Nvidia Ends Driver Support for GTX 700, 900, and 10 Series GPUs

Key Takeaways

1. Release 580 will be the final Nvidia driver to support older GPU architectures: Maxwell, Pascal, and Volta.
2. Affected product lines include GeForce GTX 700, GTX 900, GTX 10 series, and Titan V.
3. The end-of-life (EOL) status for these GPUs will also apply to Windows, not just UNIX systems.
4. Nvidia will continue to support the newer Turing-based GeForce GTX 16 series GPUs.
5. After driver version 580, future updates, performance enhancements, and security fixes will no longer be available for the affected GPUs.

Nvidia has announced that its upcoming major driver release, known as Release 580, will be the final version to support older GPU architectures like Maxwell, Pascal, and Volta. This decision effectively ends the long run of well-known product lines, including the GeForce GTX 700, GTX 900, GTX 10 series, and Titan V. The current driver version is 576.80, suggesting that the transition could happen in the next few months.

Deprecation Schedule

As per a revised UNIX graphics driver deprecation schedule, Nvidia has stated:

The Release 580 series will be the last to support GPUs based on the Maxwell, Pascal, and Volta architectures.

Even though the update is specifically aimed at UNIX systems, Nvidia’s driver structure is mostly consistent across different platforms. This means that the end-of-life (EOL) status will also apply to Windows. Therefore, future Game Ready drivers will not be available for these older GPUs once the 580 series is rolled out.

Affected Products

The products impacted include:

However, Nvidia will keep supporting the more recent Turing-based GeForce GTX 16 series GPUs, which are not affected by this update.

The Maxwell, Pascal, and Volta architectures have powered Nvidia GPUs for a period of eight to eleven years, which is quite a long time in the rapidly evolving GPU market. While this news might disappoint users of older systems, the company has arguably provided support that goes beyond the usual hardware lifecycle.

Future Considerations

Users with GPUs that are impacted can continue using their current drivers, but future Game Ready driver updates, performance enhancements, and security fixes will stop after the release of driver version 580. Nvidia has yet to announce a specific launch date for this update, allowing users some time to consider potential upgrades.

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