What is the difference between DVI-I and DVI-D connectors on video cards and flat panel monitors?

Some of the video cards that ship with Dell computers have Digital Video Interface (DVI) connectors for connecting a flat panel LCD monitor to the card.

There are currently two prominent types of DVI connectors, DVI-I (Figure 1) and DVI-D (Figure 2).

   
Figure 1 - DVI-I connector


Figure 2 - DVI-D connector

DVI-D provides a digital only signal, while DVI-I can support digital and analog signals. As of January 2002, Dell-shipped nVidia GeForce3 video cards have DVI-I connectors and the ATI Radeon VE video card has a DVI-D (or dual VGA) connector.

DVI-I is fully compatible with DVI-D; all flat panel monitors that have a DVI-D connector will work fine with DVI-I receptacles on the video cards.

As of January 2002, Dell flat panel monitors have DVI-D connectors and will work fine with both DVI-D and DVI-I video connectors.