4K has not even made it to mainstream yet, but the Video Electronics Standard Association (VESA) has just announced DisplayPort 1.3, a new standard that can support monitors with 5K resolution.
VESA said the DisplayPort 1.3 is the replacement to the existing 1.2a standard, which is what is widely used today. DisplayPort 1.3 allows monitors to support 5K, or resolutions up to 5120 x 2880. By comparison, 4K monitors have a resolution of 3824 x 2160 and have not been widely adopted just yet because of their high costs. To date, the cheapest 4K screen users can get right now is a 28-inch LED monitor from Samsung, which sells for $600 on Amazon. Even at that high price, this 4K monitor is still considered extremely cheap for a 4K screen.
VESA claims that the new standard is 50 percent faster than DisplayPort 1.2a, with each of the four lanes running at a link rate of 8.1 Gbps each, totaling up to a maximum link bandwidth of 32.4 Gbps. With a higher link rate per lane, users can expect better performance as DisplayPort 1.3 can drive 5K displays at 60 Hz and 24-bit color using two lanes. The remaining two lanes are assigned for SuperSpeed USB and other types of data.
The higher bandwidth also enables DisplayPort 1.3 to support 5K monitors using a single cable and without video compression. DisplayPort 1.3's Multi-Stream technology also lets users run two 4K monitors at spontaneously using a single connection. On top of that, DisplayPort 1.3 comes with future-proof support for 4:2:0 pixel structure, which means it enables the use of 8K x 4K screens in the future.
"These new enhancements to DisplayPort will facilitate both higher resolution displays, as well as easier integration of DisplayPort into multi-protocol data transports, which will satisfy consumers' desire for simplicity and ease-of-use," says Alan Kobayashi, chair of the board of directors of VESA.
DisplayPort is an alternative to high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) connectors to connect computers to TV monitors. It is used in several multi-function interface standards, including DockPort and Thunderbolt, the standard used in Apple's Mac computers, and also supports other data transfer protocols such as transfers made to external storage devices.
The problem, however, is 5K content and displays remain elusive, as content providers and display manufacturers struggle to catch up with 4K. Recently, Dell unveiled its Ultrasharp 27 5K monitor targeted towards the business community. At $2,500 apiece, the 5K displays are probably not going to leave the store shelves empty soon.
