Nvidia to End Support for Older Graphics Card Series After Next Driver Update

Credit: NVIDIA

Nvidia is officially phasing out support for several of its older graphics card families with the release of its upcoming driver update, version 580. Once the update rolls out, the company will stop delivering updates for three major GPU architectures: Maxwell, Pascal, and Volta.

This change directly affects popular GPU lineups like the GeForce GTX 700 and 900 series (Maxwell), as well as the GTX 10 series (Pascal), all of which have been widely used among PC gamers. The TITAN V, Nvidia’s only consumer GPU based on the Volta architecture, will also be retired from the support list.

In a recent post on its official developer forums, Nvidia confirmed, “The release 580 series will be the last to support GPUs based on the Maxwell, Pascal, and Volta architectures.” Although the exact release date of the 580 driver hasn’t been revealed, it’s expected to arrive within the next few months. Currently, the latest driver sits at version 576.80.

While ending support for older hardware is fairly standard in the tech world, what makes this notable is how many users still rely on these GPUs. According to the May 2025 Steam Hardware Survey, the GTX 1060 and GTX 1050 Ti remain in the top 20 most-used graphics cards, accounting for 2.24% and 1.73% of all systems, respectively. For comparison, the most popular card, the RTX 3060, is used by 4.73% of players.

To put it in perspective, if all 132 million of Steam’s monthly active users participated in the survey, that would translate to roughly 2.96 million users still on GTX 1060 and about 2.28 million using the 1050 Ti. Of course, the real numbers are probably lower, but it still reflects a sizable chunk of the gaming community sticking with older setups.

Nvidia says the move will allow its engineering teams to concentrate on optimizing performance for newer architectures like Turing and beyond. Cards like the GTX 16 series, built on Turing, will continue to receive updates after version 580, meaning gamers using slightly newer hardware can still expect ongoing support.

Despite the support ending, these older GPUs will still function with existing drivers and can run many current games—especially eSports titles and older AAA releases. However, users should be aware that without future driver-level updates, performance in upcoming games and security patching will no longer be guaranteed.

So, if you're still rocking a GTX 1060 or 1050 Ti, now might be a good time to start thinking about an upgrade. While they’ve had a good run—some of the longest support lifespans in the GPU market—their journey is nearing its end.