HDMI 2.2 is coming: If you want to get the most out of your hardware, you'll probably need new cables

The HDMI standard is being upgraded. (Image source: OLEKSANDR via Adobe Stock)

It was eight years ago that the HDMI Forum announced the new standard HDMI 2.1. The associated specification was presented at the CES 2017.

Now its successor is in the starting blocks: like the portalVideocardzwith reference to available press releases, the HDMI 2.2 standard will be presented at the upcoming CES 2025 (from January 7th to 11th).

  • The associated press conference will take place on January 6, 2025 at 7 p.m. German time. The heads of the HDMI forum Chandlee Harrell and Rob Tobias will be introduced at this.
  • The conference itself will be about “version 2.2 of the HDMI specification”.
  • The invitation to the press conference does not provide many details about the standard. There is only talk of “new specifications” and a “higher bandwidth”. The latter point should also result in new cables to utilize the full bandwidth of HDMI 2.2.

A comparison with DisplayPort 2.1 and the previous standard is useful at this point: While DP 2.1 with UHBR20 achieves around 77.37 Gbps, HDMI 2.1 can only shine with 48 Gbps.

Without compression like DSC, this is no longer sufficient for 4K resolution at 240 Hertz with 8-bit color depth - around 55 Gbps is required here. With 10 bit color depth, a good 69 Gbps is required.

Whether HDMI 2.2 will achieve these values ​​remains to be hoped for, and not just for the PC market. AV receivers and televisions could also benefit from the new specification, as DisplayPort 2.1, which is suitable for such data throughputs, is primarily found in PC monitors.

HDMI 2.2: Probably too early for the new GPUs

It remains questionable whether the date before the keynotes from AMD and Nvidia, which will probably present the new RDNA 4 and Blackwell graphics cards at CES, also means that HDMI 2.2 is on board in the GPUs.

At least in the case of HDMI 2.1, years passed before the connection was actually found in graphics cards: While the specification itself was presented in January 2017, as mentioned at the beginning, the Nvidia RTX 3000 and AMD RX 6000 only came with HDMI more than three years later 2.1 onto the market.