AMD To Drop Support for Pre Evergreen Cards

AMD Catalyst Logo

Posted on April 21, 2012 at 11:12 AM in News

AMD is rumored to drop support from their Catalyst drivers for all cards prior to HD5000 that includes the HD2000, HD3000 and HD4000 series. The last package that will have support for pre HD5000 cards will be Catalyst 12.6, that’s in July. In other words, all DirectX 11 incapable GPUs will stop being supported by AMD.

This “change” should be in close relation with the new V9 of AMD drivers. From what I know, Linux Drivers are certain to be affected by AMD’s decision. As for Desktop drivers, this remains to be seen. We are used to AMD making poor decisions, not the first and certainly not the last; this is just one in a long line of such decisions.

Edit: This is now official, Catalyst drivers for pre-HD5000 Cards are going to be released every 4 months. AMD feels that HD2000 HD3000 and HD4000 Cards drivers are “maxed out” on performance and features and the quarterly drivers will only feature critical updates and address specific issues. Furthermore, pre-HD5000 Cards will not benefit from WDDM 1.2 driver level features with Windows 8.

  • Anonymous

    Four years of support is plenty. Besides, it’s not like they’re going to break your card in July, you just won’t have to download drivers that don’t optimize games that you can run anyways.

    • salvatore

      i’m the happy owner of a 4870×2 that runs every new game at a decent frame rate at 1680×1050. So, i don’t understand and don’t like these rumors. i hope in modded drivers eventually, or i’ll go to a geforce if needed.

      • un homme

        Go if you must, but I don’t see any reason to do that. Buy HD 7970 and be happy for another couple of years. They do right thing about stopping support of old GPU’s. If I were them, I’d stop support of HD5000 as well. It is pointless for one good reason. Even for my HD 6950 every new driver brings nothing since, say, 11.12 whql. What would you like to be brought to your HD 4870 with new 12.5??)

        sorry for english.

        • kn00tcn

          @un homme, what do you think a 4870×2 needs? crossfire profiles all the time of course

          sure single gpus rarely get useful updates (other than CCC profiles, the rare gfx artifacts, etc)

          but nobody confirmed windows, they’re just assuming, & it’s not like the previous legacy fully dropped support either, didnt they have a recent legacy just last year? an AGP release also happened a few weeks ago

          anyway i’m still on a 4870×2, i will mess with the dlls when & IF the time comes, plus only occasionally do CAPs need a new driver dll to go with the profile

          (before another upgrade comment appears, i’m waiting for 8970, also my fan is starting to die… i’m not gonna use this card forever, but right now no single gpu, including gtx680, has the minimum fps of things like BF3, metro, crysis as high as i want them to be)

          • un homme

            I’m sorry I’m not so fluent in english to say to you what I really mean. But if it seems to you that fps in BF3 or Metro 2033 is not enough for gaming with pleasure then just buy TWO gtx 680 – that is easy) Because even 8970 will not allow you to play metro on ultra with 2560 1440 display with minimym 60 fps.

            I forgor abour crossfire profiles, yes.

  • cristian

    but if the majority of games come in DX9

  • yasin

    What a dick move

  • Priyesh

    But Benchmark3d Bro He Also Drop To Support 6700 Series?

  • elajits

    Wwhat!? :O
    Hm.. So they go to stop making new drivers to ATI Mobility 5000 series and ect??
    Are they retarded for real?…Just think this way i buy a car and they just decided stop making tires!…

    • progste

      they won’t stop supporting the 5000 series, just the 4000 and before

  • Tsvetan

    I thing 5 years is enough for driver support.The average gamer buys every 2-3 year new GPU.

  • ilyon

    If this is true – and that have to be proved, i know the pure “fanboyism” of IT websites, especially frenchies – that means only one important thing: only D3D11 capables GPUs will be on for Windows 8, and that is really poor.
    Today, the info is just that AMD drops support of proprietary drivers for Linux – check @phoronix. No more, so wait and see.

  • kn00tcn

    V9? what’s V8 then? :P

    i know the driver (or at least QA) team is probably like 5-10x smaller than nvidia’s (which btw i was looking at their release notes last night, pretty big issues are still going on for 4 & 5 series), so i’m (4870×2) ok with dropping support if it means improved code for the future

    one thing’s peculiar though, isnt managing VLW4, VLW5, GCN more of a hassle than the 2/3/4 series, which are still fairly similar to 5 & 6800 series?

  • BenchmarkYUKA

    Sorry, the series HD 5000 yes benefit of the drivers 1.2 WDDM for Windows 8

    Check Here:

    http://www.techpowerup.com/164724/Pre-HD-5000-Will-be-Removed-from-Catalyst-Mainline-But-Onto-a-New-Support-Model-AMD.html

    • http://benchmark3d.com Johnny 3D

      If you read carefully you’ll see that I was referring to pre-HD5000 cards, that means HD2000,HD3000 and HD4000, those are the cards that this article refers to.