NVIDIA drops mainstream support for Fermi and 32-bit OS

Posted on Sunday, April 08 2018 @ 18:54 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
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NVIDIA announced that effective immediately, Fermi-based GPUs will no longer receive mainstream graphics driver support. This means these cards, which started shipping in April 2010, will no longer get feature updates, performance optimizations, or bug fixes. They're still on legacy support until January 2019, this means users of these ancient video cards can still expect security updates.

At the same time, NVIDIA is also dropping mainstream driver support for 32-bit operating systems. Just like Fermi cards, users of 32-bit operating systems can expect legacy support until January 2019.

As AnandTech reports, this likely means that NVIDIA's next driver branch will be released later this month. For comparison, AMD dumped support for its Fermi's contemporaries in 2015. That was unusually soon.
In comparison, AMD’s GPUs contemporaneous to Fermi were moved to legacy status in 2015, with all pre-Graphics Core Next architectures affected. On AMD’s side, retiring pre-GCN products meant that all their supported GPUs were DX12 capable.


About the Author

Thomas De Maesschalck

Thomas has been messing with computer since early childhood and firmly believes the Internet is the best thing since sliced bread. Enjoys playing with new tech, is fascinated by science, and passionate about financial markets. When not behind a computer, he can be found with running shoes on or lifting heavy weights in the weight room.



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