HDMI 2.1b Cables, Legit & Affordable? Yes!

Community Blog
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Video cables are not created equal, and the standards can be…loose. Well, good thing Level1Techs has a $15,000 Total Phase Advanced Cable Tester v2 to shed some clarity! :smiley:

Not Consistent

As you can see they’re all “High Speed” “Premium High Speed” etc. The best of the best is “Ultra High Speed” and that’s what we’re testing for today. You’d think having a standard would fix the consistency issue, but that’s not entirely true. I’ve tested cables and they pass half the time and don’t pass half the time. When they’re on the cusp of “just good enough to pass” there can be a margin of error. It seems this is still enough to pass the standard, but it won’t be a great cable as compared to its competitors.

Not Physically Marked (a lot of times)

In addition to the vague naming system, many video cables are physically unmarked with what loose standard they’re made for. So when you inevitably forget what cable is what, you’ll be stuck testing and troubleshooting.

DisplayPort, Just As Bad… probably worse.

DisplayPort 1.4 cables will be labeled, but they are not created equal. A lot of times, this isn’t a huge issue. The average user will probably have a similar experience with all of these cables. The issue lies when you have a need for high-bandwidth use cases (like the L1Techs KVMs). You get to really see which cables are up to the task. You can check out my DisplayPort 1.4 testing in the L1Techs KVM FAQ: [Official] L1Techs KVM FAQ -- Ultimate Guide & Help!

Anker Ultra High Speed

These cables were made available on August 16, 2023, and they’re the real deal! The signal integrity could be a little better, but for $15 I’m very impressed. IMO, this is definitely worth it. In fact, I would be willing to bet some other inferior cables are sold for higher! We’ve had a lot of luck with Anker products in the past. They are pretty reliable and seem to have good quality assurance.

Not only did they pass the Total Phase tester, but they went above and beyond to get certified with an Authorized Testing Center (ATC) for the Ultra High-Speed standard.

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So not only did they beat the standard, but they performed much higher than the minimum passable percentage. The tester was anticipating ~10% but received numbers much higher with decent signal clarity. This is nice as I said before, because some cables just barely pass the test and it results in unreliable cables/quality assurance among the rest.

Anker HDMI 2.1.rar (145.1 KB)

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PASS-3
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PASS-4
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Verifying Your Cables

We have had people get fake cables before, even from Amazon! So I’ll put this here as a preventative measure → verify - Anker US

verify

You can verify if your Anker cable is legit with them! Very nice service. Every cable should come with a 16-digit or 20-digit security code.

Also, check out authorized retailers here → Where to Buy - Anker US

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You may want to reach out to LTT/LMG and ask Linus on his reasons to ban Anker as sponsor outright. Then re-evaluate your position. :money_with_wings:

HTH!

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? What lol

I mean, we’re not affiliated with them or anything. They might be bad partners, but I can’t deny the product is good. That’s unfortunate he had a bad experience with them.

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I thought Anker was good for cables?

Like, Data, and I heard good things with Power too?

Good to see testing though, as W and the team have had some real stinkers… even sold as genuine by Amazon…

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nice to know good quality cables that are not that expensive. Did you also test the longer 3m versions? Getting good cables is especially hard for long cables.

i’ve had good experience with the 3m ugreen hdmi cable. but had issues with the ugreen 5m displayport cable on a high framerate display.

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Me too lol we always seem to have a good result from them.

Maybe how they treat their sponsored parties is lacking

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Fair.

Also, I like the sandal clad Canuck, but he can be a drama-llama…

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Interesting! Unfortunately, I haven’t but I’d love to test more in the future and compare results. The length tested here was the 6ft.

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I’m not asking L1T to condemn Anker outright for their shady business practices that triggered Linus to ban sponsorships with them live on the WAN show, just to contact LMG (Wendell has his private number, I’m sure :wink: ), ask and re-evaluate. Reason: by naming them, you are affiliating yourself with the brand, even if they don’t pay you. Does L1T really wants to be affiliated with a brand known for practices that effectively violate normal business ethics?

True. But for the most part, it’s scripted drama and Linus is just the actor playing it. :speech_balloon:

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Instead of sending us off to look through hours of WAN show, could you outline what Anker did?

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I’m not up to speed on the entire thing, sorry, but it appears Anker made promises they didn’t keep and Linus didn’t get a satisfactory answer to the concerns he raised with them. And after the partnership ended (very publicly), Anker continued to use LMG branding in their advertisements on several platforms, despite numerous requests from LMG to cease this practice.

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Eh idk it seems like a non-issue to me if I post about it. If cable work, cable work.

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Just testing a cable is an entirely different thing than taking sponsorships or endorsements. Sure they have a reason to stop doing business with them, but the product stands on itself.

I don’t like nvidia’s businesss practices but i will still recommend a nvidia card if that is the best choice for someone.

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@nutral @Level1_Amber Fair points, sure. I have no personal experience with Anker as they don’t sell here in EU-land, IIRC. I do recall Linus stating that despite his ban on Anker sponsorships he’ll continue to use the products he already has for his personal use.

My main concern here is the possible (!!) abuse by Anker of an L1T endorsement of their products (this thread!) where it might be difficult for L1T to disassociate themselves from at a future date. If L1T is willing to take the risk then I’m not gonna tell you no :crossed_fingers:

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I highly doubt Anker cares about us lol thanks for the concern though.

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I'm not staff here, and don't speak for the team. If the team encounter issues, they will let us know

You really don’t need to worry about guilt by association.

Without an actual message, then it’s just products like any others.

they will also keep using Apple and Google products too…

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I thought the drama was about one of their brands under their umbrella that promised a fully offline CCTV camera but it actually goes through the clouds and gets processed there.

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Yeah when I looked it up earlier, it seemed to be something to that effect.

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I mean I do want to blacklist (or is blocklist now?) them from the things I purchase because of this shenanigans but at the same time, we should buy products that are actually good, so that they will be encouraged to make actually good products.

So yeah, brandwise Anker is back to neutral for me.

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The cable standards are a joke that seem to exist entirely to extract licencing fees from manufacturers and not to help the consumer buy the correct cable. The big problem with the HDMI certification is that to be certified a cable only has to be tested at the minimum length, once certified the manufacturer can sell the cable at any length and still claim it to be certified.

The only way to know for sure when buying a cable is to buy one that has had third party testing at the length your buying.

I wish more devices would expose the HDMI testing data which they do when performing a handshake, seeing the error rate and whatever else would help with troubleshooting problems particularly with marginal connections.

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