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I have a laptop, Acer Swift 3 with integrated Intel UHD 620 graphics.

Today I received a notification through Intel driver support assistant that I have an update for my graphics driver but it came with the following warning attached in the picture below.

Is it safe to update to this driver?
My main concern is battery life.

enter image description here

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  • Depending on how much customization the OEM has done to the GPU drivers, even if you tried to install Intel's generic version, the installer may not even allow the install, displaying an error that the install cannot continue and that the drivers from the OEM are the only ones able to be used.
    – JW0914
    May 3, 2020 at 11:58
  • My main concern here is battery backup. Recently I used a 3rd party driver update software to update a couple of drivers after which the battery life became almost 50%. So I reverted back to what I had originally.
    – Dhruba Banerjee
    May 3, 2020 at 12:29
  • 3rd party driver update software isn't required with Windows 10, as Windows Update will update all drivers with the most current WHQL drivers - the only drivers it will not update are CPU-related drivers (Chipset, IMEI, etc.).
    – JW0914
    May 3, 2020 at 12:56
  • Dhruba - never use 3rd party driver updaters. They are snake oil & not worth the trouble they can cause. My answer below regarding graphics drivers still applies.
    – Tetsujin
    May 3, 2020 at 15:10
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    Yes..I understood that. I felt the difference right away my battery was struggling to keep up 😅
    – Dhruba Banerjee
    May 3, 2020 at 15:11

1 Answer 1

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Just a general 'rule of thumb' on this type of decision…

If the laptop is sufficiently new that the manufacturer is still making regular driver updates - stick with them.

After a year or two they usually stop; effectively abandoning your machine forever unless something major needs updating for security reasons etc.

Once that point comes, then hang onto the last driver until your next major OS revision, or until something no longer works properly with the old driver.
That's probably then the time to switch to Intel's drivers instead.

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    You can of course always try, I had some success (new features and stability) with older Dell Desktops and Laptops. Just make sure you have a backup to revert.
    – eckes
    May 4, 2020 at 6:45
  • Well mine is a year old laptop. Everything seems to run fine now. I have decided to skip this update until something really stops working.
    – Dhruba Banerjee
    May 4, 2020 at 11:50

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