Want the best driver for your particular nvidia card? Look here first!

New threads are started every week asking, 'What is the best driver for ...?' and this thread aims to help you find the answer.

Currently there so many of these threads that it has become difficult to find or get helpful answers.

When someone starts another thread it often results in flaming and a rather useless generic response, 'Whatever works best in your system'.

While this is true to a point, some people prefer to get some real life results from others who own the same hardware, as each Nvidia video card model behaves differently with each driver (and some cards suffer quirks more so than others e.g GTX295).

To help fix this problem I have created a list of threads for each video card model so that people can check here first to see what useful info may already have been collected for their particular Nvidia card.

If I have missed an existing thread for your card then please add it below this post and I (or the mods) can add it to the current list.

Also, if your card does not have a thread and you wish to start one, just add the link to this thread for everyone's benefit.

GTX480

???

GTX470

Best driver for GTX 470?

GTX465

best driver for gtx465

GTX460

???

GT330M

No driver for GT330m??

GTX295 QUAD SLI

Best 295 quad driver?

best driver for crysis and quad sli 295

Very good driver 187.66 works great!

GTX295

Best GTX295 driver?

Best driver?

Nvidia 196.21 driver issues

Help me m8s for GTX295 driver opinions...

Need a better driver for my GTX295! (Recommendations needed!)

GTX285

Best driver for Win7 (x64) GTX 285? (re: Red Faction Guerilla)

GTX280

Best Driver for GTX280

best modified driver for gtx280?

GTX275

What the Best Driver for Evga gtx 275

Best Driver for CoD:W@W and GTX275

GTX260 192 / 216 SP

SO What driver is best for gtx260???

Best driver for gtx260?

best driver for gtx 260 ssc

The Best Drivers for Nvidia GTX260 SP216

GTS250

GTS250 Driver issues with CoD World at War

9800GTX / GTX+

9800+ Card, Can't find "OPTIMAL" driver?? Software tell me??

9800GT

Best driver for 9800gt.

9800M

Best driver for GTA4? My card: 9800m GS

9600GT

Which driver has the very best IQ available?

9600M

9600m GT - any decent driver?

9500GT

Best Stable Driver ?

8800Ultra

Best Windows 7 x64 driver for 2x8800ultra/sli?

8800GTX

Your best driver for 8800GTX

8800GTS 640MB / 512MB

Best Driver for 8800GTS 640 SSC

need some help with finding good driver

Need a good driver for my setup

8800GT

Best driver for my 8800 GT?

Recommended driver versions for GeForce 8800GT

Is there ANY driver better than 182.50 for 8800GT?

8800M

need driver for 8800m gtx area-51 m15x

8600GTS

Driver for my NVIDIA 8600 GTS to use with Fs2004

8600GT

Hello plz anybody Best Driver for Xfx 8600gt...

7950GT PCI-e

Best GeForce Go 7950 GT Driver?

7950GT AGP

Geforce 7950 GT AGP - only bad Driver

7800GT

Whats the recommended driver for BFG 7800GT + overclocking method

7800GS AGP

Best AGP driver? Last XP Driver?

7400GO

Best driver for Go 7400?

Win7 x32 Laptop Driver for Go 7400 (Quadro NVS 120)

6800GS

Best driver for Gainward 6800 gs 512 mb

6700XL

¿win7 driver for 6700XL?

6600GT

GeForce 6600 GT : should I update my (old) driver

5900XT

Win & GFX driver

MX4000

Nvidia GeForce 4 MX 4000 driver for Windows 7

Other Useful Threads;

Best driver for Modern Warfare 2?

What is the best driver for GTA 4

best driver for GTA4 game?

Best driver for TF2/L4D2 ??

best driver for dragon age?

Which Driver for Champions online?


What is your favorite driver?

Driver recommendations for window mode gaming (SLI Setup)

best driver for tri sli

Best 18x.xx driver

best driver performance wise ? WIN 7 64bit

BAD DRIVERS;

196.75 Driver causes massive overheat

Nvidia Confirms 196.75 Driver Bug and Has Identified the Issue

GPU-Z Displaying 2 GPU temperatures using 196.75 driver

9800 GT fried after installing latest driver

 

whatever happened to "try em and see"

this helps no one really as ALL systems may have slight differences so any one driver could be good or bad

 

Agree with AlcapwN. This thread is useless.

 

Why would it be a useless thread?

As long as its updated when better drivers, from those listed for those cards, are found, it should be very useful.

 

Not to mention some (if not most) of the linked threads are seriously outdated. The thread for my card (8800gtx) is more than 2 years old for example.

A better idea would be to create some sort of matrix in which for each driver/card combo a rating is shown (or "good/bad") based on the votes of users. But I'm not sure if this is feasable.

 

There is no "best driver". All pc configurations are different and drivers never work exactly the same in each one.

The only, repeat, only way to try the stability and performance of a driver version is to try it by yourself.

 

The general rule I follow with drivers is to try the latest first. If it doesnt work well for you, then try the previous one and so on. No need to go to a 6 month old driver (although some would disagree) unless you dont play the latest games and dont care about newer driver optimizations for those games. If you have an older card (7 series or 6 series), you may prefer much older drivers, but you would probably be playing older games where newer driver optimizations dont matter much.

I know some people swear by certain "magical" older drivers, and even if their claims are valid, remember that it may quite different for other users, even with same cards.

Another thing. If you own a single card, disregard all driver opinions of SLI owners and vice versa.

 

Think this thread is pointless/useless? Simple, don't use it - it's not for you .

It's up to to those that have each model card to keep each thread updated.

People seem to like to make new threads for the same card (just look at 8800GT, 8800GTS, GTX260, GTX295) and I am attempting to cut these threads down by making people aware of existing threads.

If you are looking for a driver that worked well with a particular game and your card I think this thread could be useful.

I wouldn't know how to implement this, we do have a poll system for each driver but we have people using different OS (also 32-bit vs 64-bit) not being taken into account - so I don't find useful personally.

I agree there is no universal 'best driver', but there is certainly a 'better driver' depending on the optimizations mentioned in the release notes for each driver release.

Newer drivers often cause issues in older games (look at the number of people that complain about GTAIV, TF2, Dirt 2 and BF2).

Definitely agree!

However, some people like to get some background info if there may be a preferred driver for their card and a particular game.

 

chinobino, thank you very much!
Mods - please make this thread sticky, it's really very useful.

 

Herp Derp.

 

would be usefull if we all had same pc s and played the same games..........c1: