Think fancy HDMI cables are a waste of money? They're not — and a new fiber cable that just went viral proves it

• A fiber HDMI lead has gone viral on X as an impressive solution for a long cable run
• Tech enthusiast Ben Geskin points out: "What I really like is that it's super thin and flexible, so it's easy to hide in a clean setup."
• It's also easy to run behind walls, although it's not cheap — and don't be caught out by the super-pricey short cables here, either

Fancy HDMI cables have long had scorn poured on them for being a waste of money, and a trap for the unwary, but there are expensive HDMI leads that do make a difference, notably fiber optic products.

You'll pay through the nose for them, but the idea is that such products can be situationally useful, such as for very long cable runs.

Tom's Hardware noticed that a post from Ben Geskin, a tech enthusiast and influencer on X, went viral with close to a million views. It showcases a Ruipro 8K 'full fiber optic armored' HDMI 2.1 cable, which impressed Geskin, who noted: "What I really like is that it's super thin and flexible, so it's easy to hide in a clean setup. It also has detachable connectors, which makes routing it way easier. And it's more future proof too, since you can just swap the connector head for a future standard like HDMI 2.2 instead of buying a whole new cable again."

The cable supports 8K at 60Hz and 4K at 120Hz, eARC, and boasts a 48Gbps bandwidth. The main selling point, of course, is the use of fiber optic rather than copper wire.

This active fiber cable won't see its signal degrade over longer distances, as will happen with a traditional HDMI cable, so if you want a very long run from your source to your display, this is obviously a winning proposition. It's also less prone to signal interference in some setups, as some Amazon reviewers point out.

The short Ruipro fiber HDMI cables are ridiculously expensive for what they are, but the longer lengths — which are really the whole point here — are better value, although still very pricey. A 100-foot (30m) cable will set you back $170 in the US or £118 in the UK (at the time of writing).

Analysis: the long game

As noted, don't be suckered into buying a short fiber optic HDMI cable, because there's not going to be any difference between it and a standard lead (except for the amount of money you'll be paying, which will be hugely over the odds and then some). It's only the long cables which make sense here, whether from Ruipro or other makers.

If you want to hook up a gaming PC in your study, say, to a living-room TV, with a long distance between those rooms, this is the kind of solution that could be ideal. The cable is made to easily run behind walls, with the connectors able to be taken off to make it much less of a hassle to route the cable through wherever it needs to go. As Geskin observes, it's thin and flexible too, which again makes deploying it easy (though I'd be careful about bending a fiber cable about too much, in fairness).

While on the subject of caveats and the differences between a fiber and copper HDMI cable, note that with fiber you need to plug it in the right way – one end is for the source, the other for the display. Also bear in mind that on the display end you'll need a spare USB port — a USB cable runs off the HDMI connector and is required to power the Ruipro. This may not look quite so neat round the back of your TV, but the overall setup you can achieve with one of these cables is a tidy affair.

With HDMI 2.2 displays expected to be inbound later this year, the ability to easily swap the v2.1 connector for a new one will be a definite boon, too (especially if you've routed this behind the walls). Also, should a connector develop a fault, it's easy to fix that, too, by just swapping it out.

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