rudy
[H]F Junkie
- Joined
- Apr 4, 2004
- Messages
- 8,704
DVI Cons:
- Enormous plug. Larger than anything since old printer cables.
- 5 different implementations of DVI: Single link DVI-A, DVI-D and DVI-I, as well as Dual-Link DVI-D and DVI-I. This is immensely confusing to many people who only know "Its DVI", especially since there is substantial ambiguity on how the connectors are made. A port that LOOKS like Dual-Link DVI-I (aka all the holes) might only support Single Link DVI-I. Or a Dual-link DVI-I cable might not plug into a Dual-Link DVI-D port, due to missing holes.
- The connector is simply out of date. It has bendable pins, which obviously can ruin the entire cable, and it is difficult to plug in blind (eg. behind a PC which you can reach but not see). Plus you have to screw it in :/
- Uses 2 data channels. This restricts the amount of DVI-outs a graphics card can have. I don't know for Nvidia, but AMD 7000 series cards have a max of 6 data output channels, so you can't have 2 DL-DVI, 2 mDP, 1 HDMI, for example. However, you CAN have 6 Displayport/HDMI outs since they only take 1 channel each.
- No defined Maximum Bandwidth. As such, you DO NOT KNOW what your cable will support because there is no standard max. Also, this leads to interesting situations with drivers. Nvidia recently capped their Dual-Link DVI outputs to 330Mhz pixel clock via drivers. Before that, we hadn't found a max. However, Nvidia can do this because their is no "max" they have to meet. AMD cards are similar, although depending on the series there were (and are) different ways of working around this.
All that said, I'm well aware that DVI is pretty functional for most people. I just think it's an old, outdated standard that needs to be done away with. I'm sure I've overlooked a few things though.
lol but half your reasons can just as easily be seen as pros or do not hold water considering the reality of other standards.
There are multiple different itterations or HDMI and DP too, ask all the people who had to upgrade to get 3D functionality, do you want to pass ethernet over HDMI? Yep you will need a different cord and good luck if you expect all your devices will support that. So how is that any different than DVI? They just traded one standard for another, in all honesty we only gained one thing from HDMI, that was passing audio, because nothing else like ethernet ever took off and it confuses the heck out of customers since most dont even know what all the different standards mean.
Dont forget to throw out your $500 reciever and buy a new one as well as TV when neither support 3D and then when you replace them you realize your cable might not either and you have no way at all to tell from looking at it unlike DVI.
You say you HAVE TO screw dvi in? No you dont you can opt not to I say you have the most useful option too screw it in because I have had plenty of hard to reach HDMI cables slip out and that never would have happened with a positive retention system.
There is no top end standard? Well that open ended nature turned out pretty well since nearly all of use running large monitors or high frequency monitors are thanking DVI for giving us an option to use our existing capable devices to drive these displays instead of being forced to upgrade to HDMI (oh wait that cant handle it) or display port.
Simply put you might freak out because a DVI port is large but they built the standard far better than the idiots who are doing HDMI or DP. They built it to handle flow and have immense backwards and forward compatibility. In 2012 your fancy brand new state of the art GTX 680 will ship with 2 DVI ports, and there is a reason for that because the people who made HDMI, and DP are morons.
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