Download Drivers from Motherboard Manufacturer Website or Driver Developer Website ?

[spacev2]

Greetings ROG Forum / Community,

I own a ASUS Z370 ROG Maximus X Hero Motherboard and I plan to install Windows 10 64bit.

If we take a closer look at the following driver comparison list, we can see some discrepancies between the driver versions and the file size.


Windows 10 64bit Drivers

VGA Drivers:
- ASUS Website: Version: 26.20.100.7210, Date: 11/27/2019, Size: 377.37 MBytes
- Intel Website: Version: 26.20.100.7870, Date: 02/19/2020, Size: 340 MBytes

https://www.asus.com/au/Motherboards/ROG-MAXIMUS-X-HERO/HelpDesk_Download/
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/29426/Intel-Graphics-Windows-10-DCH-Drivers?product=128199


LAN Drivers (Intel LAN I219V):
- ASUS Website: Version: 12.18.9.7, Date: 07/08/2019, Size: 3.3 MBytes
- Intel Website: Version: 25.0 , Date: 01/23/2020, Size: 66.56 MBytes

https://www.asus.com/au/Motherboards/ROG-MAXIMUS-X-HERO/HelpDesk_Download/
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/25016/Ethernet-Intel-Network-Adapter-Driver-for-Windows-10


Chipset Driver (Intel Chipset INF Utility):
- ASUS Website: Version: 10.1.18019.8144, Date: 10/21/2019, Size: 5.36 MBytes
- Intel Website: Version: 10.1.18228.8176, Date: 11/28/2019, Size: 3.12 MBytes

https://www.asus.com/au/Motherboards/ROG-MAXIMUS-X-HERO/HelpDesk_Download/
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/29227/Chipset-INF-Utility?product=98455


SATA Driver (Intel Rapid Storage Technology RST):
- ASUS Website: Version: 17.5.0.1017, Date: 07/02/2019, Size: 26.88 MBytes
- Intel Website: Version: 17.8.0.1065, Date: 01/17/2020, Size: 22.52 MBytes

https://www.asus.com/au/Motherboards/ROG-MAXIMUS-X-HERO/HelpDesk_Download/
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/29339/Intel-Rapid-Storage-Technology-Intel-RST-User-Interf...


The following statement was obtained from the Realtek website:
"Drivers downloaded from 3rd party websites may not offer the customizations made by your system/motherboard manufacturer. To be sure you obtain the full features/customizations provided in your product, please download the latest drivers from your system/motherboard manufacturer's website."


So my questions are:
(Q1) Which drivers can be downloaded from the driver developer websites without the risk of losing any features / customizations ?

(Q2) Which drivers should only be downloaded from the motherboard manufacturer website ?

(Q3) When the description of a driver states "Support RS5/19H1", does this mean that this driver will work on future iterations of Windows 10 such as "20H1" etc ?

(Q4) On the motherboard manufacturer website, Why is there 2 different driver version schemes for the LAN Driver ? (There is version 12.X.X.X and version 22.X.X.X with a filse size difference of upto 300MB.) Could someone please kindly explain the differences between the two.


Any help would be appreciated, Thanks in advance.

[Guitarmageddon1]

So all that intel based stuff should be fine to grab from elsewhere. In fact, some of the driver versions asus posts are quite....'janky' to be honest.

I would say use the newer versions elsewhere, with the exception of audio. You are kind of stuck using their UAD versions because they have the asus integrations specific to your board.

[BigJohnny]

Eventually the drivers on ASUS website wont be updated anymore and the manufacturer is all you will have. That and another good source is Station drivers.
Most of the drivers for my board R6E on ASUS support page are dated 2017. I did the initial install from the USB drive but since then all drivers have come from a different source. Manufacturer or Station drivers. Cant even get VROC to work without drivers from elsewhere, those I got from win-raid along with chipset drivers.

[spacev2]

Guitarmageddon888
So all that intel based stuff should be fine to grab from elsewhere. In fact, some of the driver versions asus posts are quite....'janky' to be honest.

I would say use the newer versions elsewhere, with the exception of audio. You are kind of stuck using their UAD versions because they have the asus integrations specific to your board.

Thanks for the reply.
Could you please clarify what the abbreviation of "UAD" stands for ?
Also would you be able to elaborate a little more about what kind of "specific ASUS integrations" are involved with the audio on the motherboards ?

BigJohnny
Eventually the drivers on ASUS website wont be updated anymore and the manufacturer is all you will have. That and another good source is Station drivers.
Most of the drivers for my board R6E on ASUS support page are dated 2017. I did the initial install from the USB drive but since then all drivers have come from a different source. Manufacturer or Station drivers. Cant even get VROC to work without drivers from elsewhere, those I got from win-raid along with chipset drivers.

Thanks for the reply.
Did you try using drivers from the driver developer websites directly such as intel before you went to the Win Raid forum ? I am just curious.

Does anyone know what the differences are between the 12.X.X.X and 22.X.X.X LAN Driver versions that are located on the ASUS download page ? There is a 300MB file size difference with no description explaining what the difference is between them.
Link: https://www.asus.com/au/Motherboards/ROG-MAXIMUS-X-HERO/HelpDesk_Download/



I can not find any 12.X.X.X LAN Driver versions on Intels website. I can only find LAN Driver versions 20.X.X.X (As shown in the picture below) Link: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/25016/Ethernet-Intel-Network-Adapter-Driver-for-Windows-10



The lack of description in the ASUS downloads section and the use of terminology such as "Support RS5 only" and "Support RS5/19H1" is confusing. (As shown in the picture below)

[Guitarmageddon1]

spacev2 wrote:
Thanks for the reply.
Could you please clarify what the abbreviation of "UAD" stands for ?
Also would you be able to elaborate a little more about what kind of "specific ASUS integrations" are involved with the audio on the motherboards ?

I believe its Universal audio driver. Its smaller and the more modern version of the audio drivers. By integrations, I mean if your board uses nahimic, DTS, etc or other technologies or third party stuff. I have the maximus x code for example, and it uses the UAD drivers with asus/nahimic integrations, but not DTS. If you look at the tenforums thread for the realtek drivers, there is a plethora of information on where/why/when to upgrade.

This will be your go-to for anything audio driver related I would say
https://www.tenforums.com/sound-audio/135259-latest-realtek-hd-audio-driver-version-2-a-165.html

[raju2529]

universal audio driver

[Kani_malli]

try this also dont to forget update windows
https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/LGA2066/ROG_RAMPAGE_VI_EXTREME_ENCORE/Realtek_Audio_Driver_V6....

[raju2529]

i have own vivobook 15 r542uq laptop . i always download latest driver from drivers developer website , i install only DCH based driver .

i have the following
intel vga DCH driver Version: 27.20.100.7922, Date: 14th feb 2020,
nvidia geforce DCH driver version 26.21.14.4259 ( 442.59) , date 04th mar 2020
intel management firmware 11.8.71.3630 from lenovo website