AMD Radeon 200, 300 and Fury series are no longer supported by the latest drivers
There was probably quite a lot of excitement yesterday, when people updated their drivers to the latest Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.6.1 and tried out FidelityFX Super Resolution on their machines. However AMD also quietly ceased support for their older GCN-based GPUs, starting with the Radeon HD 7000 up to the more recent Fury series of GPUs.
I guess with the AMD Radeon HD 7000 series being a good 10 years old by now, it is about time to put it out to pasture. The AMD Fury series are quite a bit younger though, with the cards that debuted HBM technology for gaming in 2015 being merely six years old. All the GPUs that AMD will be discontinuing support for are listed below:
| DESKTOP | MOBILE |
| AMD A-Series APUs with Radeon R4, R5, R6, or R7 Graphics | AMD A-Series PRO processors with Radeon Graphics |
| AMD Pro A-Series APUs with Radeon R5 or R7 Graphics | AMD FX-Series APUs with Radeon R7 Graphics |
| AMD Athlon™ Series APUs with Radeon R3 Graphics | AMD E-Series APUs with Radeon R2 Graphics |
| AMD Sempron™ Series APUs with Radeon R3 Graphics | AMD Radeon R7 M400 Series Graphics |
| AMD Radeon R9 Fury Series, R9 Nano Series Graphics | AMD Radeon R9 M300 Series Graphics |
| AMD Radeon R9 300 Series Graphics | AMD Radeon R7 M300 Series Graphics |
| AMD Radeon R9 200 Series Graphics | AMD Radeon R5 M300 Series Graphics |
| AMD Radeon R7 300 Series Graphics | AMD Radeon R9 M200 Series Graphics |
| AMD Radeon R7 200 Series Graphics | AMD Radeon R7 M200 Series Graphics |
| AMD Radeon R5 300 Series Graphics | AMD Radeon R5 M200 Series Graphics |
| AMD Radeon R5 200 Series Graphics | AMD Radeon HD 8500M – HD 8900M Series Graphics |
| AMD Radeon HD 8500 – HD 8900 Series Graphics | AMD Radeon HD 7700M – HD 7900M Series Graphics |
| AMD Radeon HD 7700 – HD 7900 Series Graphics |
While NVIDIA also recently decided to discontinue their old Kepler-based GPUs, they have outlined a rather clear plan on how they will continue providing security patches, AMD is rather quiet on that front. All AMD says is “no additional driver releases planned” for the aforementioned AMD Radeon GPUs, and that they will be moved into a legacy model.
On top of discontinuing support for the ageing GPUs, Radeon Software support for Windows 7 64-bit will also be moved to a legacy support model. I guess it is time to let go of that version of Windows anyway, with Windows 11 just around the corner.
Pokdepinion: Considering just how much AMD packs into Radeon Software, it probably is better for them to focus on more recent GPUs and optimizing the driver stability for them.
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