HDMI 2.1 has a faster successor. The GeForce RTX 5000 and Radeon RX 8000 may be running out of time.
Eight years after the introduction of HDMI 2.1, its successor, version 2.2, will follow. The HDMI Forum, as the responsible body for the specification, and HDMI Licensing Administrator, Inc., as the licensor, invite you to a press conference as part of the CES 2025 electronics trade show. It says:
“The HDMI Forum will announce a new HDMI specification. The new specification features next-generation high-bandwidth HDMI technology, enabling a wide range of high resolutions and refresh rates, and will be supported by new HDMI cables. The new technology will provide content creators, such as TV, film and game studios, with high-quality options now and in the future, as well as multiple distribution platforms. ”
HDMI 2.2 is explicitly mentioned in a footnote. The press conference will take place on January 13, 2025 at 7:00 pm German time. The speakers will be Chandry Harel and Rob Tobias, heads of the two HDMI organizations.
Next-generation graphics cards in tight supply
Some websites speculate that Nvidia’s next-generation graphics cards, GeForce RTX 5000, and AMD’s Radeon RX 8000, may already support HDMI 2.2. Both series are expected to be announced on the same day or the following evening. However, unless the HDMI Forum shared the specs with manufacturers years in advance, it doesn’t seem particularly likely that HDMI 2.2 will be supported in this generation. To put it in perspective, the HDMI Forum announced version 2.1 at CES in January 2017. The first graphics cards appeared at the end of 2020 in the form of Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3000 and AMD’s Radeon RX 6000. Other devices such as TVs and AV receivers have been around for a long time.
HDMI 2.1 transmits up to 48 gigabits per second, which is no longer enough to achieve 4K resolution (3840 × 2160 pixels) at 240 Hertz without compression (calculated at 55 Gbit/s at 8 bits per color channel and 69 Gbit/s at 10 bits). Displayport 2.1 achieves 80 Gbit/s in its fastest operating mode, but is primarily limited to PC monitors.
It’s still unclear how fast HDMI 2.2 will be, but the need for new cables marks a major change.
