Computer Act!ve - UK (2022-06-08)

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DisplayPort 2.0?

VERDICT While it seems a lot of

money, the X90 is surprisingly good

value if you have a large house,

because it significantly outpaces more

expensive rivals

★★★★★

ALTERNATIVE Netgear Orbi

RBKE963 £1,500 This

Wi-Fi 6E system is

more expensive but

its three units maintain

faster speeds over

greater distances

SPECIFICATIONS
Tri-band Wi-Fi 6 •• 1x 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet port and
1x Gigabit Ethernet port per unit •• 210x123x130mm
(HxDxW) •• 610g per unit •• Two-year warranty
http://www.snipca.com/42078

On Sale Weds 22 June

Samsung

Galaxy Tab S8

An 11in Android

tablet with an

amazing screen

Box Cube Mythic

Superb graphics

performance from

a reasonably priced

desktop PC

MESH ROUTER ❘ £349 from Amazon http://www.snipca.com/42078

TP-Link Deco X90

So far, so good

the house, and measured file-copy

speeds to and from the NAS.

The results were impressive. It

provided the fastest same-room speeds

we’ve ever seen, with a file-transfer

rate of 148MB/s. This outperforms the

Netgear Orbi RBKE963 (£1,500 for three

devices from http://www.snipca.com/42080),

which reached speeds of 118MB/s in the

same test.

The Deco X90 isn’t only fast over short

distances. As you’d expect, performance

dropped off in the furthest reaches of our

house, but no matter where we took our

laptop, it consistently delivered download

speeds between 60 and 70MB/s. However,

it just lags behind the Orbi’s Wi-Fi

6e-boosted efforts, with the Orbi’s speeds

topping 70MB/s at distance when

downloading to a Wi-Fi 6E device.

Some mesh Wi-Fi systems
focus on high-end
performance, others prioritise
affordability. The Deco X90
finds its own balance: it’s
hardly a budget system,
but it’s competitively priced
considering it promises to
deliver Wi-Fi 6 for up to 200
devices, throughout a home
of up to six bedrooms.
Despite those ambitious
claims, the kit contains only two
units. They’re not much to look
at, but tasteful enough, with a single
status LED near the base of each one. If
you need to extend the system’s reach, an
additional unit costs around £231 (from
Scan at http://www.snipca.com/42079)..)

TP-Link has opted for a regular
tri-band configuration, with each
unit containing one 2.4GHz and two
independent 5GHz transmitters. One of
these is reserved for the backhaul traffic

• the communication channel the mesh
  network needs between the two devices.
  Both units are also equipped with two
  Ethernet sockets, one is a standard Gigabit
  Ethernet and the other 2.5 Gigabit.
  What sets the X90 apart is its
  performance. To test it, we set it up in our
  house with the main unit in the study
  and the secondary one at the opposite
  end of an adjoining bedroom. We
  connected a NAS drive to the 2.5 Gigabit
  Ethernet socket of the primary unit, then
  carried a laptop to various places around

Lightning quick

over short distances,

and no slouch in the far

reaches of our home

Issue 633 • 8 – 21 June 2022

What is it?

DisplayPort (pictured) is a format for

connecting PCs to monitors. DisplayPort

2.0 was announced by its governing

body VESA (the Video Electronics

Standards Association) back in 2019,

but it has only recently

awarded certification to a

handful of companies.

Without this, a company

can’t produce a DisplayPort

2.0 device.

What does it do?

It increases the bandwidth available for

transferring video from one device to

another (up to a maximum of 80Gbps).

This could allow PCs or other devices

to send an 8K video at 60fps without

having to apply any compression. The

current fastest HDMI 2.1 standard can

manage only 48Gbps.

What’s the catch?

Currently, only three companies have

certification to produce DisplayPort

2.0 devices: AMD, MediaTek and

Realtek. It’s likely that more companies

will follow, but for now the choice of

compatible devices will be limited.

So can I do without it?

Yes, unless you buy an 8K monitor.