Decide Between VGA, DVI, and HDMI for Your Monitor Connection. Hassle-Free PC By Rick Broida, May 18, 2010 6:26 pm PDT. Reader Mike ordered a new Dell system that came with a 21.5-inch LCD monitor.

Ballpark figure for a HDMI to VGA decoder is around 200 mA at 5 volts. That's a watt. For such a small device, you're going to expect that to make it fairly warm.

HDMI has limitations, though, and isn't always the perfect choice. For example, your TV likely has HDMI 1.4 connections, which max out at 3,820x2,160-pixel resolution at 30 frames per second.

Thunderbolt Gen 1 and 2 don’t support USB 3.1, Type C or even 3.0 for that matter. An adapter wouldn’t have fixed this problem. However, Apple is releasing Thunderbolt 3 later in 2015.