HP's new Omen Transcend 32-inch OLED monitor: on-board DisplayPort 2.1 is slower than HDMI 2.1

HP's upcoming Omen Transcend 32-inch OLED gaming monitor will be one of the first to the market with the latest DisplayPort 2.1 connectivity... but it s seems HP has tripped over this, delivering a bad DP2.1 experience.

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The new HP Omen Transcend 32-inch OLED gaming monitor features a native 4K resolution and super-smooth 240Hz refresh rate, but the DisplayPort 2.1 standard on this particular monitor will require Display Stream Compression (DSC) technology to hit 4K 240Hz.

HP is shipping its new Omen Transcend 32-inch OLED gaming monitor with DisplayPort 2.1 UHBR10 mode, which supports up to 40Gbps (38.69Gbps actual) bandwidth. This is higher than DisplayPort 1.4 which has up to 32.40Gbps (25.92Gbps actual). However, DisplayPort 2.1 UHBR20 supports up to 80Gbps (77.37Gbps actual) but HP didn't use DP2.1 UHBR10, it appears they decided on DP2.1 UHBR20, limiting its otherwise awesome OLED gaming monitor.

Why? Because DisplayPort 2.1 UHBR10 can't do 4K at 240Hz without needing DSC enabled, because it's bandwidth limited and pumping out 4K at 240FPS isn't easy. That's where DisplayPort 2.1 UHBR20 comes in with 80Gbps of available bandwidth, supporting 4K 240Hz without DSC.

• Read more: HP's new Omen Transcend 32-inch 4K 240Hz OLED gaming monitor has DisplayPort 2.1
• Read more: DisplayPort 2.1 specs released, just before AMD unleashes RDNA 3 GPUs
• Read more: MSI MPG 321URX QD-OLED gaming monitor: 32-inch 4K 240Hz, reduced $949 price
• Read more: ASUS's new 32-inch 4K 240Hz QD-OLED gaming monitor for $1299

This means the HDMI 2.1 connector on the HP Omen Transcend 32-inch OLED gaming monitor is the better connector on this monitor, as it has up to 48Gbps (41.92Gbps actual) bandwidth. You're better off using the HDMI 2.1 connector on this monitor, making the DP2.1 connector almost useless.

Remember, AMD is the only one with graphics cards with DisplayPort 2.1 connectivity so far... with its fleet of Radeon RX 7000 desktop GPUs featuring DP2.1 connectors. NVIDIA is expected to upgrade to DP2.1 with its upcoming GeForce RTX 50 series "Blackwell" graphics cards later this year, so be careful when shopping for a new DP2.1-enabled gaming monitor, and don't buy the wrong one.