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Pour one out for Vega and Polaris, and the Radeon RX 580, you absolute legend.
Staff Writer, PCWorld Nov 9, 2023 9:00 am PST
Image: Brad Chacos / IDG
If you’re still running an AMD graphics card that predates the Radeon RX 5000 series, you’re not going to get any more performance-boosting driver updated from the manufacturer. The company says that while it will still provide “critical” security and bug fix updates to Polaris and Vega series cards, it won’t be fine-tuning them like newer GPU products. Those are primarily the Radeon RX 400 and RX 500 series, respectively, as well as the Vega family of graphics cards.
Anandtech published a statement quoting AMD directly, saying that while these products haven’t quite reached “legacy” status (no support at all), there’s very little practical reason to continue with the standard month-to-month upgrades to optimize performance in games new and old.
Polaris-based GPUs appeared on the market starting in June of 2016 with the Radeon RX 480, while the latest member of the Vega family was technically the Radeon VII, debuting not quite five years ago in February of 2019. Most of the Vega cards had wrapped up in 2017, with the RX Vega 64 being the biggest and baddest of its time. That’s not including dozens of mobile GPUs and APU designed based on some of the same architecture.
Author: Michael Crider, Staff Writer, PCWorld
Michael is a 10-year veteran of technology journalism, covering everything from Apple to ZTE. On PCWorld he's the resident keyboard nut, always using a new one for a review and building a new mechanical board or expanding his desktop "battlestation" in his off hours. Michael's previous bylines include Android Police, Digital Trends, Wired, Lifehacker, and How-To Geek, and he's covered events like CES and Mobile World Congress live. Michael lives in Pennsylvania where he's always looking forward to his next kayaking trip.
