Topic: Will I need HDMI 2.1 to run PS5 at 4k 60hz?

As title asks, will I need HDMI 2.1 to run PS5 at 4k 60hz?

Nah. 2.0 does 4K/60

Don’t think so.

2.1 is only necessary if you want to do 4K/120 which none of the announced games support anyway.

If it's got an HDMI port you should be good to go. There's some handshaking that goes on so the PS5 will generally know what the TV/monitor can handle and shouldn't try to feed it a signal it can't cope with.

If you have a HDMI 2.0 TV you should be able to get 4k/60.

Whilst HDMI 2.1 is 'backwards' compatible, what that means is that you can plug any HDMI device into any HDMI device using any HDMI cable BUT you only get the bandwidth (and any features) of the 'LOWEST' spec part as HDMI is NOT forwards compatible. In other words, if you have a HDMI 2.1 console and even a HDMI 2.1 cable into a HDMI 1.4 TV, you only get HDMI 1.4 bandwidth and won't be able to enable certain features/settings on your console. If your TV and Console support HDMI 2.1 but the cable in between is standard (up to 11Gb/s) then that's ALL you will get. The feature set and max resolution/frame rates are determined by the weakest element in the signal path so to get all the features of HDMI 2.1, everything in the signal path (TV, Console & Cable) must ALL be HDMI 2.1 so make sure you use the HDMI cable that comes with the console too as that will be 48Gb/s

@graysoncharles What you are forgetting is that the console will still output at 4k - regardless of whether the game is running at 1440p in engine as it will upscale and send a 4k image at 120fps. Few TV's - even if they are HDMI 2.0 - cannot handle 120fps because they were built with 60hz panels. The reason is 'cost' and as so few even attempt to use a TV as a PC monitor, its pointless for TV manufactures to add a 120hz panel because TV, movies and until the PS5/Series S/X, consoles were 60hz or less. You won't be able to select 120fps mode if your TV doesn't have a 120hz panel - and no, those fake image smoothing/judder reducing motion modes that promise 360 or 480hz don't count.

Whilst 1440p may well be the max Native res with AAA games right now, they could well use CB rendering to construct and output a 4k image - or even CB 1800p (like GTSport does) so again will need HDMI 2.1. If you look at the Xbox One games - like Battlefield 4 - that was 720p at launch and the PS4 was 900p. However, a combination of improvements to the Frostbite engine specifically for next gen and a better understanding of the hardware, games over the generation not only significantly improved the visual quality, added more visual effects and were able to do all this at higher resolutions too. Therefore, its entirely possible that if we see a similar improvement, AAA games could target 4k (with Dynamic Resolution Scaling). Just because most AAA games may have to target 1440p or some image reconstruction (like H:ZD and GoW did so well), a lot of indie games could offer native 4k. Fifa 17 was Native 4k/60 on a Pro, so 4k/120 should be easily within the reach of a PS5.

There is a difference between what HDMI 2.0 can theoretically offer just because of its bandwidth BUT you also have to have the required support built in to the display and with the same techniques current gen has demonstrated to create images that are much higher resolution than the hardware could run 'natively' at the required frame rate, I expect many games will be outputting 120 frames of '4k' per second IF you have the TV to do it.

With VRR, Developers could easily target or let the game run at 100frames per second, 85frames per second etc because the Variable Refresh Rate feature will tell the TV to refresh with every new frame - so it will refresh at 100hz or 85hz - it doesn't have to be 120fps/120hz otherwise you get judder/screen tear due to the frame rate not syncing with the TV. The reason Devs target 60 or 30fps (and not 40 or even 50fps) is because TV's traditionally had a 60hz refresh rate so at 60fps, the TV refreshes with every new frame and at 30fps, the TV refreshes twice with every frame - so in sync.

If devs offer anything more than 60, you will need a HDMI 2.1 TV to run that mode. You may find a HDMI PC monitor with 120hz that may work if you turn the resolution output down to match the monitor. Then you may well get 1440p (or super sampled higher res or upscaled lower res) to work at 120fps as the monitor will have support for higher res built in.