AMD is transitioning away from its older gaming graphics card series that came before the Radeon RX 5000 series. The company plans to provide less frequent driver updates for GPUs based on the "Vega" and "Polaris" graphics architectures. On the other hand, the RX 5000, RX 6000, and RX 7000 series will continue to receive regular driver updates, including fixes for game bugs and performance updates.
In recent months, AMD has been separating RDNA (RX 5000 series and newer) and pre-RDNA (older than RX 5000 series) GPUs through their driver releases. The latest drivers are available in two packages: an RDNA-only package that is around 600 MB in size, and a larger 1.1 GB package that supports both RDNA and pre-RDNA GPUs. AMD has now announced that pre-RDNA GPUs will receive slower driver updates, as is typical for older-generation GPUs that AMD plans to discontinue support for.
In a statement to AnandTech, AMD explained that the Polaris and Vega graphics architectures are mature, stable, and perform well, so they don't require as frequent software tuning. However, AMD will still provide critical updates for Polaris- and Vega-based products through a separate driver package, including important security and functionality updates.
The pre-RDNA GPUs include the Radeon RX 400 and RX 500 series "Polaris," the RX Vega series, and the Radeon VII. The Radeon RX 5000 series has been on the market for over 4 years, making the RX Vega series 6 years old, the RX 500 series 7 years old, and the RX 400 series 8 years old.
