Are the 7-Series motherboards being left behind by the manufacturers and Intel with regards to Windows 10 drivers? Specifically updated SATA/AHCI drivers. I know everyone is suggesting that the Win-8.1 drivers be used if Win-10 drivers aren't available, and I have installed the Win-8.1 SATA drivers (using Have Disk) without issue on a clean Win-10 install.
What bothers me is that the 8-Series and newer motherboards have updated drivers for Windows 10, including SATA/AHCI. My B75 Asus board only has updated Chipset and LAN drivers so far. In fact, I've checked all the major players (Asus, ASRock, GigaByte, MSI) and all of them only have a few sporadic updated Windows 10 drivers for their 7-Series chipset boards - but non of them have updated SATA drivers.
Yes, the Win-8.1 driver seems to be working fine in Windows 10. But if no driver update is needed, then why did Asus (Intel I guess) release a new driver for the 8-Series chipset but not the B75? Actually all the 8-Series and newer chipset boards have updated SATA/AHCI drivers, but not the 7-Series boards.
Here's an example of what I'm talking about:
Asus P8B75-M/CSM
Win10
- none
Win7,8,8.1
- Intel AHCI/RAID Driver V12.8.0.1016
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbspiaStorA.sys (630 KB)
Asus B85-Plus
Win10
- Intel AHCI/RAID Driver V14.5.0.1081
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbspiaStorA.sys (1422 KB)
Win7,8,8.1
- Intel AHCI/RAID Driver V12.8.0.1016
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbspiaStorA.sys (630 KB)
If you notice, the B75 and B85 motherboards have the same SATA driver for Win7,8, and 8.1. But only the B85 board has the newer SATA driver for Windows 10. Is the newer driver improving performance, compatibility, or both?
Appreciate any feedback on driver status for 7-Series motherboards or what, if anything, the newer Windows 10 SATA driver brings to the table.