When it comes to graphics cards, the hardware itself is only part of the performance equation, because the driver is almost as important, for example, Intel’s latest Arc driver improves the game performance on the old API by nearly 80%. Newer titles like Need for Speed: Unbound can also get twice the performance boost.
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Sean Pelletier, senior product manager at NVIDIA, recently shared some interesting statistics on new driver releases, and Pelletier showed how NVIDIA is way ahead of AMD and Intel when it comes to WHQL-certified driver releases. The numbers are for 2021 and 2022, with NVIDIA claiming it will release four times as many WHQL drivers as AMD and more than twice as many as Intel in 2021, and three times as many as AMD and Intel in 2022.
WHQL is the abbreviation of Microsoft Windows Hardware Quality Lab. Can be distributed through Windows Update.
In addition to the number of WHQL-certified drivers, the chart also includes drivers related to the number of optimized games. Nvidia is far ahead here too, releasing roughly twice as many drivers optimized for games as AMD Radeon.
