- Nvidia has announced that support for the GTX 10 series GPUs ends in October 2025
- Then get these graphics cards, including GTX 1060, only security fixes
- It also announced that Windows 10 support will run through until October 2026 and mirrors Microsoft’s extended support program to us
Nvidia has released a new graphics driver and announced that it will soon draw the curtain on support for the GeForce GTX 10 series GPUs as well as the GTX 900 models -and the end of Windows 10 players will follow a year later.
As ARS Technica highlighted, the release notes for Driver Version 580.88 came with the revelation that graphics card based on Maxwell and Pascal Architecture – which means the GTX 900 and 10 serial products – will witness their final driver release in October 2025.
Then they only get quarterly security updates to patch them against vulnerabilities, and that’s all. Security fixes also end in October 2028 for these products.
If October 2025 rings a bell, it’s because it is also the month when Microsoft throws aside support for Windows 10, and it is also wrapped in this NVIDIA message.
Team Green said it is expanding Game Ready Driver Support for Windows 10 by October 2026, to mirror the extended support Microsoft offers consumers who want to stick to us and not upgrade to Windows 11 yet. Or actually people who may not be able to upgrade to the newer operating system because of their PC that do not meet the hardware requirements.
This step comes as no surprise when Nvidia already told us back in early July that the V580 drivers would be the last to support Maxwell and Pascal graphics cards -we just didn’t know exactly when Cut -off came and now we’re doing.
If you are affected, what does this mean exactly?
As mentioned, there are two categories of PC players as this affects: Those with GTX 10 model GPUs, such as the GTX 1060, and those running Windows 10. In addition, some people will be in both camps, no doubt -perhaps quite a few.
The GTX 10 series graphics cards are still reasonably popular in some cases (whereas the GTX 900 products have largely subsided). In fact, the GTX 1060 is actually the 12th most popular GPU according to the latest steam hardware survey – and once ruled Supreme – so it still looks a lot of use.
After October 2025, this GPU, along with other 10 -series offerings such as 1070 and 1080, only receives security updates. This means that they will still be sure to use – patched against any exploits in drivers that can be found by the bad actors out there – but they do not get support for new games or features.
So when time rolls on, you will find that your reliable GTX 1060 becomes the wingers and less reliable with new games as its final driver version ages and generally becomes more erratic. Note that if you are sticking with old games that were taken into account before game support was frozen, you should have a good time, at least in theory.
As for them on Windows 10, you will be okay for another year yet. You still have full driver support for October 2026, as mentioned, so you are doing well until then. If you assume, of course, you will keep Windows 10 safe – using Microsoft’s offer of extended support, which is now free, with a small catch.
After October 2026, however, you need to upgrade to Windows 11 or you will not get new drivers – so no game support or security fixes either – no matter how new your NVIDIA GPU is.
At this point, you really look at a Windows 11 upgrade – or a switch to something else hero – unless Microsoft extends Windows 10 support further for consumers beyond 2026 (which seems unlikely but can happen). In which case, Nvidia can again mirror the move with its own drivers – given that is what has happened here – but nothing is guaranteed in any way.
