Nvidia throws shade at AMD drivers as RDNA 3 GPUs are launched

Nvidia has been firing more flak at AMD over the quality of its rival’s GPU drivers (in an indirect way), in what has been something of a battle over the course of this year (Intel is also taking some pictures, mind you).

As Tom’s hardware (opens in new tab) reports, Nvidia’s Senior Product Manager for GeForce Drivers, Sean Pelletier, shared a table showing the frequency of driver updates over the past two years for AMD, Nvidia and Intel.

The message is that Nvidia is regularly delivering many more driver updates for gamers, with 20 WHQL-certified graphics driver releases in 2021 and 18 in 2022 (until December 8). WHQL stands for Windows Hardware Quality Labs, so they are certified by Microsoft.

That equates to 5 and 6 WHQL-certified releases for AMD, respectively, although Team Red also released 24 and 19 beta drivers in 2021 and 2022. For Intel, the number of release drivers was 9 and 6 certified, plus 5 and 13 beta drivers more than 2021 and 2022 respectively.

Pelletier notes that Nvidia has also introduced support for many more games with these driver releases: 75 and 69 games to be exact, for 2021 and 2022, compared to 37 and 29 for AMD, plus 5 and 28 respectively for Intel.

Analysis: a battle of words that actually does no one any good

This is another not-so-subtle dig at AMD (mainly, and Intel on the side) and driver quality. Yes, this has happened before, back in April this year, where Nvidia claimed in a video presented by Pelletier that it “doesn’t release sub-par beta drivers with minimal testing,” a clear shot for AMD, even if Team Red wasn’t mentioned by name.

Obviously the reinforced suggestion here is to show again how many AMD drivers have been released in beta, and that this is a weakness compared to how Nvidia’s drivers are all finished versions.

However, the reality of driver development isn’t quite so simple, as AMD pointed out when it fired a salvo at Nvidia back in July, responding (again indirectly) to Team Green’s original video and subpar driver suggestions. In fact, AMD pointed out several counterarguments, underlining that its beta drivers (or “optional” drivers as the company prefers to call them) may not actually be WHQL-certified, but they are technically WHQL-ready.

In other words, AMD claimed that its beta drivers go through “the same heavy validation” as the release versions, they just aren’t looked at by Microsoft. In addition, AMD boasted that it tested drivers on more system configurations than Nvidia. Indeed, Team Red said that: “AMD Optional [beta] drivers are more akin to the production-grade drivers of our competitors.” And that having beta drivers with months of public use was an advantage in preparing tighter drivers.

Really, it’s an argument that can go back and forth, and frankly probably one that ultimately doesn’t do either company any good. Both companies’ driver development processes will have their ups and downs, but in the end it’s all about the finished quality. (AMD may very well claim that ‘Nvidia started it’ with this set of arguments, but come on guys, let’s just drop it for now).

Nvidia probably hopes to rekindle the doubts rooted in the past for many veteran gamers, who don’t trust AMD drivers, because way back when they could really be quite questionable in terms of reliability. But those days are long gone and Radeon Adrenalin drivers have made great strides in stability since then.

The timing of this tweet doesn’t seem like a coincidence, of course, as AMD just launched its new RDNA 3 GPUs and sent them to do battle with Nvidia’s RTX 4090 and 4080. So casting a little doubt on the software front seems like a tactical move shall we say.

Nevertheless, graphics cards will of course hold up based on their reviews, user feedback and sales, and our verdict on the new flagship RX 7900 XTX is that it’s a superior choice to Nvidia’s RTX 4080 (with caveats, and admittedly a fair bit of preference is based here on the rather ridiculous pricing for the 4080, a situation about to change).