Nvidia has announced that the upcoming 580 series of GPU drivers for Unix (including Linux) will be the last to support the Maxwell, Pascal, and Volta architectures fully. This development hints that Windows users with GTX 10, 9, and 7 Series graphics cards might soon see the end of full driver updates for their GPUs.
To explain, Maxwell covers the GeForce GTX 7 and 9 Series, while Pascal is the architecture behind the GTX 10 Series. Interestingly, GPUs like the GTX 1650 and GTX 1660 are built on the newer Turing architecture, so that they won’t be affected by this change. Volta is primarily relevant for enterprise GPUs, so gamers are less concerned about it here. The term “Unix” in Nvidia’s update includes Linux and related operating systems, as outlined in their official Unix drivers archive.
What does this mean for Windows gamers? The Unix and Windows drivers share the same core branches, differing only in their version numbers. That means the last Unix driver supporting these older architectures will correspond to the final Windows driver, which will provide full feature support for GTX 7, 9, and 10 GPUs.
Currently, Windows drivers are at the 576 series, with the first release in April and six versions since. The following driver release will likely be a new fork, matching the Unix 580 driver series, and probably the last to fully support these older GPUs. This final update is expected to arrive by late 2025.
Even after full driver support ends, Nvidia will likely continue releasing security updates for these GPUs. However, “Game Ready” optimisations for new game releases may no longer include them, which could impact performance or compatibility with upcoming titles.
It’s worth noting that Pascal is already over nine years old, having been launched in May 2016, while Maxwell was even older, first released in early 2014. Nvidia can’t support legacy architectures forever, and AMD has a similar approach, focusing its Adrenalin drivers on RDNA GPUs from the past six years.
How long should companies support older hardware? That’s a tricky question and depends on many factors. But nearly a decade of updates for Pascal and more than 10 years for Maxwell isn’t too shabby. Still, for those holding on to these GPUs, it might be time to start thinking ahead.
What do you think about this shift? Are you still running one of these older GTX cards, or have you upgraded recently?
