TechFuel HQThis calculator tells you whether a given display mode fits over a specific cable standard. Pick your resolution, refresh rate, color depth, and chroma subsampling, and it shows the bandwidth that mode needs and which interfaces can carry it: HDMI 2.0, HDMI 2.1, DisplayPort 1.4, and DisplayPort 2.1 UHBR, both uncompressed and with DSC.
The figures it compares against are the effective bandwidths after encoding overhead, not the marketing raw numbers. HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.4 both lose 20% to 8b/10b encoding, landing at 14.4 and 25.92 Gbps. HDMI 2.1 uses a more efficient scheme for 42.6 Gbps, and DisplayPort 2.1 UHBR is the most efficient of all, up to 77.4 Gbps. That is why a mode can clear the raw headline number but still not fit.
The honest caveat: this is a close uncompressed estimate built on VESA CVT reduced-blanking v2 timing, and real numbers shift slightly with the exact timing your GPU and monitor negotiate. Because CVT’s vertical blanking is a fixed minimum time rather than a fixed share of the frame, the blanking overhead climbs with refresh rate - roughly 5% at 4K 60Hz, 9% at 4K 144Hz and 16% at 1440p 240Hz. When a mode only fits with DSC, that is normal and visually lossless on modern hardware. If you are pushing the edge of what a link can do, the monitor overclocking guide covers how to test a custom mode safely, and the aspect ratio calculator helps confirm your exact pixel dimensions first.
Worked examples
These are this calculator’s own outputs, computed with the same formula the tool runs in your browser — so you can see a real answer without touching a single input.
4K 144Hz with HDR color - the tool’s own default state on page load, and the mode behind the published “39.2 Gbps” FAQ answer
- Inputs: width 3840, height 2160, refresh 144 Hz, color depth 10-bit (HDR), chroma 4:4:4
- Result: 39.2 Gbps required uncompressed, about 10.4 Gbps with DSC. HDMI 2.0: No. DP 1.4 (HBR3): Needs DSC. HDMI 2.1: Fits. DP 2.1 UHBR10: Needs DSC. DP 2.1 UHBR13.5 / UHBR20: Fits.
1440p 240Hz esports monitor on standard SDR color - the common “will my DisplayPort 1.4 GPU do this without compression?” case
- Inputs: width 2560, height 1440, refresh 240 Hz, color depth 8-bit (SDR), chroma 4:4:4
- Result: 24.6 Gbps required uncompressed, about 8.2 Gbps with DSC. HDMI 2.0: No. DP 1.4 (HBR3): Fits uncompressed. HDMI 2.1 and all three DP 2.1 UHBR tiers: Fits.
Assumptions and sources
- HDMI 2.1’s 48 Gbps FRL link rate is from the HDMI Forum’s HDMI 2.1 specification page; the 42.6 Gbps effective figure this tool compares against is that raw rate after the standard’s 16b/18b encoding overhead.
- DisplayPort 2.1 UHBR link rates (up to 80 Gbps raw, 77.4 Gbps effective after 128b/132b encoding) are per VESA’s DisplayPort 2.1 announcement; DP 1.4 and HDMI 2.0 lose 20% to 8b/10b encoding, which is how the tool’s 25.92 and 14.4 Gbps figures are derived.
- DSC’s fixed 8 bits-per-pixel target - published as “3:1 (8 bpp)” at 24-bit color and “3.75:1 (8 bpp)” at 30-bit color - and its “visually lossless” certification are per VESA’s Display Stream Compression codec page. The tool applies that 8 bpp target at every color depth; DSC bpp is negotiable in practice, so a real link with headroom may compress less.
- The uncompressed bandwidth per mode is derived from VESA CVT reduced-blanking v2 timing (80 blanking pixels per line, 460 microsecond minimum vertical blanking interval), which reproduces the published 4K 60Hz CVT-RB 3920x2222 timing exactly. Choosing CVT-RBv2 over CTA-861 or CVT-RBv1 is a TechFuelHQ modeling choice, stated in the prose above, because the exact figure shifts with the timing your GPU and monitor negotiate.