Chip manufacturer Advanced Micro Devices has just announced that its ATI Radeon HD 3400, ATI Radeon HD 3600 and ATI Radeon HD 3800 graphics products have been awarded world's first full DisplayPort certification from the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA).

The DisplayPort technology doubles the data transfer rates between the graphics card and the display as compared to the DVI interconnect. The certified graphics products are fully compatible with Dell's next generation of monitors with DisplayPort interface, such as the UltraSharp 3008WFP and 2408WFP widescreen displays.

The new interconnect has been introduced earlier this year in Zotac's GeForce 8800 GT graphics card, and since then, it started to become more and more popular with the graphics cards manufacturers. The DisplayPort technology also allows high-definition digital audio signals to get streamed over the same cable as the digital video signal, but at the same time, it supports the HDCP content protection technology.

According to Bruce Montag, Engineering manager at Dell, the ATI Radeon series of products is the world's first fully certified line of discrete and integrated graphics solutions. "The VESA DisplayPort Certified Logo assures customers that DisplayPort products interoperate and provide a great digital display experience."

The DisplayPort is made of a main link using four lanes to deliver data transfer rates of up to 10.8 Gb/s, and an unidirectional connection with isochronous stream transport.

Matt Skynner, vice president of AMD's marketing for the Graphics Products Group said that the VESA certification would bring the consumers the next-generation technology, able to deliver AMD's Ultimate Visual Experience.

"AMD is proud to be recognized with the selection of the ATI Radeon HD 3000 series as the first certified source devices for DisplayPort. This certification gives PC consumers next-generation display capabilities today," Skynner concluded.

Despite its increased popularity with the graphics cards manufacturers, the DisplayPort interface is still under-represented when it comes to LCD monitors. At the moment, Dell and Samsung are the only companies to produce computer monitors with DisplayPort interface.