TR Forums

Heh, I got my new 4k Dual DVI to HDMI plug in and when
I compared it to the old one that came with the AMD 4870
I saw that the whole problem of not getting the full 1440p output
of the card was that the original converter plug was NOT Dual DVI!

Those cheap lazy "bleeps". I thought it was the "old HDMI" part of the plug
and it was all the plain DVI part of it.
Of course I don't know if the version level of the "old HDMI" port segment would
limit anything or not.
But the non Dual DVI portion sure did...Arggg

I should have noticed but how much does a few copper pins cost.
Never gave a thought that they would put out such a cheap product.

The HDMI 1.3 spec that brought HDMI up to Dual-link bandwidth was finalised in 2006 while the 4870 was released in 2008 so we're talking pretty cutting edge tech here. Dual link DVI to HDMI is not just a simple pin adapter* so it's possible the converter circuitry was unavailable or unduly expensive at that moment in time.

*They're the same protocol but HDMI achieves the higher bandwidth by doubling the transmission speed, instead of doubling the number of cables as dual-link DVI does.

AMD did use non-standard DVI to HDMI adaptors around at that time to support audio from a DVI socket, so it's possible they could support HDMI 1.3 bandwidth by driving the DVI socket at double speed, which would only need a single link's worth of pins. It may also have been that they had to choose between audio-capable and 2560x1600-capable adapters and felt the former would be more useful to more people.

Well, that was interesting...

The new Dual DVI To HDMI worked. Went from 1080p to 1440p.
The max listed for the 4870.
BUT the font was trashed at anything above 1080p.
A single letter would be part white part dark. If you made it big enough you could read it.

I bought a 460 4Gig for $99 for my 16 core threadripper to get 1440p but not doing that for the 8 core Ryzen.
I'll just wait till for the next new AMD cards and maybe have the luck to be able to buy one on release day.
When ever that happens. Then the 8 core will get a "hand me down".

Thanks, for the HDMI info.
For some reason, the HDMI spec level is just not listed in any of the products I was looking at.
Even the converter plug I bought did not list it. Thankfully it did say 4k.