Best way to hook up an RTX-equipped laptop to an HDTV?

[Pfei]

I am not one to normally ask these kinds of questions since I do extensive research before buying stuff, but I'm kind of at a loss this time and would appreciate your help.

I bought a new gaming laptop and haven't done PC gaming since the 90's. I want to hook it up to my HDTV but was wondering the best way to hook it up.

The TV is a Sony XBR55 X850D. It does 4K@60Hz and 1080p@120Hz and also supports HDR10 as well as HDMI 2.0. The laptop is an 8th-gen i7, 16GB RAM and a nVidia RTX 2060. These are the I/O ports the laptop has:

• HDMI output Port (with HDCP)
  
• Mini DisplayPort 1.2 output Port
  
• DisplayPort 1.3 over USB 3.1 Gen 2 (Type-C)

I would like to take advantage of the 120Hz TV to run games in 1080p above 60fps and with HDR if the game has it. Also pass the audio on to the TV so I can get it out of my 7.1 system. So, what would be the best way to hook it up?

• Plain-ol' HDMI 2.0 cable?
• Mini DP 1.2 to HDMI cable?
• USB C to HDMI cable?

Hope someone can give me some advice. Thanks!

 

[Saidur_Ali]

Plain-ol' HDMI 2.0 cable.

 

[Pfei]

Here is the reason I am asking this. Because I am afraid of an HDMI bottleneck or something else. Look what the laptop manufacturer wrote me:

"You can get 4k resolution on the Sony HDTV. I do not think you can get 120Hz refresh rate since the LCD screen is 60Hz refresh rate."

That doesn't make much sense. It's a 1080p screen, so shouldn't that mean that I couldn't get 4k either on the TV?

Maybe it's the way the internals of the laptop are configured?

This is why this subject is confusing me.

 

[Saidur_Ali]

Here is the reason I am asking this. Because I am afraid of an HDMI bottleneck or something else. Look what the laptop manufacturer wrote me:

"You can get 4k resolution on the Sony HDTV. I do not think you can get 120Hz refresh rate since the LCD screen is 60Hz refresh rate."

That doesn't make much sense. It's a 1080p screen, so shouldn't that mean that I couldn't get 4k either on the TV?

Maybe it's the way the internals of the laptop are configured?

This is why this subject is confusing me.

HDMI is not a bottleneck for what you are trying to achieve, even a 1.3 / 1.4 rated cable will be able to do 1080p 120Hz but best to get a 2.0 rated one for 4K 60Hz. Don't worry, it won't blow up if you try and use a HDMI cable. It appears to me you are just overthinking things which makes it confusing but it is relatively as simple as plugging a HDMI cable in and setting your external display output to 1080p 120Hz. You should be able to select to display only on your TV too, your internal laptop screen resolution and refresh rate shouldn't matter at all.

Best thing is you should get more performance from your laptop as the HDMI port is direct output from the Nvidia graphics chip rather than routing through Intel display which can hurt performance, that wasn't the case before Pascal / Turing Nvidia graphics chips like Maxwell which was annoying thing about Nvidia Optimus finally rectified. Your laptop should make a great desktop replacement.

 

[Pfei]

It appears to me you are just overthinking things

For sure, that is a definite possible result of my ignorance on this subject.

Best thing is you should get more performance from your laptop as the HDMI port is direct output from the Nvidia graphics chip rather than routing through Intel display which can hurt performance, that wasn't the case before Pascal / Turing Nvidia graphics chips like Maxwell which was annoying thing about Nvidia Optimus finally rectified. Your laptop should make a great desktop replacement.

Great info. Thanks so much for taking the time to explain!

 

[Rallywagon]

If the TV can only handle 60hz, no amount of cable configurations is going to help that.
And also, since the tv only has HDMI ports, no amount of adapters are going to get you better than HDMI performance.
As far as actual performance, the list of ports you placed in our OP for the graphics card, I would rate worst to best from top to bottom.
If you could, you would be better off using the USB3.1. But, since your TV isnt designed with that in mind, you will not receive any benefit from putting an adapter in place to convert to HDMI.

 

[Pfei]

If the TV can only handle 60hz, no amount of cable configurations is going to help that.

In OP I state that the TV does 1080p@120Hz.

If you could, you would be better off using the USB3.1. But, since your TV isnt designed with that in mind, you will not receive any benefit from putting an adapter in place to convert to HDMI

Thanks for your insight. I have seen in reviews on Amazon of USB3.1 --> HDMI converters that 4K & Quad HD and 120Hz are doing the job well. I guess the best thing to do would be to buy one of those as well as a nice HDMI cable and try them both.