Hey folks, I’ve got two 1920x1080 monitors that are connected to my PC (with a 1070TI) via DP->HDMI cables. I’ve recently purchased a Dock (DELL wd22tb4) for my work laptop and want to use the same monitors. My monitors have hdmi and dvi inputs (let’s ignore the vga).
Since the dock has DP outputs as well, I can either get a pair of DP->DVI cables and connect the dock via them or I can swap them with the current hdmi ones (so the dock gets hdmi and the pc gets dvi).
Would either approach be better? I use the pc for occasional gaming, but 1920@60hz is my cap (until a very expensive pc upgrade), so I don’t need anything more for the near future.
I’d go HDMI. Converting to DVI can really bite you, some monitors require dual-link DVI to work and that requires an active adapter that you have to plug into USB and they’re also rather pricy. And in my case it didn’t even work properly, it’s a weird 1440p monitor that basically maxes out DVI-D so it has to be pretty much perfect. I had to provide my own modeline with tweaked timings to get a stable picture. And there’s the analog VGA pins embedded in the DVI port that some monitors might use as well. It’s kind of a mess.
DP to HDMI also requires an active adapter but it’s a much more common port these days, adapters are plentiful and cheaper, and you can passively adapt HDMI to DVI (HDMI 1.0 is basically single link DVI on the wire) for really cheap if you ever need to.
Speaking of passive adapters, be careful. It’s kind of like USB-C in some aspects: some of them exists solely to physically adapt the port and the source device knows to switch protocol and there’s competing ways to do the same thing. So you can get a passive DP to HDMI and end up with nothing. Check what the dock supports and what your monitor supports.
I would do DVI, because HDMI is proprietary and can come back to bite you sometimes
For your uses, assuming you aren’t using headphones or speakers connected to the monitors, DVI should be just fine. HDMI would get you that audio connection (if the monitor has it).
We use a lot of DP to DVI at the office (the monitors are an old HP model that refuse to play nice with DP to DP) and it largely “just works”.
