Why Is It Important to Update Drivers
A lot of PC users have grown into the habit of updating their drivers regularly and generally enjoy a healthy and well-optimized computer performance. However, there are probably just as many people who still do not understand the importance of driver updates and how they affect your system's health and performance.
Drivers are an integral part of every Windows PC. Virtually all of your hardware needs a driver that is used when interfacing between the operating system and the hardware component. Even though you may primarily associate the word "drivers" with your GPU, sound card or monitor, in fact every piece of hardware on your motherboard has an associated driver.
When you make a fresh install of your Windows OS, the operating system assigns and installs drivers for your hardware automatically. However, those are built-in system drivers that will sometimes not have all the functionality you need. For example, if you have a high refresh rate monitor, chances are you will not be able to run your monitor at the high refresh rates while using the stock monitor driver that Windows will install for you and you will need to download, update and install a new driver to get the most out of your hardware.
This is especially true for hardware components such as your GPU and sound card. GPUs are particularly sensitive when it comes to updated drivers. If you play games on your PC in addition to using it for work and browsing, you absolutely need to have updated GPU drivers. Performance updates and stability fixes are contained in more or less every single GPU driver update.
Even if you have an older GPU that was made a few years ago and may not be mentioned in the performance update notes for every new GPU driver, your overall system stability will still benefit from running the latest drivers.
Similarly, your sound card driver that comes with Windows may not allow you to use 100% of your card's options and potential features and you will want to download and install a driver from the manufacturer's website.
While Windows updates will take care of a lot of things on your system, you need to take care of at least some of your drivers manually. An updated set of drivers is one of the keys to stable and reliable system performance over long periods of time.
Of course, there are other system maintenance tasks that should be performed on a regular basis, but driver updates are one of the important components to keeping your system in top shape at all times.
