There are always new tech surprises at CES and this time we get an upgrade to both the popular display interfaces with HDMI 2.2 and Display Port 2.1b. Let’s quickly look at the improvements, upgrades, and future availability of HDMI 2.2.
HDMI 2.2 Overview
Increased bandwidth
The new HDMI standard brings double the bandwidth of its predecessor at 96Gbps. This allows support for much higher resolutions at a variety of refresh rates. HDMI 2.2 can support 4k at up to 480Hz, 8K at up to 240Hz, 10k at up to 120Hz, and even 16k resolution. That’s a whopping 8 billion pixels per second (16k at 60Hz) without accounting for overheads. For context, the current display standards: HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 2.1 can power 8k displays at 60Hz and 120Hz respectively.
Note: DP 2.1 also supports 16k at 60Hz but is limited to 8k at 120Hz.
Same connector, new cable
Thankfully, the HDMI connector remains the same as previous generations but you are going to need a new cable to take advantage of this increased bandwidth. The ‘ULTRA96 HDMI Cable’ is much thicker than your typical HDMI 2.1 cable but it does unlock new possibilities for high FPS 8k or even 16k gaming in the future.
The HDMI Forum Inc. also introduced Latency Indication Protocol (LIP) that improves audio video sync for TVs and soundbars. Say goodbye to dealing with trailing dialogues and de-sync in multi-hop systems even when using multiple audio/video receivers.
DP 2.1b
Well, DisplayPort also got a small bump with new DP80LL (‘low loss’) active cables that offer 80Gbps of bandwidth for up to 3 meters utilizing a four-lane UHBR20 link rate. Previously, that kind of bandwidth was limited to just under a meter with the existing DP80 (passive) cables. There’s not much hardware that can fully utilize all its features, but NVIDIA’s recently announced RTX 50 series graphics do support DP 2.1b.
HDMI 2.2 Availability
HDMI 2.2 will be available to TV and display brands in Q2 of 2025. But, it’ll likely be a lot longer before we see widespread adoption and market availability. HDMI 2.1 was introduced back in 2017, and it took a few years just to see the first TVs with this tech. Widespread adoption took even longer at around 4-5 years. So, if the new version follows a similar timeline, we’ll only get to see HDMI 2.2 as an industry standard sometime around 2030.
- Meanwhile, check out our impressions of the Redmi G24 budget gaming monitor:
