After days of confusing gamers about the future of its Radeon RX 5000 and RX 6000 GPUs, AMD changed its story again Sunday night, now saying its older generation of GPUs will live by their own “optimized” driver path.
“This is not the end of support for RDNA 1 and RDNA 2,” AMD said in the release. blog postwhich refers to the GPU architecture of the RX 5000 and RX 6000 cards.
Instead, the company says, earlier Radeon cards will remain on a single “optimized driver path,” while the newer RX 7000 and RX 9000 will follow a second, optimized version.
AMD said older models will continue to receive “game support for new releases: game stability and optimization; [and] security and bug fixes.”
“Our goal is simple: to provide every Radeon gamer with the best possible experience,” AMD said. “By separating code paths, our engineers can work faster on new features for RDNA 3 and RDNA 4, while maintaining RDNA 1 and RDNA 2 stability and optimization for current and future games.”
Last week, AMD's Adrenalin Edition 25.10.2 update notes made no mention of the RX 6000 and RX 5000 cards, leading gamers to wonder whether AMD will continue to support the older cards. After reporters began making inquiries, AMD began using the term “maintenance mode” to describe what was happening with older RDNA 1 and RDNA 2 cards, but later abandoned those terms.
By Friday, the term “maintenance mode” appears to have been dropped entirely from release notesand the company began telling sites like Tom's Equipment that new features and bug fixes will be provided for older maps. (AMD did not respond to a request for comment Friday.)
Last week, AMD also announced that it would not be removing USB Type-C functionality on its RX 7900 cards, as previously indicated in company notes. He also clarified that he will continue to provide driver updates for Windows 10, some concluded after AMD has dropped support for Windows 10 in the release notes for 10.25.2.
“There appears to be some confusion regarding the driver we published on Thursday,” AMD said in a message to reporters on Sunday. The blog post was added to “clarify any misunderstandings,” the company said.
“We've supported Radeon gamers for generations, and that commitment remains the same,” AMD said. “Whether you're gaming on the RX 5000, RX 6000, or the latest RX 9000, you'll continue to get the reliability, performance, and care you expect from AMD. Because we're all part of the same gaming community, and every Radeon gamer matters.”
Let's hope AMD has taken this lesson to heart.
