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The card I am going to buy is a Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5770 which has 2x Dual-Link DVI-I and 1x HDMI outputs. My monitor will be a Viewsonic VX2260wm 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor which has 1x DVI-D and 1x HDMI inputs at 1920x1080.

Which type of DVI cable should I buy? Should I consider HDMI for any reason?

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3 Answers

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The video part of HDMI is electrically equivalent to DVI-D, so you will have the same quality signal, whether you go for HDMI or DVI.

You can put a male DVI-D connector into a female DVI-I connector, so you can connect the card to your monitor using a DVI-D cable.

That said, a decent HDMI lead can be bought for around $10. If you intend to watch HDCP content, then you need an HDMI lead. To ensure HDMI playback of HDCP content all parts of the signal chain must be HDCP compliant, as far as I can make out the monitor and graphics card are both HDCP compliant so if I were you I'd get an HDMI lead.

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DVI is an open standard, HDMI is proprietary, if the monitor has speakers and you want to use the the sound from the ATI card or if you want to play encrypted HD content, go for HDMI.

other than that, there's no difference in quality.

but i'm surprised that you have to buy a cable, they're usually included with the monitor, although i have no experience with Viewsonic.

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But which type of DVI cable? – Callum Rogers Dec 31 '09 at 0:13
HDMI and DVI are the same signal, tho HDMI-enabled products may provide for the HDCP copy protection. i don't know if an HDCP-enabled video card will output HDCP over DVI (doubt it, but possible, since HDMI and DVI are the same signal). – quack quixote Dec 31 '09 at 0:27
@Callum: check the box contents with your retailer (or check with the manufacturer's site) to see what cables are included with the monitor. it's likely a workable cable is in the package already. – quack quixote Dec 31 '09 at 0:28
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Dual-link DVI cables are more bulky than single-link DVI cables (more internal wires). HDMI cables are less bulky than DVI cables.

For 1920x1080 you'll only need a single-link DVI cable (which is probably the cheapest of the three).

If you want to carry audio (and the video card and monitor both support it) on the same cable, then you'll want to go HDMI.

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