What you need to know
- NVIDIA had a document detailing the end of support for its Kepler-based GPUs.
- NVIDIA has since updated the document to state that support will be ongoing.
- This quiet update indicates that 600/700 series owners can breathe a little easier.
An NVIDIA datacenter document reveals that the end for GPUs using NVIDIAs Kepler architecture is nigh. Or, at least, it was nigh, up until a last-minute adjustment to the document that now shows NVIDIA's support of Kepler GPUs as "ongoing."
As spotted by TechPowerUp, NVIDIA's document detailed an end to Kepler GPU support with the company's upcoming R470 driver series. This would affect a good number of GPUs across the 600 and 700 series lines, though not all (as some Maxwell architecture GPUs would narrowly dodge the cut) (via PC Gamer). However, PC Gamer noticed that Kepler GPU support is now labeled as "ongoing," rather than slated to end with the R470 driver stack.
It's a very recent change to the document, one that was made within the past few days. Why NVIDIA has made this change is unknown, though one could guess it's because there's a global graphics card shortage going on. Cutting off support for a legacy line at the current juncture would leave a lot of folks in a rough spot with no easy way to upgrade their way back to relevancy with the best graphics cards (such as the RTX 3060 Ti — good luck grabbing one of those).
