HDMI 2.2 cables promise 4K, 8K, 12K support for next-next-gen PCs and consoles

At CES 2025, the HDMI Forum, Inc. announced the next version of the HDMI specification, HDMI 2.2, with vastly increased bandwidth to 96 Gbps (up from 48 Gbps in HDMI 2.1). The extra bandwidth will ensure that cables, as well as any powerful gaming hardware equipped to support the spec, will deliver even faster frame rates while displaying high resolutions. HDMI 2.1 cables top out at 4K and below 200 frames per second (if you want more fps, your only option now is to use DisplayPort on a PC, or knock down the resolution), but new cables coming in the second and third quarter of 2025 with the new “Ultra96” insignia support 4K at up to 480 frames per second.

4K is just the beginning. Whether the 5K or 8K revolution appears on the horizon first, HDMI 2.2 has enough bandwidth to display up to 240 frames per second in either resolution. In fact, it can display 12K at up to 120 frames per second, so it’s clear that this spec was built to last — and to be useful across A/V industries where 12K is more in demand.

There are limitations to what HDMI 2.2 is capable of without resorting to compression. For people who really care about uncompressed video, it’ll support 4K at up to 240 frames per second or 8K at up to 60 with full chroma formats at both 10-bit and 12-bit formats. Higher resolutions and frame rates will go through some sort of compression to fit within HDMI 2.2’s 96 Gbps pipeline, but it’s still a massive improvement from the current specification in use across the industry.

As good as HDMI 2.2 sounds on paper, it’s up to display and gaming manufacturers to implement the specification in their hardware. As such, it’s difficult to know when we’ll see the first devices launch with support for HDMI 2.2. The HDMI 2.1 spec was introduced in 2017, and it took a couple years for it to appear in high-end gaming laptops, GPUs, and in consoles including the PS5 and Xbox Series X that launched in 2020. However, with gaming’s increase in popularity (especially on PC), it’s possible that the wait won’t be nearly as long.

But is this something you should wait for if you’re in the market for a new gaming monitor or TV? In my opinion, no. Again, it could be a couple of years until it finds its way into displays, and it’s likely not the kind of update that the likes of Sony or Microsoft will support for a long time, as the 4K / 120 frames per second limitation of its current consoles with HDMI 2.1 support is still a high enough ceiling that most games don’t come close to touching. Enthusiast PC gamers will almost certainly have the first crack at this tech, as Nvidia and AMD typically implement high-end display features into their respective graphics cards (although, HDMI 2.2 may have missed the boat for Nvidia’s rumored RTX 50-series launching during CES 2025).