Nvidia Dropping Driver Support for Older Graphics Cards

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A whole heap of older Nvidia graphics cards are going to lose driver support.

Nvidia has announced that it is going to be dropping driver support for a large number of its old graphics cards, including essentially the entire 8-series, 9-series, 100-series, 200-series, 300-series, and one card (the GeForce 405) from its 400-series. This includes mobile and desktop products. Support for a number of professional workstation products is also being terminated.

Up to and including the release of the GeForce 340, driver users will still be getting driver and game optimizations; however, after this, the party is over. Up until the GeForce 343 driver in 2016, the company will still be fixing minor driver issues as needed, but these are likely to affect only a small group of people.

Don't be scared if you're still sporting one of those graphics cards, though. You'll still be able to keep using it long after the driver support stops; you just won't be getting any new drivers.

The entire list of products can be found here on Nvidia's website. Are you still using a card among them?

Niels Broekhuijsen
Niels Broekhuijsen

Niels Broekhuijsen is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He reviews cases, water cooling and pc builds.

65 Comments Comment from the forums
  • RoboKomodo
    Not happy about this. I work in a small computer shop, and there's still plenty of folks out there with some of these cards (including myself).
    Reply
  • Hupiscratch
    When your board stop being supported by the manufacturer, it's that time you look at the stars and say "I think it's time for an upgrade". My 9600GT SLI arrange served me good...
    Reply
  • bigshootr8
    Natural course of things. I believe things get to a point where worrying about drivers for older cards hinders things going forward. Their is more then ample driver support for current OS's and programs that can use them.
    Reply
  • HoboBob24
    And so was the tale of the 8800.
    Reply
  • Spectre694
    Honestly I was surprised I was still getting updates on my 280 and 8800 builds. (been pulling HTPC duty)
    Reply
  • Deuce65
    12883603 said:
    Not happy about this. I work in a small computer shop, and there's still plenty of folks out there with some of these cards (including myself).

    You make it sound like the cards will suddenly stop working.
    Given how quickly things change in this industry I think it is a little unrealistic to expect driver support for what, going on almost a decade now? Given what a drain it can be to maintain backwards compatibility I'm surprised they did it for as long as they did. Off the top of my head, I can't think of very many other hardware components you can get from 10 years ago where the manufacturer is still putting out driver updates.

    And of course, looking at it strictly from a business standpoint, anyone still running a 8800GT in their main rig isn't their target consumer anyway. I mean yea I guess they could say "I'll never buy from them again!!!", but these people weren't buying from them (or anyone) anyway.
    Reply
  • Christopher Shaffer
    I've never owned a PC component that was still in serious use when the manufacturer stopped support, and I've owned a LOT of PC hardware.If your hardware is at this age, it's probably time to either accept it's current state as the best it's going to get or upgrade. It's not like new drivers suddenly double a card's speed or something.People that get burnt up about this are probably the same ones complaining that there's no standard PCI slots on MBs anymore, lol.Look at this way: now you have an excuse to overclock it until it starts on fire so you can buy a new one.
    Reply
  • jhansonxi
    Open source drivers would solve the legacy support problem but I haven't seen that attempted with Windows drivers since the 3dfx days.
    Reply
  • falchard
    I was at a staples and they still sell that 8600 for around $160.
    Reply
  • skit75
    My 560Ti dodges another bullet! If only it was on the list, I could convince the ole' lady it's time for the 760 I been eyeballing.Ohh and everything at Staples is marked up at least 30% over its competitors. I don't know how they still exist.
    Reply