DisplayPort 2.0 taps Thunderbolt 3 to drive 2 8K displays or one 16K screen over a single cable

Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) yesterday announced DisplayPort 2.0, a major update to the pop digital display interface that inwards its latest incarnation leverages the ability of Thunderbolt 3 to simultaneously drive 2 displays at 8K resolution (7,680 x 4,320 pixels) each over a unmarried cable, or ane display at a whopping 16K resolution (15,360 × 8,460 pixels).

It delivers 3 times the data bandwidth versus the previous DisplayPort 1.4a standard.

Concretely, y'all larn the maximum link charge per unit of measurement of 77.37 Gbp (up to twenty Gbps per each of the 4 lanes) versus a maximum link bandwidth of 32.4 Gbps for the DisplayPort 1.4a standard.

“This agency that DisplayPort 2.0 is the commencement criterion to back upward 8K resolution (7,680 x 4,320 pixels) at a refresh charge per unit of measurement of threescore Hz amongst full-color 4:4:4 resolution, including amongst xxx bits per pixel for HDR10 support,” the organization wrote inwards the press release.

Thanks to the increased video bandwidth performance, DisplayPort 2.0 enables simultaneous higher-speed USB information transfer without compromising display performance.

With added throughput come upward other perks: beyond-8K resolutions, higher refresh rates for 4K together with virtual reality apps, besides equally deeper colors amongst high dynamic gain (HDR) back upward (30 bits per pixel for a sum of billion colors) at higher resolutions. Best of all, because DisplayPort 2.0 includes back upward for Thunderbolt 3.0 together with USB-C, both native together with USB-C connectors volition automatically back upward all the novel features without requiring whatever hardware update.

DisplayPort 2.0 is backward-compatible amongst previous versions together with packs inwards all the telephone commutation features of DisplayPort 1.4a, including back upward for visually lossless Display Stream Compression (DSC) amongst Forward Error Correction (FEC), HDR metadata carry together with more.

In add-on to all of the above, the novel DisplayPort 2.0 criterion uses the to a greater extent than efficient 128b/132b channel coding together with includes a display current information mapping protocol.

VESA explains:

This mutual mapping farther facilitates multi-stream carry back upward of DisplayPort 2.0 devices for a unmarried DisplayPort port on the root device to drive multiple displays either via a docking station or daisy-chainable displays.

First products using the novel criterion should larn inwards past times belatedly 2020.

Here are unopen to interesting examples of the types of video configurations made possible past times the increased bandwidth of the upgraded DisplayPort standard:

• Single display resolutions
  
  
  
  • One 16K (15360×8460) display at threescore Hz together with xxx bpp 4:4:4 HDR (with DSC)
  
  
  • One 10K (10240×4320) display at 60Hz together with 24 bpp 4:4:4 (no compression)
  
  
  
  


• Dual display resolutions
  
  
  
  • Two 8K (7680×4320) displays at 120Hz together with xxx bpp 4:4:4 HDR (with DSC)
  
  
  • Two 4K (3840×2160) displays at 144Hz together with 24 bpp 4:4:4 (no compression)
  
  
  
  


• Triple display resolutions
  
  
  
  • Three 10K (10240×4320) displays at 60Hz together with xxx bpp 4:4:4 HDR (with DSC)
  
  
  • Three 4K (3840×2160) displays at 90Hz together with xxx bpp 4:4:4 HDR (no compression)
  
  
  
  

Aside from the higher upward setups, DisplayPort 2.0 tin plough over the axe enable simultaneous SuperSpeed USB information together with video when using alone 2 lanes on the USB-C connection via Alt Mode:

• Three 4K (3840×2160) displays @144Hz together with xxx bpp 4:4:4 HDR (with DSC


• Two 4Kx4K (4096×4096) displays (for AR/VR headsets) @120Hz together with xxx bpp 4:4:4 HDR (with DSC)


• Three QHD (2560×1440) @120Hz together with 24 bpp 4:4:4 (no compression)


• One 8K (7680×4320) display @30Hz together with xxx bpp 4:4:4 HDR (no compression)

This is the commencement major update to the DisplayPort criterion since March 2016.

DisplayPort has been supported past times the Thunderbolt specification since the standard’s inception. Thunderbolt I/O basically combines PCI Express together with DisplayPort into 2 series signals, together with additionally provides DC power, all inwards ane cable.

Thunderbolt 1 together with Thunderbolt 2 locomote the same miniature connection equally Mini DisplayPort, a smaller version of the port aimed at notebooks together with other portable devices. As Thunderbolt 3 re-uses the USB-C connection from USB, it only plant amongst all USB-C peripherals.

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