NVIDIA has officially ceased support for its Kepler architecture GPUs, primarily affecting most GeForce 600 and 700 series cards. This change took effect with the release of the GeForce Game Ready 496.13 WHQL driver in 2021. From this version onwards, the Kepler-based GPUs will only receive security updates. Up until the current R560 driver version, performance enhancements, new features, and bug fixes have been allocated solely to GPUs built on the Maxwell, Pascal, Turing, Ampere, and Ada Lovelace architectures.

According to Phoronix, with the forthcoming Blackwell architecture, NVIDIA plans to release the R570 version of its driver. This new release suggests an intent to transition the Maxwell, Pascal, and Volta architectures to a legacy driver branch, a move akin to the phasing out of the Kepler architecture. These changes are highlighted in the release notes for CUDA 12.8.

Currently, it's uncertain whether similar steps will be taken with gaming GPU drivers. At present, there's no sign that NVIDIA will imminently discontinue support for GPUs based on the Maxwell, Pascal, and Volta architectures. These architectures still receive attention, as evidenced by their inclusion in the recently released beta driver (version 571.96). As the launch of the GeForce RTX 50-series cards approaches, analysts speculate that NVIDIA's development team might increasingly redirect its resources, gradually shifting focus away from legacy hardware.

The Maxwell architecture made its debut 11 years ago with the GeForce GTX 750 series and subsequently appeared in the GeForce GTX 900 series. The Pascal architecture was launched in 2016 with the GeForce GTX 1000 series. The Volta architecture first appeared in 2017, debuting in the Tesla V100, DGX-1, and Titan V, along with other data center and workstation equipment.