DVI-D vs VGA

[Princess Luna]

Basically I want to hear from the more experienced users if there's any difference what so ever (yes I am aware Digital > Analogyc signal But that is usually true for higher resolutions...right?) between using a VGA or a DVI-D Cable when the monitor native resolution is of only 1680x1050p? I have no second DVI-D cable and this second older LCD TN monitor of 1680x1050p60hz native resolution features both DVI-D and VGA input and even though my GTX 560Ti only features 2 DVI-D and 1 HDMI inputs I have a DVI-D to VGA adapter and an unused VGA cable, so since i'm kinda broke right now I am going to connect to the monitor using the VGA.

 

Now I just want to know if there's any actual noticeable difference between going this way at all or if you'd consider buying the extra DVI-D cable really required for the best quality possible for all those 1680x1050 pixels.

 

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

Have a vga monitor.

 

You can see afticats if the cable ins't in just right. Normally it looks fine, but worse than if i used the dvi connector.

 

Buy the cable its like 3 bucks.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

Image quality on a VGA cable depends on the quality of the cable. This isn't the case with DVI. As you go to higher resolutions using VGA, you'll see some downfalls with colour and some areas in the image may appear blurry compared to other areas.

[mariushm]

I would say yes, anything over 1024x768 should use a digital connection.

If the vga cable is a high quality one (thick, with ferrite beads at both ends,shielded internally), it would be good enough for 1680x1050. Sadly, i'm 90% sure that's not the case in your situation.

If the cable is less than 10$ (or equivalent in your country), it's worth buying.

[Princess Luna]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

Have a vga monitor.

 

You can see afticats if the cable ins't in just right. Normally it looks fine, but worse than if i used the dvi connector.

 

Buy the cable its like 3 bucks.

Oh I wish it was that cheap in my country, a DVI-D Cable here costs close to 10 dollars and I already went broke after purchasing all the new hardware you can see in my signature this week

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Princess Cadence said:

Oh I wish it was that cheap in my country, a DVI-D Cable here costs close to 10 dollars and I already went broke after purchasing all the new hardware you can see in my signature this week

Use vga then. It works fine. Also look for electronics surplus shops.

[agent_x007]

DVI-I and DVI-D are NOT the same.
GTX 560 Ti probably has at least one DVI-I port, which enables Analog singnal transission direcly to monitor (via simple DVI-I to VGA adapter).
DVI-D is digital only, and because of that, they cannot send a VGA/D-Sub signals (ie. VGA monitors can't work on them without proper Digital to Analog signal converter in between).

As to image quality :
If your cable for VGA is good enough, you probably won't see any difference at all.
Altho, remeber that new Pascal GPU's and newer AMD ones (like R9 290), don't have analog circutry inside refrence designes.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, agent_x007 said:

Altho, remeber that new Pascal GPU's and newer AMD ones (like R9 290), don't have analog circutry inside refrence designes.

GRRR why did they do this. I want one dvi-i dual link. I like my crt's and old monitors for testing.

 

ALSO vga doesn't support hdcp, so that can be usefull in cases

[alexhelvetica]

"DVI-D to VGA" adapter will not work, DVI-D is digital, VGA is analog.

The 4 pins that are not on DVI-D that are on DVI-I are the Analog RGB (VGA), so you can not passively adapt.

 

So if  your 560ti only has DVI-D, you are stuck with DVI-D/HDMI

[Princess Luna]

5 minutes ago, agent_x007 said:

DVI-I and DVI-D are NOT the same.
GTX 560 Ti probably has at least one DVI-I port, which enables Analog singnal transission direcly to monitor (via simple DVI-I to VGA adapter).
DVI-D is digital only, and because of that, they cannot send a VGA/D-Sub signals (ie. VGA monitors can't work on them without proper Digital to Analog signal converter in between).

As to image quality :
If your cable for VGA is good enough, you probably won't see any difference at all.
Altho, remeber that new Pascal GPU's and newer AMD ones (like R9 290), don't have analog circutry inside refrence designes.

Oh that must be very true, very well pointed out, my bad since I automatically guessed so just by looking that input on it, my boyfriend gave me this GPU since my money could only afford the other hardware so far and I don't know much about it yet... I'm saving now my salary to put the cherrie on top of the cake with a GTX 1070 FE ^^

[mariushm]

The monitor has DVI-D and VGA inputs, so he can use either VGA or DVI-D or HDMI (with a HDMI to DVI passive adapter plugged in the video card).

 

The GTX 560Ti has one HDMI out, and two DVI ports, one or both of which could be of the DVI-I variety, which means it has the analogue pins which allow him to use a passive DVI-I to VGA adapter.

 

So since the 1680x1050 monitor has one DVI port and one VGA input, it can receive analogue (through vga) signal or digital signal (through the DVI port)

 

As HDMI is practically identical with DVI, you can use very cheap HDMI to DVI passive adapters, like the DVI-I to VGA adapter you already use, to connect a DVI-DVI cable to the HDMI port, if you really want to.

You could also find passive adapters that have a female HDMI connector on one end, and a male DVI connector on the other end - these passive adapters are installed in the back of the monitor instead of the video card. With such a passive adapter, you could use a potentially cheaper HDMI-HDMI cable between the video card and the monitor.

 

So yeah, you have options. Just remember you won't have any benefit from using the HDMI port instead of the second DVI port, so you can pick whatever is cheaper for you.

 

Not sure how it works for you in Brazil (with customs and other taxes) but you should look at eBay or stores like DealExtreme (dx.com) or DinoDirect (dinodirect.com) or BangGood ... I've used DX and DD and the stuff is cheap and works, but it takes a lot of time (4-5 weeks) for things to arrive - maybe it's cheaper for you.

 

Here's example: 

 

2.6$  HDMI Female to DVI Male adapter (plug hdmi cable in video card and the other end in the adapter, then plug adapter in monitor) : http://www.dx.com/p/jiahui-dvi-i-24-1pin-male-to-hdmi-female-adapter-black-310265#.WEX463nYVhE

4.13$ HDMI-HDMI cable (1.5m) + HDMI->mini-HDMI adapter + HDMI->micro-HDMI adapter : http://www.dx.com/p/ourspop-3-in-1-hdmi-male-to-male-cable-hdmi-female-to-micro-hdmi-mini-hdmi-male-adapters-black-269258#.WEX5dnnYVhE

6.9$  DVI-D - DVI-D cable (1.7m )  : http://www.dx.com/p/dvi-24-1-m-m-shielded-connection-cable-1-7m-2659#.WEX6DXnYVhE

7.48$  HDMI to DVI-D cable (1.8m)  (or the other way around) : http://www.dx.com/p/hdmi-19m-to-dvi-24-1m-connection-cable-1-8m-2703#.WEX6NXnYVhE

 

So you can pick whatever you want, you could just go for a plain dvi-dvi cable for 7$ or you could go for the hdmi cable set (you may have use for those hdmi-miniHDMI and hdmi-microHDMI adapters in the future along with the DVI to HDMI adapter, for a total of 6.73$

Either way would work.

 

[Glenwing]

23 hours ago, wrathoftheturkey said:

not supporting HDCP? how can that be useful?

If devices have native VGA output, they can't encrypt it with HDCP, so things like consoles that have built-in VGA output via adapters can avoid problems with HDCP compatibility, which can then be used with capture cards via converters etc.

 

Of course, if you have a device outputting native HDMI encrypted with HDCP, and then convert that to VGA on the display, it won't work due to lack of HDCP support, but the idea is that any devices that support native VGA output will be forced to abandon HDCP while in that mode. Which can be useful.

[Princess Luna]

In the end the GPU does have 1 DVI-D and 1 DVI-I port along side its HDMI, proving what was mentioned by @agent_x007. I tested connecting the 1050p with the DVI cable and then tried with the VGA cable I did not see any noticeable difference probably since its an older 2008 TN monitor and just 1680x1050p resolution, so now I'm with the DVI-D on my 1080p monitor and I connected the DVI-I GPU input through a VGA adapter to the VGA input of the 1050p monitor, since the VGA cable is of great quality I really didn't see significant difference.

 

Thank you for the comments everyone and the whole clarification towards HDCP was very instructive!

Cheers!