A Week of Confusion for AMD RX 5000 and 6000 Gamers
It has been a rollercoaster of a week for owners of AMD’s Radeon RX 5000 and 6000 series graphics cards. What started with a new driver update quickly spiraled into conflicting messages from the company about the future of software support for these popular GPUs. Now, AMD has issued a new statement that walks back some of its earlier claims, but the picture remains somewhat murky.
The confusion began when a new driver was released, stating that “New Game Support” was exclusively for the newest RX 7000 and 9000 series cards. This was followed by an official statement confirming that older RDNA 1 and RDNA 2 architectures were being moved to “maintenance mode,” which was widely interpreted as the end of performance optimizations for new game releases.
The Clarification: “Based on Market Needs”
In a new statement to Tom’s Hardware, AMD has provided a crucial clarification. The company now says that “New features, bug fixes and game optimizations will continue to be delivered as required by market needs in the maintenance mode branch.”
This new language is a significant shift from the previous message, which made no mention of ongoing game optimizations for older cards. However, the vague phrase “based on market needs” leaves a lot open to interpretation. It suggests that while AMD’s primary focus will be on its latest RDNA 3 and DNA 4 GPUs, it reserves the right to issue optimizations for older architectures if a game is popular enough or if performance issues are widespread.
A Timeline of Mixed Messages
To understand the situation, it’s helpful to look at the rapid sequence of events:
- Driver Release: AMD launched driver 25.10.2, which separated support into two branches and stated new game support was only for RX 7000/9000 cards. It also initially claimed it was disabling USB-C power on RX 7900 cards.
- “Maintenance Mode” Confirmation: AMD confirmed to press that RX 5000/6000 cards were in “maintenance mode,” implying an end to dedicated game optimizations.
- First Walk-Back: AMD then retracted the statement about disabling USB-C power on the RX 7900 series, calling it an error.
- Second Clarification: AMD has now walked back the “maintenance mode” definition, stating game optimizations for older cards will continue based on “market needs.”
Also, Read
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- AMD’s Next Desktop APUs Could Be More Powerful Than Expected, BIOS Leak Suggests
This series of reversals has left many users unsure of what to believe. While it’s good news that older GPUs aren’t being completely abandoned, the “maintenance mode” branch will likely not receive the same consistent, day-one attention as the latest architectures. For now, owners of RX 6000 and RX 5000 series cards can breathe a slight sigh of relief, but the long-term level of support remains a question mark.
Source: tomshardware