DVI-D or DVI-I?

[PetrolHead247]

At the moment i have 1 HDMI cable for my PC and everytime i want to go on the PS3 i need to faff around the back of the PC and unplug the HDMI and plug it into the PS3, it gets very tedious. So i've been thinking about getting a DVI Dual link cable for my PC and use the HDMI solely for the PS3, this means i can simply just switch inputs on the monitor, but what would be best for me; DVI-D or DVI-I? I looked up the differences between the two but i'm not sure which would be best.

 

[Josh Weston]

DVI-I is, on paper, the better option, just because it can transmit analogue signals along with digital ones. But, if you don't have something outputting analogue signals, there's really no point. Go with whatever cable's cheapest, I guess.

 

[PetrolHead247]

Sounds good to me! Gonna go for DVI-D as i have no devices which use analogue signals and its a bit cheaper too, cheers

 

[yassarikhan786]

The pin arrangement is different as far as I know, so one might not be compatible with your monitor. I might be wrong though.

 

[PetrolHead247]

The pin arrangement is different as far as I know, so one might not be compatible with your monitor. I might be wrong though.

Ah yes, seems like my monitor only supports DVI-D, but that's alright. Actually thinking about it i might have a dual link DVI-D cable lying around (but i could swear its a single link)

 

[yassarikhan786]

Ah yes, seems like my monitor only supports DVI-D, but that's alright. Actually thinking about it i might have a dual link DVI-D cable lying around (but i could swear its a single link)

Yeah, little difference between the two anyway.

 

[Josh Weston]

Am I right in saying that any DVI cable would fit in a DVI-I Dual Link port, Yassar?

 

[yassarikhan786]

Am I right in saying that any DVI cable would fit in a DVI-I Dual Link port, Yassar?

Yeh, I'm pretty sure it would.

 

[Josh Weston]

Note to self: only buy peripherals with DL DVI-I ports.

 

[Vicey]

This image should help:

You can see that on the DVI-I ones you have 4 extra pins around the left side.

The only reason you would want to use Dual Link cables is if you have a 120 Hz 24" display (for 3D gaming or just high FPS 2D) or a 2560x1440 / 2560x1600 60Hz display. The reason for this is that these displays need the extra bandwidth that the Dual Link interface provides. As the name suggests it runs two DVI data connections over the single cable. For anything lower the cheaper Single Link DVI cables are fine. These cables are thinner thus easier to hide and cheaper.

Most ports that you'll find on devices in my experience are the Single Link DVI-I variety but I've found on integrated graphics on motherboards, on the AMD side you'll find they use Dual Link DVI-D and a DVI-I (Dual or Single Link) wont fit. They do this because they don't support analogue output over the integrated DVI connections sometimes and instead have a dedicated VGA connector next to the DVI port.

 

[PetrolHead247]

Ah ok Vicey thanks for that, i'll probably just use the single link DVI-D cable that i have