Displayport 2.0 standard with 8k support is based on Thunderbolt 3

The Video Electronics Standards Association has released version 2.0 of the displayport standard. Displayport 2.0 uses the phy layer of Thunderbolt 3.0, offers significantly higher bandwidth and also works over USB-C. Products are expected at the end of 2020.

Version 2.0 of displayport is the first major update for displayport since 2016, when displayport 1.4 was released. Compared to that generation, the throughput has tripled from 25.92Gbit/s to 77.4Gbit/s. Partly because of this, there is now support for uncompressed 8k resolutions at 60Hz with 4:4:4 chroma subsampling. In addition, displayport 2.0 can handle three bits per pixel for hdr10.

There is also support for higher resolutions and in combination with display stream compression, for example, two 8k screens at 120Hz can be controlled via one connection. Dsc is a compression standard of the VESA that according to the organization offers compression without visible loss of quality.

Displayport 2.0 works not only via the displayport connector, but also via usb-c thanks to the DP Alt mode. If data must also be able to run simultaneously via USB-C, and two lanes are reserved for displayport, the maximum supported resolution or refresh rate is somewhat more limited. Then, for example, delivering an uncompressed image to an 8k screen is possible, but at a maximum of 30Hz. Two 4k screens can then still be controlled at 144Hz, but with dsc.

The VESA has partnered with Intel to leverage Thunderbolt 3’s physical interface layer for the new Displayport standard. Intel released the specification for Thunderbolt in 2017. USB 4 will also be based on Thunderbolt 3.

Also new is the support for panel replay. This is a technique that is comparable to panel self-refresh and that should help to reduce the consumption of high-resolution screens, so that laptops can have a longer battery life, for example. In the technique, the video processor or gpu only updates parts of the screen where the image has changed.

New video cards and monitors are needed to make use of the new possibilities. The VESA expects such products to appear for the first time in late 2020.