NVIDIA Phases Out Support for Older Graphics Cards, Including the GTX 1060

NVIDIA has started phasing out support for a range of older graphics cards, including the popular GeForce GTX 1060, as well as GPUs based on the Maxwell, Pascal, and Volta architectures. According to the latest CUDA 12.8 release notes, support for these GPUs will soon be transitioned to a "legacy" mode, meaning that feature development will be frozen in future driver releases.

With the upcoming launch of the RTX 5000 series, NVIDIA seems to be focusing on supporting more modern solutions while gradually phasing out older models. Specifically, CUDA for the Maxwell, Pascal, and Volta architectures will no longer receive updates, although drivers for these cards will continue to be released within a separate branch, with updates mostly focusing on security fixes, rather than new features or optimizations for modern games.

It is important to note that while the lack of updates won't make these GPUs immediately obsolete, their performance in new games will gradually decline, and compatibility with modern technologies like DirectStorage and Mesh Shading may be lost. NVIDIA has not yet specified exactly when full support for these older GPUs will be discontinued in game drivers, but based on recent statements, this process is nearing its conclusion.