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

Summary: Visual guide to the differences between DVI- I and DVI-D Monitor adapters.

This article applies to This article does not apply to This article is not tied to any specific product. Not all product versions are identified in this article.

Symptoms

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).

SLN67698_en_US__1DVI-I   
Figure 1 - DVI-I connector

SLN67698_en_US__2DVI-D
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.

Not all graphic adapters with Dual-Link Pin configurations actually support dual-link DVI (Resolutions above 1920x1200) If you need higher resolutions (2560 x 1600 for example) ensure the specifications of your card include dual-Link DVI support.

Article Properties
Article Number: 000141943
Article Type: Solution
Last Modified: 21 Feb 2021
Version:  3
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