HDMI and DisplayPort cables are one of the most overpaid-for items in tech, especially by people who don’t know any better. From a non-techie’s perspective, it makes sense to assume that you need a premium cable to go with a $1,000 4K OLED TV. You can’t just plug in a $5 cable and expect everything to work, right?
Shockingly, that’s exactly what I did—I used a knock-off, unbranded, and uncertified HDMI cable to connect my gaming PC to my TV, and everything worked just fine. Allow me to explain.
A digital cable either works or it doesn’t
They’re about as binary as it gets
Back in the day, when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, and people used analog cables to connect their PCs and TV receivers to monitors and TVs, cable quality really did matter.
If an analog cable like VGA or RCA used poor-quality copper or had poor soldering, the signal could degrade, resulting in a dimmer and less stable image.
They were also extremely sensitive to interference. If you ran a poorly shielded cable near a power strip, you could easily experience issues like ghosting, flickering, or even horizontal or vertical lines running across the screen.
Quiz
HDMI, DisplayPort, and beyond
Trivia challenge
From HDMI to DisplayPort — see how much you really know about the cables and connectors powering your screens.
HDMIDisplayPortConnectorsStandardsVideo Tech
Which version of HDMI first introduced support for 4K resolution at 60Hz?
That’s right! HDMI 2.0, released in 2013, was the first version to support 4K at 60Hz with up to 18 Gbps of bandwidth. HDMI 1.4 could do 4K but only at 30Hz, which felt noticeably choppy for most content.
Not quite — the answer is HDMI 2.0. While HDMI 1.4 introduced 4K support, it was capped at 30Hz. HDMI 2.0 bumped bandwidth to 18 Gbps, finally enabling smooth 4K at 60 frames per second.
What organization developed and maintains the DisplayPort standard?
Correct! VESA, the Video Electronics Standards Association, created DisplayPort and released version 1.0 back in 2006. VESA is the same body behind older standards like VGA and the monitor mounting pattern most people still use today.
The correct answer is VESA — the Video Electronics Standards Association. It’s easy to mix up standards bodies, but VESA has been behind DisplayPort since its debut in 2006, while the HDMI Forum manages the competing HDMI standard.
Which display connector type uses a 20-pin trapezoid-shaped design that cannot be inserted upside down?
Spot on! The standard DisplayPort connector uses a distinctive 20-pin asymmetric trapezoid shape, which means it only fits one way — no fumbling in the dark. This was a deliberate design choice to prevent accidental damage from forced insertion.
The answer is DisplayPort. Its 20-pin trapezoid shape has a notch on one side that prevents upside-down insertion, unlike HDMI which many people have accidentally tried to plug in backwards at least once. It’s one of DisplayPort’s underrated usability wins.
What is the maximum bandwidth supported by HDMI 2.1?
Excellent! HDMI 2.1 supports up to 48 Gbps of bandwidth, enabling features like 8K at 60Hz, 4K at 120Hz, and Variable Refresh Rate (VRR). It’s why HDMI 2.1 became a key selling point for PS5 and Xbox Series X gaming.
The correct answer is 48 Gbps. HDMI 2.0 topped out at 18 Gbps, but HDMI 2.1 nearly tripled that to 48 Gbps. This huge leap unlocked 4K/120Hz gaming and 8K video, making it the standard of choice for next-gen consoles and high-end TVs.
Which older display connector standard transmitted both analog and digital signals depending on the variant used?
Right! DVI came in several flavors — DVI-A carried only analog, DVI-D carried only digital, and DVI-I carried both. This made DVI a transitional standard that could bridge the gap between older analog CRT monitors and newer digital flat panels.
The answer is DVI. VGA was purely analog, but DVI was designed as a transitional format with multiple variants: DVI-A (analog only), DVI-D (digital only), and DVI-I (both). That versatility helped it bridge the CRT-to-LCD transition era of the early 2000s.
DisplayPort supports a feature called Multi-Stream Transport (MST). What does this allow?
Correct! Multi-Stream Transport lets you daisy-chain multiple monitors from a single DisplayPort output on your GPU, as long as each display supports MST passthrough. It’s a powerful feature for clean multi-monitor setups without needing extra ports on your graphics card.
The right answer is daisy-chaining multiple monitors. MST (Multi-Stream Transport) is one of DisplayPort’s most practical advantages over HDMI, letting a single port drive several displays in a chain. HDMI has no equivalent — each HDMI display requires its own dedicated port.
Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 4 use which physical connector form factor?
That’s right! Thunderbolt 3 and 4 both use the USB Type-C connector, which is why ports are often labeled with a lightning bolt symbol to distinguish them. Thunderbolt 4 can carry DisplayPort 2.0 signals, meaning a single small USB-C port can drive high-res external monitors.
The answer is USB Type-C. Intel’s Thunderbolt 3 moved away from the Mini DisplayPort connector used in Thunderbolt 1 and 2, adopting USB-C instead. This is why modern laptops can use the same tiny port for charging, data transfer, and connecting 4K displays.
Which display connection standard was specifically designed as a royalty-free replacement for VGA in computers, and explicitly prohibited from being used in consumer electronics like TVs?
Spot on! DisplayPort was intentionally designed for the PC market and its specification originally prohibited use in consumer electronics — a deliberate market split from HDMI. It’s royalty-free for manufacturers to implement, which helped drive its adoption across PC monitors and laptops.
The answer is DisplayPort. VESA designed DisplayPort specifically for the PC ecosystem as a royalty-free alternative to VGA and DVI, and the original spec actually barred its use in televisions and consumer AV gear — that territory was left to HDMI. This market split largely still holds today.
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Fortunately, it’s been many years since we’ve moved to newer standards like DisplayPort and HDMI, both of which are digital.
Digital signals can still suffer from interference and electrical noise, but because they encode data as 1s and 0s, they’re far more robust and easier to reconstruct at the receiving end. These cables also use differential signaling, meaning they send the signal across a pair of wires in opposite phases to help cancel out interference.
This all sounds complicated, but what matters in practice is simple: as long as transmission errors stay within a certain limit, a digital interface can correct or ignore them, and you still get a perfect image. On the flip side, if the cable is affected by too much interference or has a physical defect, you’ll quickly run into issues, like flickering, signal dropouts, or, most commonly, a black screen.
This is called the “cliff effect”: unlike an analog signal that gradually degrades, a digital signal holds up perfectly until it hits a limit, at which point quality drops off abruptly and falls off a cliff. In practice, this means that if you plug in an HDMI or DisplayPort cable and don’t notice flickering, artifacts, or signal drops, you’re already getting the best possible image quality.
The cheapest HDMI and DisplayPort cables really do work
Budget doesn’t have to break functionality
You’re probably wondering why I used the cheapest DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.1 cables to connect my TV and secondary monitor to my PC. The obvious answer is cost, but I also wanted to see just how bad a cable I could get away with before running into issues.
The reviews seemed decent, so I ordered a pretty cheap, unbranded HDMI 2.1 10-foot cable and a DP 1.4 10-foot cable off Temu for around $6 each. I essentially got these cables for half the price of a decent budget option like the Anker Certified Ultra High-Speed HDMI 2.1 cable, so not bad.
Surprisingly, these cheap cables aren’t the worst quality in the world. Although they’re significantly thinner than the OEM cables that came with my 240Hz LG monitor—which likely means they use thinner gauge wiring—they still have nylon braiding, gold plating (which doesn’t matter), and a rubber neck that protects them from sharp bends.
The DisplayPort cable completely lacks a locking mechanism, which means it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence when plugging it in, but once it’s fully inserted, it works just fine.
As for the signal, I wasn’t too worried about the DisplayPort cable for my secondary monitor, since it only needed to carry a 1080p signal at 100Hz. The required bandwidth is a fraction of what DisplayPort 1.4 can handle.
My TV, however, really gave the ultra-cheap and relatively long HDMI 2.1 cable a run for its money. I pushed it to its limits by running various games at 4K at 120Hz with FreeSync, 12-bit color depth, and HDR enabled, and to my surprise, the cable handled it all without issue. I never experienced signal dropouts or any other glitches with this cheap, frail cable.
Why treating DisplayPort like an HDMI cable is bottlenecking your gaming monitor
Simply plugging in a DisplayPort cable won’t unlock your monitor’s true performance
Better quality cables can still save you headaches
Going cheap can show its limits in edge cases
Although I got lucky with my cheap cables, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you should buy the cheapest cables on the market. However, this doesn’t mean you should rush out and buy an $80 HDMI cable either—there’s a balancing act here.
First and foremost, if you want to reliably get the maximum bandwidth and features supported by a given version of DisplayPort or HDMI, you should use a certified cable.
For example, to take advantage of the full 48 Gbps bandwidth of HDMI 2.1, you need an “Ultra High Speed HDMI” certified cable, usually identified by an official certification label and QR code on the packaging. Without it, you may not reliably achieve full HDMI 2.1 performance, and depending on cable quality and length, you could be limited to lower resolutions or refresh rates (such as 4K at 60Hz instead of 120Hz).
Another advantage of a high-quality cable is physical durability. A thicker cable is generally harder to damage internally than a thin one.
The only time you should consider investing in a more expensive cable is when you’re running unusually long distances that exceed the normal passive limits for HDMI or DisplayPort, where active cables or optical solutions may be required.
Why a long HDMI cable is the best thing I’ve bought in months
What’s the opposite of wireless? Wiremore?
Certified cables are cheap and easy to find—so buy them whenever you can
The simplest, safest choice
You should never overspend on a digital cable. If you’re buying an HDMI cable, you just need to make sure it’s the right length for your setup and that it’s an Ultra High Speed (HDMI 2.1) certified model from a reputable brand. The same goes for DisplayPort—the most reliable choice is a VESA Certified DisplayPort cable.
Stephan is the sports journalist for the Maple Grove Report.
