DVI Cables - what's in it for me?

richardm

Philosopher
richardm
Joined
Aug 6, 2001
Messages
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I've just acquired a rather swish LCD monitor, which has a DVI input.

My rather swish graphics card has a DVI output.

I don't have a cable to join the two together, and it looks like it's going to cost me £20+ to get one. Question is, will using the DVI interface give me an improved picture, or should I stick to ye olde D-type analogue job?

I assume that they wouldn't bother putting it on if it didn't provide some benefit...?
 
richardm said:
I've just acquired a rather swish LCD monitor, which has a DVI input.

My rather swish graphics card has a DVI output.

I don't have a cable to join the two together, and it looks like it's going to cost me £20+ to get one. Question is, will using the DVI interface give me an improved picture, or should I stick to ye olde D-type analogue job?

I assume that they wouldn't bother putting it on if it didn't provide some benefit...?
Click to expand...

My monitor and card have both and I can’t tell the difference between the analogue and digital input.
 
Get one from Amazon for £8.31.

Incidentally, I tried PC World before buying from Amazon. They were charging £50 (!) for the same cable. I asked one of their 'highly-trained' staff why it was so expensive - he stared at it for a minute, then pointed me to the lifetime guarantee. Unbelievable...
 
Re: Re: DVI Cables - what's in it for me?

Darat said:
My monitor and card have both and I can’t tell the difference between the analogue and digital input.
Click to expand...

That sounds like all I need to know, then!

Although £8.31 sounds a lot less potential disappointment than £20...
 
The only times you're going to really need DVI is when you need to offload some of the graphics processing to the monitor end of the chain, e.g. because you have a really huge number of pixels on the monitor and want to animate them.

Apple makes some monitors with DVI only, including one with dual DVI. They're talking resolutions up to 2560 x 1600, supportable only with the top NVidia card...
 
You may see difference in quality when watching DVDs. With a D-Sub there is a Digital to Analog conversion when the signal leaves the graphics card and an Analog to Digital conversion when the signal reaches the monitor. With DVI the signal remains purely digital all the way.
 
DrMatt said:
The only times you're going to really need DVI is when you need to offload some of the graphics processing to the monitor end of the chain, e.g. because you have a really huge number of pixels on the monitor and want to animate them.

Apple makes some monitors with DVI only, including one with dual DVI. They're talking resolutions up to 2560 x 1600, supportable only with the top NVidia card...
Click to expand...

Whatever that is, it isn't DVI. By definition, a monitor no longer is called a monitor when it does processing like that.
 
You may not notice a difference but just for pure geek factor you have to do it.

I did notice a difference between component cables and DVI on my HD cable box.

The main difference between cheap and expensive cables is quality of construcion and materials. Cheap cables are more likely to fail or cause grief.
 
jimlintott said:
You may not notice a difference but just for pure geek factor you have to do it.
Click to expand...
I just got a LCD monitor today. It came w/ both sets of cables, but the analog cable was already attached to the monitor so I used it. If I switch to the DVI cable will I become a geek?
 
It doesn't matter whether you change to DVI or to D-sub. Every time you change anything from what's already pre-installed and pre-assembled, the geek meter goes a little higher.
 
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