GeForce 590 driver branch is the first without feature support for GTX 9- and 10-series GPUs — Linux release marks the end of the line for graphics cards that defined an era
The Nvidia GeForce cards released in the mid-2010s were a pretty hot commodity. Many here will likely have fond memories of the massively popular GTX 970, 1070, and 1080 GPUs. All good things must come to an end, however, and the recently released Nvidia 590-series Linux beta drivers have confirmed what we'd already figured would happen: feature support for 900-series and 10-series cards is officially finished.
Linux users have historically actually been luckier than mere Windows peons, as feature support on the penguin-infused operating system used to continue for longer. That's no longer the case since 2024, as Nvidia's release schedule for both OSes has been in lockstep, especially as they share a common development branch. Reportedly, Nvidia forum users installed the 590 beta release and confirmed the older card's deprecation.
It should be noted that the newer drivers not supporting the vintage cards doesn't mean that support for them is ending completely—much the opposite, in fact. Last October, as per usual procedure, Nvidia announced that 900- and 10-series GPUs would be moving to the legacy support model, with their respective final drivers seeing security updates until October 2028.
That's conveniently longer than Windows 10's actual final EOL. The outgoing operating system still has one year of free security updates for users willing to sign in with a Microsoft account or, alternatively, pay a little cash.
It was a good run, though. The GTX 970 came out in 2014, while the bulk of the 10-series cards, including the mighty GTX 1080 Ti, came out between 2016 and 2017. That marks the better part of a decade of Nvidia Game Ready game enhancement features for those cards.
If, like me, you played a lot of games on the outgoing cards, pour one out. My former GTX 970 served me well during its day, and the 1080 Ti that replaced it cost me a kidney and a half but saw me through the COVID shortage at high FPS, and netted me a decent sum when selling it. Totally worth it.
Bruno Ferreira is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware. He has decades of experience with PC hardware and assorted sundries, alongside a career as a developer. He's obsessed with detail and has a tendency to ramble on the topics he loves. When not doing that, he's usually playing games, or at live music shows and festivals.
