Nvidia confirms driver support for Kepler GPUs will end in October

[midian182]

TL;DR: Nvidia has officially confirmed that it will no longer offer driver support for its Kepler-based graphics cards as of October 4, 2021. Additionally, team green is ending GeForce support for Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 on the same day.

Last month, Nvidia appeared to reveal that it was the end of the line for Kepler when data center documents showed the R470 driver would be the last to support the architecture. But the company caused confusion by later removing the entry and listing Kepler's driver support as "ongoing."

Now, Nvidia has confirmed R470 will be the final Game Ready driver to support Kepler GPUs when it arrives on August 31. The following driver, R495 GA1, will land a few days later (October 4) without support for cards such as the first Titan series and the one-time flagship GTX 780 Ti. Here's the full list of impacted products:

• NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN Z
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN Black
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 Ti
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 (192-bit)
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 Ti OEM
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 740
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 730
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 720
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 710
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 645
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 640
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 635
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 630

If you're wondering why the GeForce GTX 750 Ti, GeForce GTX 750, and GeForce GTX 745 (OEM) are absent, it's because they use the Maxwell-based GM107 GPU that succeeded Kepler. The GTX 750 Ti is the 23rd most popular card among Steam survey participants, while the highest Kepler card is the 39th-place GT 730, which is found in just 0.49% of respondents' PCs.

Remember this beast?

Additionally, Nvidia said the R470 GA5 driver would be the last to support Windows 7 and Windows 8/8.1 as "the vast majority of our GeForce customers have migrated to Windows 10."

While critical security updates will be available to Kepler-series GPUs through September 2024, owners will no longer receive performance enhancements, new features, and bug fixes following the R470 driver. So you might want to avoid the GT 730 that MSI just brought back, not that it's aimed at gamers.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/90051-nvidia-confirms-driver-support-kepler-gpus-end-october.html

 

[QuantumPhysics]

I just wished Nvidia would focus on mass producing the 3060, 3060Ti and 3070 and focusing on reducing prices so that older pre-RTX GPU users could upgrade to Ray Tracing.

 

[DZillaXx]

It is way too early to be ending support for the GTX700 series. I don't see how anyone could defend Nvidia on this, when in they past they would wait till the series of cards were for the most part worthless on modern games.

The GTX780 & 780TI both handle modern games just fine.

Most of the Kepler cards are mostly worthless, The GTX680 or 670 has some use cases that still does decently well. But for the most part these and older cards are not worth the driver investment time. But the GTX780ti still does a good job for many modern games.

 

[Steve Lalancette]

At least, we had a good run with Kepler drivers. It's time to change.
I bought a GT 740 in 2014 and it was good.
2021 is a good year to end.

 

[terzaerian]

2021 is a good year to end.

The middle of a GPU shortage seems to be the worst time to end support for a GPU, no matter how old.

 

[0dium]

And at the same time they release gt 710

 

[McMurdeR]

The message I get from that is don't buy Nvidia's premium tier cards, TI's, Titans etc. For that money one would expect years of support, but I guess not.

 

[arrowflash]

The middle of a GPU shortage seems to be the worst time to end support for a GPU, no matter how old.

This. It would be an acceptable time to end support for the Kepler generation if GPU supplies and prices were normal. But to do this in the current situation is a real **** move. Bs like this makes me consider more seriously going AMD for my next discrete desktop GPU, even if I still think Nvidia has the better tech (and drivers).

Not that it makes much difference in the end, since for ages, the wise thing to do with Nvidia has been to stick with older drivers if you have an older generation GPU - there are lots of evidence for anyone but the most ardent fanboys, that Nvidia deliberately nerfs older generation cards in newer drivers, so the wise thing to do is stick with an older driver that performs well unless you run into issues (usually the best option is the latest driver released before the next GPU generation came into market). But even in this state, keeping support is a matter of principles.

 

[Beerfloat]

The message I get from that is don't buy Nvidia's premium tier cards, TI's, Titans etc. For that money one would expect years of support, but I guess not.

2013

 

[McMurdeR]

2013

GTX Titan Z. Launch price 2999 USD