DisplayPort 2.0 spec published, will use Thunderbolt 3, support resolutions up to 16K

It’s hard to envision what a 16K image would look like outside of mind blowing.

VESA on Wednesday announced the DisplayPort 2.0 video standard, the move marking the first major update to the DisplayPort standard since March 2016, increasing data bandwidth performance up to three times more than the previous version of DisplayPort 1.4a. 

The DisplayPort 2.0 is backwards compatible with previous versions of DisplayPort. The standard also includes all the key features of DisplayPort 1.4a, which includes bells and whistles such as visually lossless Display Stream Compression, HDR metadata transport, and Forward Error Correction.

The standard also utilizes the Thunderbolt 3 physical interface layer, DisplayPort 2.0 boosting the data bandwidth and promoting convergence across industry IO standards.

These new data rates will facilitate multi-stream transport of DisplayPort 2.0 devices for a single DisplayPort on the source device, driving multiple displays either via a docking station or displays that can be daisy-chained. It will also allow for simultaneous higher-speed USB data transfer without compromising display performance.

As mentioned, DisplayPort 2.0 can support resolutions up to 16K, higher refresh rates, HDR support at higher resolutions, improved support for multiple displays, and improvements to augmented and virtual reality displays. 

Supported resolutions for single-display units will jump to 15260×8460 at 60Hz with compression, or 10240 x 4320 at 60Hz with compression. Daisy-chaining displays allows for two 8K displays at 120Hz, or three 10K displays at 60Hz, all with Thunderbolt 3. Using only two lanes with a non-Thunderbolt 3 USB-C cable, DP Alternate Mode allows for three 4K displays at 144Hz, two 4K x 4K for virtual reality at 120Hz, or three 2450 x 1440 displays at 120Hz.

The first products with DisplayPort 2.0 are projected to hit the market by late 2020.

Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.

Via AppleInsider and VESA