We already know CES 2025 is going to be a big one for TVs, but with the rumored launch of HDMI 2.2, things are getting much more interesting.
The HDMI Forum confirmed in an email that “next-generation HDMI” will be announced on January 6 at CES 2025 — all signs point to this being HDMI 2.2, and with it comes vastly higher bandwidth, higher resolution and a faster refresh rate. Details are rather thin on the ground, so let’s go into what we know and the implications.
HDM-eye-wateringly sharp
So first, let’s look back. Currently we’re on HDMI 2.1b, which launched back in 2023 — sporting resolution support of up to 10K and an up-to 48bps bandwidth. This also allows for Variable Refresh Rate up to 144Hz (though you’d see most HDMI 2.1 sockets support 4K 120Hz maximum — purely because of the on-board horsepower that would be needed to pump out a 10K picture at those kinds of speeds would be bonkers).
This is a drastic increase in bandwidth from the 6Gbps you saw in HDMI 2.0, but it still falls behind the 80 Gbps you see in DisplayPort 2.1. Now I get that squaring these two off against each other is kind of like comparing apples and oranges — one is a standard used mostly on TVs whereas the other is almost exclusively a computing port.
But with HDMI LA promising “higher quality options” for TV and film studios, as well as game developers, I’m predicting this bandwidth number of HDMI 2.2 to get a lot closer to DP, which could futureproof the standard for a long time to come.
Big news for gamers
It’s the gaming I want to focus on here for my hype around this. Leaks and rumors are reporting this being a big CES for gaming hardware, as the announcement of Nvidia’s RTX 50-series GPUs seems certain, and AMD looks to jump in with its own RDNA 3 GPUs (as well as the next-generation Ryzen Z2 for PC handhelds).
Nothing has been said about HDMI 2.2 coming to gaming PCs or gaming laptops, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw it, and if we saw truly native support for 8K gameplay because of it.
Yes, I know that 8K is technically supported by this cable standard, but hopefully, an extra bump in bandwidth alongside improvements in efficiencies and fixed rate lanes (FRL) implementations can help move the whole industry along.
For example, FRL 6 gives you the full 48, whereas you're only getting 40 with FRL 5 and 32 with FRL 4. All a bit geeky I know, but the problem I'm pointing out here is not all HDMI 2.1 ports are the same, and hopefully this is resolved with a singular standard that's clearly labeled with 2.2.
Display companies would need to play catch up, and trust me when I say it’s going to cost a lot to buy one at first (plus the additional investment of a new HDMI cable), but this would be a dream come true for pixel peepers.
Plus, it’s worth paying very close attention to those specs, as chances are you’ll see them on the next generation of consoles, too. No, I’m not talking about Nintendo Switch 2, but rather the PS6 (or whatever Sony decides to name it) and the next-gen Xbox.
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