Confused about Realtek Audio Drivers

[JohnnyGui]

Hey all,

I have an Asrock Pro4 Z77 with ALC892, running Win 8 64bit Pro.
So I wanted to install new drivers for this audio device and downloaded the R2.70 drivers from Realtek.com and installed them without a hitch.
However, when I went to the Asrock website and clicked on my mobo I saw there's another driver version for my ALC892; ver6699.
Since these 2 drivers have different version formats, I'm wondering which one is newer, the R2.70 or the 6699??

Also, while googling I noticed there are several versions (station-drivers has 6818, Intel has 6804, others 6702, etc.). Are any of these fit for my mobo? Since they have higher version numbers than the 6699 one on the Asrock website, I guess they're newer?

Thanks in advance,

John

 

[fireberd]

The "preferred" drivers are the ones from your PC or motherboard vendor, and in this case ASRock. I have one PC with an ASRock Z77 Professional Fatal1ty motherboard. I'm using the drivers supplied by ASRock and everything works perfectly for me. Same way with my other new build PC using a Gigabyte motherboard -I'm using the Gigabyte supplied RealTek driver.

Most PC or motherboard vendors supply drivers that are customized for their hardware. The "generic" drivers from the sound chip manufacturers may or may not work properly and/or fully.

 

[JohnnyGui]

I noticed that the drivers from the Asrock website are quite old and installing the drivers from their original websites didn't cause any problems for me *knocks on wood . Don't they test it on different mobos aswell?

I also just found out that the R2.70 driver from the Realtek website is the 6662 version. Station-drivers.com has the 6818 version (www.station-drivers.com • Afficher le sujet - Driver: Realtek HD Audio Version 67xx/68xx WHQL). So how come the original manufacturer's website has an older version?

 

[fireberd]

Many vendors only update drivers as needed. Many times drivers from the manufacturer, such as RealTek, Creative (SoundBlaster), etc are issued for some specific problems that may only be a problem in specific vendor installations or specific games. For example, Dell does not routinely issue new driver versions; in many cases they will only update a driver if the old driver is causing a problem in their hardware or if the old driver does not meet the Dell published spec's. Occasionally a Dell update, such as a BIOS, will include support for new hardware (e.g. CPU's) but even that is rare.

The old adage "If it ain't broke don't fix it" really applies.

 

[JohnnyGui]

I understand where you're coming from. I always thought newer drivers doesn't only fix issues on specific systems, but also improve overall performance (ofcourse depending on their changelogs) of their corresponding devices. Since vendors only updates drivers when the old ones have issues, their drivers would stay old performance-wise.

Do you happen to have an answer on my second question btw about other sites having newer versions than the original? Is the newer version also an original Realtek driver?

 

[fireberd]

I can't comment on other drivers. They may be just issued for one specific thing.

 

[JohnnyGui]

Thanks for your help.

Anyone else knows anything about this? Maybe this should be moved to the drivers section?