Nvidia has been participating in firing extra flak at AMD over the standard of its rival’s GPU drivers (in an oblique vogue), in what has been one thing of a working battle over the course of this yr (Intel takes some photographs right here too, thoughts).

As Tom’s {Hardware} (opens in new tab) studies, Nvidia’s Senior Product Supervisor for GeForce drivers, Sean Pelletier, shared a desk of driver replace frequency over the past two years for AMD, Nvidia and Intel.

For anybody holding observe of driver releases for avid gamers:#GeForce #GameReadyDrivers pic.twitter.com/yurEIWsVBHDecember 8, 2022

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The message is that Nvidia delivers much more driver updates frequently for avid gamers, with 20 WHQL-certified graphics driver variations in 2021, and 18 in 2022 (as much as December 8). WHQL stands for Home windows {Hardware} High quality Labs, so that they’re licensed by Microsoft.

That compares to five and 6 WHQL-certified releases for AMD respectively, although Group Pink additionally pushed out 24 and 19 beta drivers in 2021 and 2022. For Intel, the discharge driver tally was 9 and 6 licensed, plus 5 and 13 beta drivers over 2021 and 2022 respectively.

Pelletier observes that Nvidia launched help for a great deal extra video games with these driver releases, too: 75 and 69 video games to be exact, for 2021 and 2022, in comparison with 37 and 29 for AMD, plus 5 and 28 respectively for Intel.

Evaluation: A disagreement that does nobody any favors, actually

That is one more not-so-subtle dig at AMD (primarily, and Intel on the aspect) and its driver high quality. Sure, this has occurred earlier than, again in April of this yr, the place in a video offered by Pelletier, Nvidia asserted that it doesn’t “launch sub-par beta drivers with minimal testing”, a transparent shot at AMD even when Group Pink wasn’t talked about by title.

Clearly, the bolstered suggestion right here is to once more present what number of AMD drivers are launched in beta, and that this can be a weak point in comparison with how Nvidia’s drivers are all completed variations.

The fact of driver improvement will not be fairly so simple as that, although, as AMD identified when it fired a salvo again at Nvidia in July, replying (not directly, once more) to Group Inexperienced’s unique video and sub-par driver options. AMD identified varied counterarguments, in reality, and underlined that its beta drivers (or ‘elective’ drivers because the agency prefers to name them) will not be really WHQL-certified, however they’re technically WHQL-ready.

In different phrases, AMD claimed its beta drivers endure the “identical strenuous validation” as the discharge variations, they only aren’t checked out by Microsoft. Moreover, AMD boasted it examined drivers on extra system configurations than Nvidia. Certainly, Group Pink mentioned that: “AMD Non-compulsory [beta] drivers are extra akin to the production-grade drivers from our rivals.” And that having beta drivers with months of public utilization was a bonus in making ready tighter launch drivers.

Actually, it’s an argument that may commute, and albeit, most likely one which does neither firm any favors finally. Each corporations’ driver improvement processes may have their negatives and positives, ups and downs, however ultimately, it’s solely the completed high quality that issues. (AMD could properly assert that ‘Nvidia began it’ with this chain of arguments, however come on guys, let’s simply drop it now).

Nvidia is probably going hoping to gasoline doubts rooted up to now for a lot of veteran avid gamers, who don’t belief AMD drivers as a result of manner again when, they actually might be fairly doubtful on the reliability entrance. However these days are lengthy gone, and Radeon Adrenalin drivers have taken nice strides by way of stability since then.

The timing of this tweet doesn’t look like any coincidence, after all, seeing as AMD has simply launched its new RDNA three GPUs and despatched them off to battle Nvidia’s RTX 4090 and 4080. So casting slightly doubt on the software program entrance appears to be like like a tactical transfer, let’s assume.

However, graphics playing cards will stand on their opinions, person suggestions, and gross sales, after all, and our verdict on the brand new flagship RX 7900 XTX is that it represents a superior option to Nvidia’s RTX 4080 (with caveats, and admittedly, a good chunk of desire right here relies on the somewhat ridiculous pricing for the 4080, a scenario which may be about to alter).

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