Nvidia GPU Lifecycle: End Of Life And Support Status
Last updated on January 23, 2024
Nvidia is one of the leading manufacturers of Graphics Processing units (GPUs). A GPU’s purpose is to process mathematical computations at high speeds in parallel to the CPU.
Nvidia’s GPUs also receive Nvidia drivers but have an independent lifecycle. Whether or not a GPU will support a new driver update is a separate matter. When a GPU no longer receives driver updates, it is when it is no longer supported.
Note: There are multiple GPUs with the same name but part of a different architecture, which is also why they have different support status lengths.
Support status guide
End of life (EOL) is the end of a product’s useful life. When a product reaches the end of its life cycle, the manufacturer no longer supports it. The following table explains the different phases of a product’s lifecycle. Testing status is when the product is initially released and EOL is when product support is no longer offered. The time between these two points is the support timeframe.
Testing
The software is not yet publicly available. It is in testing phase i.e., alpha, beta, release preview etc.
Active
The software is actively supported by the vendor.
Phasing Out
The software will soon reach its end of life. You need to look for upgrade or migration options. The software will automatically go into phasing out status 2 months before end of life.
End Of Life
The software is no longer supported by the vendor. You need to make sure your system and environment are safe.
Version
Released
Active Support
Security Support
Discontinued
Nvidia releases separate GPUs for the professionals and the general consumer, which is why different GPU product families belong to Nvidia.
The professional GPU lineup includes NVS, Quadro, Quadro RTX, GRID, and Tesla. The consumer GPU lineup includes GeForce and Titan. The famous RTX series belongs to the GeForce lineup.
On a Windows PC, you can get information about your GPU from the Task Manager, from the System Information (msinfo32) utility, or by using third-party apps.
Some things to note about certain GPU families are as follows:
- GKxxx (“Kepler”) Desktop GPUs are supported on Windows and Linux via the
R470
legacy driver series until September 2024. Nvidia keeps a list of supported hardware. - Consumer
GF1xx
(“Fermi”) GPUs are supported on Linux via theR390
legacy driver series until the end of 2022. - Not all Professional Fermi (
GF1xx
) GPUs are still supported on Windows. See the official GPU support list for specific models. On Linux, there is support for all Fermi GPUs.
EOLs