Bought a Z170N-Gaming 5 Board. No Idea What Drivers Are Needed.

[candymanlovescandy]

As mentioned above, I purchased a Gigabyte Z170N-Gaming 5 today and realized I haven't got a clue on what drivers to download. I guess the excitement got to me without thoroughly thinking it through. I'm in the drivers page:
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5901#driver
And I have no idea which ones are actually required and which ones I don't need. Googling/Redditing, I found a user recommend to the OP that the necessary drivers are the Realtek HD Audio Driver, BigFoot Lan Driver, BT Driver, and the WLNA Driver.
Problem is my stubbornness is getting the best of me and I HAVE to know what these others are for. I mean gigabyte wouldn't put these under the drivers page if they weren't needed or important right?

-Creative SB X-Fi Driver
-Intent Management Engine Interface
-Intel INF Installation
-Instal SATA Preinstall Driver
-Intel Rapid Storage Technology
-Intel USB 3.0 Driver
-Thunderbolt Driver
-Intel VGA Driver

Which ones are really needed? I always assumed that windows would just automatically install the necessary drivers, never knew PC building could be so daunting.

 

[Luminary]

If you're running Windows the Windows Update Utility typically will install a generic driver in place of most of those if you don't manually install the motherboard specific drivers. You won't get as much functionality out of the motherboard hardware, but the system would work just fine.

To go through the benefits of some of the drivers you mentioned:

-Creative SB X-Fi Driver: You'll have more options to tweak your audio if you install this over a generic driver.

-Instal SATA Preinstall Driver: For expanded RAID and boot functionality. A good one to install and no generic would provide that function.

-Intel USB 3.0 Driver: Probably no different than the generic, but always good to install the proper motherboard USB driver for best throughput

-Thunderbolt Driver: Self-explanitory, needed to use the thuderbolt drive. Same situation as the USB driver.

-Intel VGA Driver: Provides VGA connection support, this one you probably really wouldn't see a difference between the official and generic driver.

The others are a few extra bells and whistles, but honestly nothing you would probably notice in day-to-day use. There is absolutely NO harm in installing all of the available motherboard drivers and accessories, as they are a great way to learn a bit more about the expanded functionality of the motherboard.