What They Say
Future AMD processors are expected to come with integrated for support and DisplayPort tunneling in the future. The tunelling mode allows multiple protocols, including USB, DisplayPort and PCIe, to all operate at the same time (albeit with reduced bandwidth per protocol). This is different from USB alt mode, which allows only a single protocol to be active at a time.
What We Think
I confess that I have not been as close to the interfacing side of things recently as I once was. However, I do know that keen gamers are very keen on architectures that connect a DP port directly to the GPU to obviate the need to get the signals across the PC bus to other mainboard connectors. (BR)
With ‘alt mode’ the pins of the connector were used for something else, while with tunnelling, everything goes through the same pins.