The Adrenalin 25.10.2 release notes also excluded Windows 10 from the list of “compatible operating systems”, listing only Windows 11 21H2 and later. But AMD confirmed in Windows Latest that driver packages will continue to support Windows 10 for the foreseeable future. The company said that the OS is not listed in the release notes because Microsoft has technically stopped supporting Windows 10, but home users running Windows 10 on their PCs may get an extra year of security updates relatively easy. Microsoft will continue to provide support for this OS in businesses, schools and other large organizations. at least until 2028.
Why all this fuss?
It would be bad if AMD stopped or reduced support for these Radeon 5000 and 6000 series GPUs, given that Nvidia continues to support GeForce RTX 20 and 30 series graphics cards released in the same time window from 2019 to 2022. But the end of support could be even worse for gaming laptops and lower-end PCs with integrated graphics.
In particular, the RDNA 2 architecture has long been used as an integrated graphics processor, including for systems that are clearly marketed and marketed as gaming PCs. And since many low-end AMD and Intel chips are simply renamed versions of old siliconAMD continues to release “new” products with RDNA 2 GPUs. For example, Valve has been using the RDNA 2 architecture on Steam Deck since 2022, but Microsoft and Asus just launched ROG Xbox Ally Series also includes RDNA 2 GPU in the entry-level model.
This is the last time AMD has officially cut GPU driver support. in 2023when the company moved drivers for its Polaris and Vega GPU architectures into a separate package that received only occasional “critical updates.” At the time, it was only four years ago that AMD released its last dedicated Vega-based GPU, and many lower-end desktop and laptop processors were still shipping with integrated Vega-based GPUs.
At least for Steam Deck and other SteamOS and Linux systems, it seems that the situation doesn't really change, no matter what happens with the Windows drivers. Phoronix indicates that the Linux driver package for AMD GPUs is always supported separately from the Windows drivers and that GPU architectures significantly older than RDNA 1 continue to receive official support and periodic improvements.
