Intel discontinues regular igpu driver updates for 10th generation CPUs and older

Intel is moving the drivers for the integrated GPUs from various Core processors to the legacy branch. As a result, they will receive updates less often. These are processors from the Comet Lake series, which appeared in 2020, and older.

Intel makes the switch driver version 31.0.101.3222 of its Graphics drives. These are processors from the sixth to tenth generations of the company, i.e. from Skylake from 2014 to Ice Lake and Comet Lake from 2019 and 2020. The switch applies to Core CPUs and processors from the Atom, Celeron – and Xeon series.

Owners of these CPUs can expect a quarterly driver update for the igpus from now on. In the meantime, Intel may also release ‘critical fixes and patches for security vulnerabilities’ for the integrated GPUs. So-called ‘day zero’ patches with support for new games are no longer released immediately. Only the most recent processor generations from Intel, Rocket Lake and Alder Lake, still receive regular updates for their integrated GPUs.

From now on, the Intel Graphics driver will get two different drivers within the executable by default, respectively for new CPUs and the legacy processors. The driver automatically chooses the correct version for the user’s system during installation.