The 2 driver in my post are not official. But sometime this kind of driver become officell on intel website after a wile. (if no major bug etc are found) The RST 12xx is the same as the 12xx beta, but this one is sign by microsoft (WHQL) The chipset is also sign by microsoft. The "pros" is sometime good and sometime bad, new bug fixes and better compatibility etc. If you are not sure if you should use a unofficial driver, you can first see the changelog to see if there are any changes you like.
yep i was talking about the chipset, and i've tried to look into station-drivers website for changelogs but couldn't find them... i always used intel ones but sometimes i got the curiosity of trying these, i just don't know if they are safe since they're not official
The 10176 in the driver number on station-drivers is a typo Also, it's only an inf file. If the device is already detected, the inf won't make a scrap of difference. This is why the new versions don't do anything if an older one has previously been run. The main performance driver for Intel is the AHCI driver. This is optional, if not installed the inf installer will install the INF version, which just uses the standard Microsoft AHCI driver. I'm not saying it's a bad idea to keep it up to date though, just pointing out it won't do much (unless on a fresh install, possibly, or with new post-Win 8 hardware like Intel Z87 platforms).
I do not understand exactly what you mean. But unofficial drivers can be important for some and for others not. If you want to use drivers from Intel's website do it. But let the people who wants take part in this thread.
Anyone knows what is the last AHCI driver version that supports ICH8M-E/M (PM965)? It appears that 11.1.0.1006 is already missing it, even though it still supports ICH7M, which is earlier!