NVIDIA will end Game Ready Driver support for all GeForce GTX 10-, 9-, and 7-series graphics cards after a final major driver release in October 2025, marking the end of regular updates and new game optimizations for Maxwell, Pascal, and Volta GPU architectures. After this cutoff, these cards will only receive quarterly security updates until October 2028, at which point support will end entirely. While your GTX cards will continue to function, they will no longer be tuned for new games and could be more vulnerable to technical exploits.
NVIDIA’s 11-year support for this aging hardware is described as being “well beyond industry norms”. This change affects a large user base, as cards like the GeForce GTX 1060, 1070, and 1080 remain popular among gamers according to recent Steam hardware survey data. Notably, GTX 16-series cards, which use a newer architecture, and all RTX graphics cards are not affected.
For Windows 10 users, Game Ready Driver support for all RTX GPUs (including 20-, 30-, 40-, and the new 50-series) will continue for another year—until October 2026—despite Microsoft officially ending support for Windows 10 in October 2025. This ensures that recent RTX-card owners on Windows 10 will still get the latest game optimizations and driver features for an extra year, although the underlying OS will be unsupported by Microsoft.
NVIDIA’s latest Game Ready Driver update brings optimizations for newly released games and adds support for 62 new G-Sync compatible displays, but this level of support is winding down for older GTX models.
Gamers still using GTX 10-, 9-, or 7-series cards are advised to consider upgrading for continued gaming optimization and security. The newest NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50-series or AMD Radeon RX 9000-series are suggested upgrade options.
This marks a significant transition for PC gamers and a clear nudge to upgrade aging GPUs to keep pace with modern titles and technologies.