wondering what the benefits are of installing MEI driver-only from intel on a system like a z390 board with an nvme drive, if any?
are there any realworld benefits like gaming or benchmark numbers increasing by for example installing the latest driver-only MEI listed on this thread:
Intel Management Engine: Drivers, Firmware & System Tools
?
Should I download the Intel MEI Driver v1909.12.0.1237 driver listed there for my z390 chipset motherboard? and perhaps run some benchmarks before/after to see difference, or is it good idea to ALWAYS have latest MEI driver installed?
I dont want to install the complete software package from intel though since I like to keep background services and apps to minimum unless it benefits system in performance,
btw, there is newer driver-only MEI version here from what I can see (v1910.12.0.1239 1.5mb consumer): https://www.station-drivers.com/index.ph…id=3959&lang=en
thanks for any feedback on this!
@plutomaniac , btw it seems you are expert on the subject of MEI so would be nice to perhaps hear from you and opinion on MEI driver and realworld performance benefit on new z390 chipsets, or in general, good idea to always install+update MEI driver or not much difference vs fresh windows10 install+ windows updates but no MEI driver install? (or there is maybe a native / automatic MEI driver in windows 10 always?, perhaps old version?)
anyone can feel free to answer though ofcourse,
cheers 
also this post from another user on different forum regarding MEI scared me (lol)
"Wow, is there a doubt in anyone’s mind as to what IME is for? Let’s see:
- IME has been installed on all Intel chipsets since 2008;
- user has no control over it;
- it’s a standalone Minix-based system that can take control of the system at the lowest level;
- it cannot be turned off by user;
- tech specs are not publicly available.
Also have a look here: "[IME] is a parallel operating system running on an isolated chip, but with access to your PCs hardware. It runs when your computer is asleep, while its booting up, and while your operating system is running. It has full access to your system hardware, including your system memory, the contents of your display, keyboard input, and even the network… Its a little black box, and only Intel knows exactly whats inside.“
Well, if it’s not a backdoor then I would say that it’s a kill-switch for users who… don’t behave.”
anyway, i’ve yet to see any confirmed real world performance benefit from MEI as in higher 1% low/average/max fps in games or better frametimes, or significantly improved disk benchmarks with nvme drives or similar…
if there is good reason to install latest mei driver im listening anyway, is interesting topic atleast IMO
cheers
ME driver need only if you use Intel’s “ME/ICC/CLOCK software” (Clock Commander, FWUpdate and etc)
Extreme Tuning Utility (XTU) may be require this driver but i dont not sure.
p.s. This driver is just software bridge between users apps and ME(HECI) hardware
yeah, for a consumer only interested in performance in gaming/benchmarks etc, it seems MEI is nothing more than a intel backdoor, more or less,
if i’m wrong i’d like to see some proof anyway
PS I guess disabling the MEI in device manager has zero effect in reality and its running no matter what?
disabling something in DM means disabling loading driver, me hardware still in game
Install the latest MEI-Only Installer and you’re good to go. There is no performance difference between MEI-only drivers.
Hi !
question was more, is there any performance difference between not installing MEI driver at all, vs installing it ?
it seems like no from what I can see anyway? thanks !
No, only problems. Install the MEI-Only Installer.
there no problem, as i wrote before, me dirver no need for usual users of PC
Personally, I think the question should be worded in the lines of:
Is it worth updating the pre-existing driver provided by Win10 which dates to 2016 for the newer one?
As in, is there any performance gain for a regular user or stability gain of any sort to speak of?
Because I believe the answer you gave is in the context of assuming that the person has no driver installed. But what if that is not the case?
Thanks.