with the arrival of the latest Windows 10 (1903) for the public, I started reinstalling the fresh OS on some older machines.
While in the past I always installed the Intel AHCI drivers, now I am not so sure it is still the best option for older hardware (SandyBridge, Haswell, BayTrail, etc.) as the microsoft drivers seem more refined at every Windows reiteration, while Intel obviously has stopped any developement for older hardware.
what’s the forum opinion?
I feel you may be right, indeed microsoft seems to deliver newer drivers for older gear than their manufacturers do.
@elisw :
You are right - the in-box MS AHCI driver gets better with each Win10 version. As long as the user runs the Intel SATA Controller in AHCI mode, the usage of this driver is a good choice for everyone, who is running Win10 v1903.
Nevertheless - according to my recently done AHCI driver comparison tests while running Win10 v1903 the Intel RST(e) AHCI driver v13.2.8.1002 was still the best performant for my Z170 system (and probably more than ever for older Intel chipset systems). The benchmark results can be found within the start post’s chapter C of (look [url=https://www.win-raid.com/t362f23-Performance-of-the-Intel-RST-RSTe-AHCI-RAID-Drivers.html]>this</url] thread.