Nvidia has notified Kepler GPU owners that they will not be updating their Kepler GPUs with new "Game Ready" drivers beginning this October, and will only provide critical security patches as needed. This means that most GeForce GTX 700 and 600 series cards will no longer benefit from performance optimizations, access new features, or even receive bug fixes once support ends.

"Kepler-based desktop GPUs were initially released in March 2012. Since then, gaming technology has evolved dramatically with technologies such as DirectX 12 Ultimate and Nvidia DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling). Going forward, Nvidia's software QA team will focus on hardware that supports newer technologies," Nvidia said in a FAQ on the topic.

This decision affects over 20 graphics card models. These include:

Several GeForce GTX 700 series cards are notably absent from the list. Namely, the GeForce GTX 750 Ti, GeForce GTX 750, and GeForce GTX 745 (OEM). These parts actually utilize the first generation Maxwell GPUs (specifically the GM107), the successor to Kepler, and will probably still be subject to Game Ready driver updates for a bit longer.

While some may find this disappointing, it is not a surprise for several reasons: for one, Kepler is almost a decade old at this point and has a long enough lifespan. And second, Nvidia updated its datacenter documentation a few weeks ago, suggesting that the R470 driver would be the end of Kepler.

Curiously, Nvidia has since removed this entry and reverted to stating that driver support for Kepler is "ongoing". Currently, purchasing a new GPU is next to impossible without paying reseller pricing.

We now know that Nvidia did not change its mind. Instead, the final Game Ready driver for Kepler (R470 GA5) will appear on August 31, 2021; the first Game Ready driver without Kepler support (R495 GA1) will be distributed a few days later on October 4.

The R470 GA5 driver is also the last driver for Windows 7 and Windows 8/8.1. In a separate support document, Nvidia stated that "the majority of our GeForce customers are moving to Windows 10" and therefore future driver releases will leave these OSes will be left behind," it stated.

That is close to when Microsoft is expected to release the next generation of Windows, unofficially called Windows 11. Whatever it is ultimately called, the era of Windows 10 seems to have come to an end.