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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.

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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.