable for 1080p 240Hz. (Bandwidth of 32+ gigabit, more than twice what is needed for 1080p 240Hz).
Ok thanks - got it -

I just went with KabelDirekt then. They got a Vesa Certified 8k (32.4Gb/s) 1.4 cable that has good reviews and looks solid to me. https://www.amazon.com/KabelDirekt-Disp ... 336L2?th=1 . If anyone has had bad experience with them, please let me know - I'll return before using and get something else.

Also Chief, how is the Vesa Certified regulations/concept ? Is that official ? Or just marketing BS ? If official, is it governed ? Laws protecting false claims, etc.. ? Or ???

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