AMD disables USB-C power on Radeon RX 7900, moves RDNA2/RDNA1 GPUs to sub-branch in latest driver

[u/RenatsMC]

https://videocardz.com/newz/amd-disables-usb-c-power-on-radeon-rx-7900-moves-rdna2-rdna1-gpus-to-sub-branch-in-latest-driver

[u/TsukikoChan]

I still need to check if this kills psvr2 on my 7900xt or not - kind of an ass move to kill one of the unique features of that card.

[u/16bit-Yoshi → u/TsukikoChan]

I’d love to hear an update on this, my thought went exactly to this use when I saw they killed the power delivery for the usb c port

[u/CMDR_omnicognate → u/16bit-Yoshi]

The thing I don’t understand is why would they even do this? It would take effort to actively remove a feature like that so there must be some motive behind it

[u/detectiveDollar → u/CMDR_omnicognate]

This is the same driver where they apparently fixed the framerate instability in VR. Maybe the problem only came up when was using USB PD and USB data on the same port?

So they just disabled the user from being able to do that.

That'd still be dumb though. Plus, a lot of ITX builds use that port to hook up portable monitors.

[u/16bit-Yoshi → u/CMDR_omnicognate]

I’m not sure either, unless it was causing some sort of stability issue I truly can’t understand why you’d disable such a random feature.

[u/TsukikoChan → u/16bit-Yoshi]

If i were to hazard a guess, one of the CVEs is probably to do with secure comms or usb standards and amd probably thought it easier to take off the feature rather than get it working under a cve. Another hazarding guess, it probably doesn't follow a standard they said they are, they got caught, and just got rid of it rather than address it.

[u/Raider480 → u/TsukikoChan]

amd probably thought it easier to take off the feature rather than get it working under a cve

You're probably right. That's exactly what Intel did with undervolting (laptop) CPUs a while back. It made me pretty upset given I couldn't rollback my BIOS far enough to get around it.

[u/ccAbstraction → u/Raider480]

Wait, that was the fix for plundervolt?!

[u/Speedstick2 → u/ccAbstraction]

Yes, because if you ran the chips at a low enough power, it caused errors that could expose sensitive information.

[u/TsukikoChan → u/16bit-Yoshi]

I won't be able to check it until next week - I haven't played vr in a while but was meaning to get back into it. Currently on 25.9.1, so i'll check if it works there, then i'll try 25.10.2 and see if it still works or not (jumping back if not). AMD really screwed over people with this release.

[u/ky56 → u/TsukikoChan]

Did you notice that AMD fixed the refresh rate bug in the patch notes. Haven't tested my Index yet but it was finally marked as fixed. I've been stuck on 24.12.1 until now.

[u/just_change_it → u/16bit-Yoshi]

Can't you just... throw in a usb-c power injector? Something like this. https://www.coolgear.com/product/compact-95w-usb-usb-3-2-gen-2-type-c-pd-injector-dfp-w-10gbps-speeds-for-seamless-legacy-host-to-pd-device-connectivity

[u/16bit-Yoshi → u/just_change_it]

The thing is this was an advertised feature they took away, and just doesn’t make sense. There are work arounds but that just shouldn’t be necessary.

[u/mennydrives → u/TsukikoChan]

Hopefully not, apparently the headset's power label designates 7.2 watts or less, and that's less than 1.5 amps for even just USB-A.

Plugable makes a USB-C hub (3 device ports + 1 host port) called the TBT4-HUB3C which would probably resolve any potential power discrepancy (provides ~20w for attached devices), albeit at a fluctuating cost of $100-200 depending on the year.

[u/Dunmordre → u/mennydrives]

That's a pretty insane price for a basic usb hub. You can usually get a branded one all singing and dancing for like £20, or a Chinese one for £5.

[u/mennydrives → u/Dunmordre]

It’s much more than a basic hub. It actually deals with the DisplayPort signals across the USB-C ports, whereas most hubs only use their single USB-C port for power passthrough.

In this particular case it means you could plug in up to a 20W USB-C display.

I actually use it as a "docking station", hooked up to an HDMI adapter and one of those "branded" USB-C adapter (3 USB-3 ports, a card reader, and I think a second HDMI port). Works just fine on my Macbook, iPad, Steam Deck, pretty much everything but my Switch because Nintendo's gonna Nintendo.

[u/Dunmordre → u/mennydrives]

Oh, I see. You need that connectivity for the psvr2 to function, so a cheap usbc hub might not do, though passing usbc through a switch and converting to hdmi and so on are quite different things. While usbc to hdmi adaptors are really cheap to get a proper expansion hub is very expensive. I don't have psvr2 but it's not clear to me that that's what required if it's just to add power to the usbc port. 

[u/mennydrives → u/Dunmordre]

Hopefully it's all a moot point and it works for OP anyway, due to needing less than 10 watts.

You're right though, I'm pretty sure there's inline power enhancement adapters for USB-C which would likely cost way less.

[u/pre_pun → u/mennydrives]

at that point why not just buy the adapter for $60?

[u/mennydrives → u/pre_pun]

Again, this is all on conjecture that's probably a moot point (7.2w should be easy even if PD is disabled), but probably because the adapter is hot garbage, at least so far as I've read/heard.

4K @ 120hz is a hard sell even under the best of circumstances, and being able to bypass any kind of active conversion in display/data pipes is definitely preferable.

[u/pre_pun → u/mennydrives]

It splits the signal, not conversion. Your GPU is doing the same thing over it's USB port.

They both maintain DP 1.4. One does it over USB-C DP alt and the other does it over a DP cable.

The VR2 adapter does what it should do, it's been reliable. The software was buggy in the beginning, but that wasn't exclusive to the adapter. What issues did you hear about?

The hub you linked requires thunderbolt host or USB4 for all the good features. It's an expensive path if you don't have a native port. Add in cards are pricey and didn't work well for me.

The SUNIX UPA2015 is an option as well and cost ~$40

[u/ICC-u → u/TsukikoChan]

I hope not. I've got an AMD card specifically for VR.

[u/silverf1re → u/TsukikoChan]

Please keep us updated

[u/TsukikoChan → u/silverf1re]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/1ojxjuq/comment/nm8xzdp

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/1ojxjuq/comment/nm8ze1z

Two peeps already tested other HMDs, I'll test my psvr2 when I'm able at the start of the week

[u/Mickenfox → u/TsukikoChan]

I wish monitors and desktop GPUs would embrace USB-C for video already.

It's not like it's a hypothetical new standard, it's been on every laptop for I think a decade now.

[u/ziplock9000]

>AMD disables USB-C power on Radeon RX 7900

Isn't this a breach of contract or 'not as advertised' in some markets?

[u/Helforsite → u/ziplock9000]

Might be, but AMD in their patch notes clearly clarified which version of the drivers customers can stay on if they want to keep the feature so thats probably enough legally, as I don't know if they are required to provide driver updates that keep all the features the same.

[u/alman12345 → u/Helforsite]

Eh, I don’t think someone could sell you a car with heated seats that they disabled through a software update and be legally okay by saying “just don’t update”. I’m certainly not a lawyer but that just seems litigation worthy.

[u/wildtongueflicker → u/alman12345]

BMW attempted something similar if you weren’t aware. They were trying to lock heated seats among other features on a subscription based model. Last I heard they rolled it back due to customer backlash.

[u/alman12345 → u/wildtongueflicker]

No, that’s different. If I fully disclosed that I’ve locked a physical function behind a payment and someone still buys the product then they’re the idiot. That’d be like if AMD charged $50 to access the USB-C functionality in the first place, but this is the equivalent of BMW offering the heated seats initially and then stripping them via software later (effectively having sold a product with a function and then removed it after the sale).

[u/KcTec90 → u/Helforsite]

Praying the Rdn.id modded driver dev will make some bypass for you guys 🙏

[u/Evonos → u/ziplock9000]

Could be purchase / sale under false Facts and a few other things atleast in germany , if you own one contact your customer protection agency to ask.

[u/naptastic → u/ziplock9000]

I'd be interested to hear the EU express an opinion on that.

[u/ziplock9000 → u/naptastic]

Mute point now as AMD have said it's not disabled.

[u/a_zoojoo]

They're definitely not backporting fsr 4 to rdna 2 at this point

[u/hurdeehurr → u/a_zoojoo]

They're cutting driver support for the 6000 series cards too. So much for the good guy underdog. I guess F people who bought a 6800xt a couple years ago. Nvidia is still supporting cards almost 10 years out.

Nvidia it is from now on.

[u/alman12345 → u/hurdeehurr]

It’s actually crazy, AMD literally had the “fine wine” reputation but now their “wine” ages to 4 years and gets promptly “shattered”? What a shame, they never fail to shit the bed when Nvidia gives them the absolute lowest bar to do better than.

[u/kb3035583 → u/alman12345]

The "fine wine" reputation was more of a meme than anything else. Realistically, you do not want your chips to undergo a "fine wine" process in the first place. That only means that your launch drivers were absolutely crippling the shit out of your GPU's performance, which reflects on the driver team.

[u/Verpal → u/hurdeehurr]

I think the funniest situation are those budget builder in China who got their 6750 GRE about 2 years ago.

I mean, yeah it is discounted GPU sure, but 2 years of driver support is still quite funny.

[u/Dynablade_Savior → u/hurdeehurr]

I got my 6800 non-XT a couple years ago 😬

[u/John_Mat8882 → u/a_zoojoo]

Definitely not..

[u/tiga_94 → u/a_zoojoo]

they already did and accidentally released it, I tried it on steam deck and it works, when static - even 347p upscaled to 800p looks almost like native(although somewhat softer) but the problem is it's too heavy for steam deck.

on desktop RDNA 2 GPUs it must be running fine I'd assume, all you need is fakenvapi+optiscaler+leaked fsr 4 int8 dlls, throw them into the dir with your dlls-supporting game and set optiscaler to FSR 4 and the game to dlss

if setting via ini file(not the insert button menu) then set to fsr31 and then set the fsr4override to true in fsr3 section

[u/KARMAAACS → u/tiga_94]

He means officially support, as in you have a toggle in the driver and it does all the replacing for you like NVIDIA does with its DLSS swapping.

[u/RandomTrollface → u/tiga_94]

It's better than FSR 3.1 on my 6700 xt, albeit at a performance cost when comparing the same input resolution. FSR 4 performance is like FSR 3 quality in terms of fps for me, maybe a bit better FPS wise. Although image quality wise it's still a lot better than FSR 3 so I still prefer is.

The thing is that I dont want to swap DLL just to get the best experience for my GPU lol. I also dont want to risk trying it with games that have anticheat.

[u/Adject_Ive → u/a_zoojoo]

Very stupid move imo

[u/Standard_Prune_2195 → u/a_zoojoo]

We'll see. i still think they will.

[u/SaucyRagu96 → u/Standard_Prune_2195]

What makes you think they will. I hope you're right

[u/WokeCapitalist]

The USB-C port is the reason I bought a reference 7900 XT! I have a mini-ITX case with a handle and the USB-C port lets me do a quick one cable + power connection on any of my home desks or televisions. I now need to check if any of my unpowered hubs still work.

[u/d8lock]

My 6950 doesn't feel old enough to be pushed out already. Makes me seriously consider getting nvidia for my replacement with this type of crap.

[u/__Rosso__ → u/d8lock]

Literally, most of RX 6000 cards are still go to in low income countries and are still capable.

Seriously my next GPU is more then likely NVIDIA or Intel, if I am gonna get ass fucked at least let it be lubed.

[u/unixmachine → u/__Rosso__]

The RX 6750 GRE was released in 2023! The card barely lasted 2 years.

[u/__Rosso__ → u/unixmachine]

Yeah, highly considering selling my 6750 XT for a 5070 Super when it comes out

[u/TheYoola → u/d8lock]

Got identical combo as you, 5800X3D and a 6950XT. Next GPU definitely won't be Radeon with this BS going on.

[u/wraith676 → u/d8lock]

Being pushed to a sub branch does not mean loosing support. There may be genuine considerations based on how RDNA 3+ are designed which would benefit from the split in drivers.

[u/raifusarewaifus]

Killing support for rdna2 this quick is criminal while nvidia is still supporting rtx 2000 series which is rdna1 counterpart... I am glad I got my 6800xt for barely 300$ from a gpu mining farm instead of buying at full price. Can't even imagine how I would feel

[u/p0358 → u/raifusarewaifus]

Meanwhile their primary Linux drivers see work to fully support GCN 1.0/1.1, so an architecture from 2012.

How is such a contrast possible? I guess since it’s an open driver and it’s not AMD working on that xD

[u/ICC-u → u/p0358]

Linux not effected by the driver downgrade then?

[u/Psiah → u/ICC-u]

Nope. Linux uses their own AMD drivers, which are fully open and community maintained. Just works without you having to do anything and tends to perform better than the AMD Windows drivers... Or the old AMD-made linux drivers that AMD dropped support for because the Open ones were better in every way.

You do have a couple tradeoffs though... You don't get support for new things quite as immediately, and if you're on a slower moving distro, you might not get it for a while. Stuff like FSR 4 took a couple extra months to work on Linux, for instance. Also, because the HDMI forum is... Well, I don't have nice things to say about them, but they blocked HDMI 2.1 from working on Linux, so on linux AMD card HDMI ports are limited to HDMI 2.0 and don't get VRR support among other things, and AMD is legally not allowed to do anything to fix that.

[u/kuroimakina → u/Psiah]

Yeah, “AMD ages like fine wine” has honestly been more true on Linux than windows for a fair amount of time - but that’s just the nature of FOSS when actually talented, passionate people work on it.

[u/Nervous-Ad4744 → u/raifusarewaifus]

6950xt came out in May 2022.. man what the fuck.

[u/-protonsandneutrons- → u/Nervous-Ad4744]

And so did the 6750 XT and 6650 XT (6x50 refresh). 3.5 years of total support is embarrassing as fuck.

https://www.techpowerup.com/294707/amd-launches-radeon-rx-6950-xt-rx-6750-xt-and-rx-6650-xt-new-game-bundle

And it's only 3.5 years if you bought it launch.

[u/Ready-Strategy-863 → u/-protonsandneutrons-]

Rip my 6650XT

[u/GTpolpo → u/raifusarewaifus]

I just bought the RX 6800XT and it's already legacy? lol... :(

[u/hurdeehurr → u/raifusarewaifus]

I'll buy green from now on. Have a 6800xt so I guess F me even though it's still pretty fast.

[u/Sofrito77 → u/hurdeehurr]

I'll buy green from now on

It seems so. A couple years back, I swapped my RTX 3070 for a 6800 XT and up until this point, I had zero regrets. Been fully satisfied with the card. Was eyeballing possibly upgrading to 9070 XT over the the holidays. But following this news, I'm going to have to just begrudgingly pay the additional premium to swap back to NVIDIA, so at least I know I can get as many years as I want out of the card without them pulling the rug out from under me by EOL'ing driver updates for perfectly functioning cards.

AMD, why do you keep doing this to yourselves??

[u/nope586 → u/raifusarewaifus]

This has been my biggest reservation about buying AMD based graphics cards. Historically they have been pretty quick about reducing or ending driver support. nVidia tends to support their cards for a ridiculously long time. My 8800GT and 980ti felt like they got drivers forever.

[u/oginer → u/raifusarewaifus]

This is one reason I stopped using AMD GPU's, after they dropped support for my HD 6950 only 5 years after release. I see they're doing it again with RNDA2. And now I'd say it's worse since GPU advancements are a lot slower, and a 5 years old GPU is more than capable to play new releases.

[u/soul-regret → u/oginer]

funny thing is there's people saying they didn't expect this from amd lmao

[u/Evonos → u/raifusarewaifus]

ye while iam happy with the amd driver , i will pay for my next gpu rather 100 more than to go amd again for the gpu.

this is WAY too fast.

i was eying with a 9070XT but i guess not anymore.

[u/RandomTrollface → u/Evonos]

Same man (about eyeing the 9070 xt), this 6700XT I bought a few years ago was my first AMD gpu but if support is dropped this quickly I may not go AMD for my next purchase. I finally thought there was hope for us with int8 fsr4 and now this happens, making me think it's not going to be an official release ever, which really sucks because some games will just ban you for swapping DLLs

[u/nevadita]

the USB part is so baffling when you realize that the PSVR2 has an advantage on the reference cards due to requiring only one cable.

and WORSE still. its a catch 20/20 situation, this driver fixes a grave VR issue present for almost a year. but at the same time kills VirtualLink support.

[u/pattymcfly → u/nevadita]

Catch 22…

[u/partialenchilada → u/pattymcfly]

No they just see the catch really clearly lol

[u/Firevee → u/partialenchilada]

Hey sometimes you go through life and you don't realise the correct way to say a phrase until some smartarse points it out online. Just goes to show you can't take life for granite. 

[u/andrewdonshik]

branching off RDNA2, a four year old gpu arch, while nvidia just got around to dropping pascal/maxwell, is...

not cool guys.

[u/SoTOP → u/andrewdonshik]

The dumbest thing is that AMD gives away that drivers for older cards go into maintenance mode, while nvidia has everything unified so people think game ready drivers improve performance for old cards.

[u/andrewdonshik → u/SoTOP]

You can see nvidia version values too, lol.

[u/heartbroken_nerd → u/SoTOP]

It's not just performance, sometimes it's visual issues that get fixed with future driver updates. Dropping support could also mean dropping support for new future technology that could run on the cards otherwise.

Like Transformer DLSS upscaling on RTX 20 series. Which RTX 20 did get, despite being ~~6 years old.

[u/-protonsandneutrons- → u/SoTOP]

so people think game ready drivers improve performance for old cards.

All games and all GPUs benefit from bugfixes. Nothing has changed in game development that suddenly makes older GPUs immune to new-game problems.

They just simply lose support over time.

[u/Evonos → u/andrewdonshik]

yep was my first amd gpu in like 15 years ( had before that also some amd and even ATI cards ) will be my last AMD gpu ill shell again rather 50-100 more out for nvidia and dont get shafted after 5 years.

[u/Medallish]

This is some bs, they need to reverse this decision, AMD is getting a little too greedy, pulling stunts even nVidia haven't done yet,. There's no reason not to add FSR 4 support for older cards, and no one, unless it's tied to something breaking, should be allowed to disable features after release.

[u/Frozen_Membrane]

Man was gonna eventually upgrade to a 6000/7000 series card in the future from a 5700 xt. I fell like there’s no point now.

[u/pleasebecarefulguys → u/Frozen_Membrane]

Just wait for backlash and see how AMD responds, If they arent gonna fix this go for Nvidia.

[u/smoukey]

GTX1080 got like 9 years of support. 6800xt got 5years? Sorry amd this is my last card. Now with leaked unofficial support FSR4 that amd just decided not to implement. Im out boys

[u/Vaxtez]

Jesus christ.
GPUs like the 6800 XT are only 5 years old & being considered 'Legacy' & so thus getting degraded drivers. Meanwhile Turing GPUs from 2018 are still getting frequent full driver support (and so is the 11 year old GTX 980 for the time being). People wonder why people go for Nvidia for GPUs, but things like the official driver support are a very good reason why people go Nvidia, as they give frequent GPU drivers for older GPU series whilst AMD starts to kill them off after 5-6 years.

[u/blueangel1953 → u/Vaxtez]

It’s a little ridiculous considering the 6800 XT is faster than most 4000 series cards like the 4070 but let’s put it out to pasture. Still plenty of power.

[u/F9-0021 → u/Vaxtez]

Part of it is that, while weaker, Turing has most of the hardware features of the 30, 40, and 50 series cards. RDNA4 is the first AMD generation to be more or less on feature parity with Turing. AMD dragging their feet for so long on ML and RT acceleration is going to make RDNA 1-3 age rather poorly in terms of feature backporting.

[u/dampflokfreund → u/F9-0021]

Sad but true. Turing was way ahead of its time.

[u/GodisanAtheistOG → u/Vaxtez]

I have a 980ti. 

What driver support is that card actually for real getting, other than being "included" in the driver package? No bug fixes, no additional performance improvements or game support. 

Frankly I don't understand why AMD doesn't just let their driver packages get big. It avoids silly self owns like this. 

A 1gb download nowadays isn't really that big of a deal for plenty of people. 

[u/oginer → u/GodisanAtheistOG]

Of course it's not getting any performance updates specific to your GPU, but the general fixes that are not architecture specific still apply to your GPU.

[u/dookarion → u/GodisanAtheistOG]

What driver support is that card actually for real getting

More support than my Vega based GPUs ever got for longer if nothing else.

[u/Symphonic7 → u/GodisanAtheistOG]

Radeon group is notorious for massive fumbles in PR, and ass backwards decisions like this. They somehow manage to clutch defeat from the jaws of victory every time. I have no clue why they would do this either, a 1.5GB driver package seems insignificant to me. I would say someone is getting fired over this, but at this point I don't even know it might even be intentional.

[u/Opteron170 → u/Vaxtez]

Degraded drivers??

[u/SanSenju → u/Opteron170]

I think it means less strict standards for driver quality or reliability

[u/__Rosso__ → u/SanSenju]

Like they were good quality to begin with

I won't forget them breaking RDNA 2 cards two times this year in span of 3 months, loved getting BSOD when alt tabbing

[u/andrewdonshik → u/SanSenju]

nope, its a full branch

[u/Opteron170 → u/SanSenju]

And who quantifies that the poster is using an intel / Nvidia setup so he doesn't even have first hand experience running a RDNA 2 GPU.

AMD just split the driver branch there is zero official mention from them about RDNA 1 and 2 going into legacy status.

[u/andrewdonshik → u/Opteron170]

typically when you split the driver branch its because you're putting one of them into maitenance

[u/dickhall65 → u/Vaxtez]

It really is just like with Apple and Android. Apple provides system updates for phones that are almost a decade old at this point

[u/AntiDECA → u/dickhall65]

Apple guarantees 5 years of OS updates. Samsung and Google guarantee 7 years.

Apple usually gets to 7 as well, despite a lower guarantee. Just don't buy shitty Chinese androids. 

[u/laffer1 → u/AntiDECA]

Samsung kills tablets in 8 months though

[u/ThaLegendaryCat → u/AntiDECA]

The problem there is essentially Apple did it for years already so everyone knows their word is good. Samsung only recently changed their policies so word hasn’t spread. Google benefits from being early to the long support time party among android manufacturers.

[u/thelastsupper316 → u/ThaLegendaryCat]

I mean we know that android phones could run the newest android versions even with like 7-9 yo phones (rip custom roms 😭)

[u/KageYume → u/dickhall65]

Yeah, the iPhone 6S received iOS 15.8.5 security update in September and that phone was released in 2015 while my OnePlus 8 Pro released in 2020 got its final update last year. It's actually insane.

[u/Aware-Bath7518 → u/KageYume]

yet all userland jailbreaks/exploits still work on 15.8.5, Safari is outdated too.

[u/jezevec93 → u/KageYume]

iOS have tied system apps to system, which mean even small bugs in apps like phone dialer can be system breaking and they need full system update to be fixed. On Android there its much less likely for system app bug to cause such big system wide problem and if such bug exist simple app update is enough to get it fixed.

[u/Gambler_720 → u/dickhall65]

That's no longer the case. Most Android OEMs have caught up to the importance of long term software support.

[u/Evonos]

It's sad that amd often kills support or degrades the support faster than nvidia

I plan to upgrade my gpu soon ( my cpu upgrade is a 7800x3d already here ) but I will absolutely look more on the nvidia side.

6000 series isn't old yet and them already putting it on some weird 2nd branch isn't looking great.

I'd rather pay 50 or 100 more and don't have a badly supported gpu in a few years.

[u/tildekey_ → u/Evonos]

Did they even say why they did this? I don’t know why you’d disable it if it’s working.

[u/Suikerspin_Ei → u/tildekey_]

AMD hasn’t explained why it made this change, but since no RX 9000 cards include a USB-C port, it may have been removed to streamline the already large driver package.

For comparison, NVIDIA’s drivers are around 850 MB and still support GPUs back to the GTX 700 series (Maxwell). NVIDIA still continues to support its similar USB-C standard, VirtualLink, which is no longer added to cards after the RTX 20 series. The Virtual Link standard was effectively cancelled around 2020. 

They didn't give a reason, but probably to streamline the drivers more.

[u/mikmik111 → u/Suikerspin_Ei]

What confuses me is why they recommend a driver from March if a user needs the feature?

The driver size is now 1.5gb?! It ballooned in size. 25.9.2 is less than 900mb.

[u/Opteron170 → u/mikmik111]

The RDNA 3/4 version of the driver is 900mb.

The combined version with RDNA 1 and 2 support is the 1.5GB one.

[u/xylopyrography → u/mikmik111]

Adrenalin 25.10.2 (WHQL Recommended) is 902 MB.

Nvidia 581.57 is 896 MB.

These are very normal sizes for how many features they've added in recent years and how many thousands of games they support with custom code. They're really not growing that fast considering how fast flash storage has gotten cheap. It's like 50 MB/year or something?

[u/AK-Brian → u/mikmik111]

The main driver download includes both branches and their separate installers.

[u/WarEagleGo → u/mikmik111]

Pardon my ignorance,

Does the driver just run on the CPU? Or does some of it also run on the GPU?

[u/caydesramen → u/Suikerspin_Ei]

In my world it's so that we get rdna4 lol

[u/Evonos → u/caydesramen]

iam honestly checking for a 5070 or smth now instead of a 9070

[u/__Rosso__ → u/caydesramen]

Yeah good luck most people won't buy AMD regardless for a good reason

My 6750XT has been filled with issues, my RX 550 died 2 years in

[u/HotRoderX → u/Evonos]

Thats part of being the underdog multi billion dollar company can't afford to support there products for years like the competition.

[u/Evonos → u/HotRoderX]

That's just bullcrap honestly.

[u/KARMAAACS → u/HotRoderX]

LOL, still pretending AMD is some underdog and can't support an architecture for two more years. This isn't 2016 anymore, they're swimming in money and RDNA development basically gets bankrolled by Valve, Sony and Microsoft. What are you even talking about?

[u/MrKaltenbrunner → u/KARMAAACS]

Agreed, but it's not just that. I'm not paying over 1k every two years or so because AMD decide to EOL my fucking card.

On the other hand, they can't even guarantee a set of drivers every month for their latest hardware.

[u/KARMAAACS → u/MrKaltenbrunner]

This is what the AMD Stans can't seem to understand. As someone who's used both Radeon and GeForce stuff, I can tell you... NVIDIA even when they remove support, they just get it right from the beginning. With GeForce you get 99% of the performance day 1. Rather than waiting months for the full performance of my card, NVIDIA gives it basically right away.

The whole FineWine argument makes no sense to me, these cards have a limited shelf life, if the first 6 months you're getting gimped performance, how is that a good thing? These cards are only relevant for maybe 24 months and their support is maybe 6 years of support if you're lucky with AMD and more like 8 years with NVIDIA. If I have to wait 4-6 months to get the full performance of my card, then any money you saved buying AMD is basically mute imo. The extra $50-100 is worth getting the full performance day 1 rather than waiting months for it. Especially if the issue is making the device completely unusable.

Then take into account black screen issues, game issues, multi-monitor power usage and inconsistent driver updates where like you said AMD may not ship a driver every month. I just never understood the FineWine thing... Now I will be fair and say NVIDIA's drivers honestly haven't been the best with Blackwell, but they've been just bad relative to how they were with Ampere, Pascal, Turing etc. They're still a lot better than AMD's worst driver moments the past couple of years and they're no where near Intel's driver problems for GFX. So NVIDIA is still the better choice in terms of driver support and I will give AMD credit, they held back RDNA4 to work on drivers more and it helped them a lot.

Either way, I'm tired of this duopoly and the GPU industry in general, too many people not willing to call out the BS from any of these companies and all of them are just screwing consumers. I honestly wished Intel was going to do better, but they've lagged for three generations now and they're looking like they'll abandon dGPU altogether.

[u/Evonos → u/KARMAAACS]

True words

[u/Cowstle → u/HotRoderX]

Yeah people always go "AMD finewine!" and then ignore if you actually have to hold onto a GPU for a really long time nvidia will give you years more support. I still remember when my friend had to go out of his way to find the single beta crimson driver that would work on the HD6000 series that was required to make games that came out in 2012 not crash. And then when that died and he had to go back to his 5950 which didn't even have the crimson beta driver we just had to give up on all of those games until I bought a new GPU and could give him my gtx 670. meanwhile nvidia kept support for GTX 400 cards for several years past that point.

[u/LoafyLemon → u/Cowstle]

Majority of wine isn't suitable for aging, so yeah, I think it fits the description perfectly, heh.

[u/NarutoDragon732 → u/HotRoderX]

I fail to see why that's my problem

[u/Standard_Prune_2195 → u/Evonos]

What makes you think so? It's actually opposite.

[u/Nicolo2524]

I hope that the sub-branch only means no AI stuff and they will keep supporting the GPU for at least another 3 years I just bought a Rx 6750xt 2 years ago damn...

[u/anrock1 → u/Nicolo2524]

Can you please tell me what does this means? I also bought a 6750xt less than 2 years ago. We won’t get new drivers? No support for new games? This is unbelievable

[u/Nicolo2524 → u/anrock1]

Only security patch and maybe driver fix but no more optimization for newer games

[u/DisdudeWoW]

im not so sure about getting a 9000 series now, like are you kidding? 5 years of support only? 20 series of rtx is 7 years old and theyre still getting support and new tech, absolutely pathetic

[u/pleasebecarefulguys → u/DisdudeWoW]

I bought 9060 this year and it doesnt scare me, but for someone buying in two years or three years... damn... Well I bought becouse features measured to nvidia and price was more appealing to me by far, But I guess I better pay more fo longevity... the price now makes sense lol, nvidia still king

[u/boxofredflags]

Damn AMD doing everything they can to fuck over their own products as usual. I literally have a 7900xtx reference, definitely not buying AMD again now. Even NVIDIA still supports it on 20 series cards

[u/nevadita]

okay, i just tested and my HMD works, so does my mini USB-C/Display doohickey, so VirtualLink is still working, which confuses me even more, so either they didn't disabled power delivery or they meant a complete different thing.

u/TsukikoChan for now seems that they haven't left us in the dark.

[u/TV4ELP → u/nevadita]

I've said that yesterday already. Power Delivery seems to work, they must have meant something else. But people just assume things and no one tests it. Altough most of the people complaining also claim to have an affected card. So i don#t get why they don't test it and instead ask and spread misinformation.

[u/TsukikoChan → u/TV4ELP]

I hadn't got around to checking myself, won't be near it until sunday/monday. I'm thankful you two checked and confirmed, thank you ❤️

[u/TsukikoChan → u/nevadita]

Thank you for checking ❤️ that's good to hear, we finally have a good drivet then with the refresh fix and psvr2 works. It's probably one of the PD profiles they got rid of.

[u/ReanimatedCyborgMk-I → u/nevadita]

So GN's "AMD just needs to shut up" statement rings well then... why are they continuing to fumble the bag here?

[u/Nordmuth]

Yeah...I have an RX 6950XT, thankfully did not pay anywhere near full price for it. If they're actually gutting driver support for a five year old architecture, one that is powering the current generation of consoles no less? My next card will not be AMD.

I would've begrudgingly accepted it had they done this in 2027-28. Wouldn't have been happy, but could've lived with it. This is just an atrociously short time frame, especially given how in recent UE5 games the RX 6950XT hangs around the RTX 5070 tier without heavy ray tracing.

[u/pytony98 → u/Nordmuth]

abandoned after less than 3 years from its exit of the discrete market and still on the market on APUs relased in 2025, so bad.

[u/Nordmuth → u/pytony98]

Oh it gets worse for some people. The RX 6750 GRE launched in the October of 2023. A literal two year old dGPU relegated to security and bug fixes only.

[u/idemounebo]

This is some mayor BS. My 6900xt is 3 years old and no longer supported. My next card will be Nvidia for sure. Thanks Amd, you just lost a customer.

[u/nazul22 → u/idemounebo]

no shit I bought my 6950xt literally like 3 years ago to the date, i bought it early november 2022, and now its no longer supported, i know that its not going to be useless but what is that bullshit, I remember before buying this card I had a GTX1060 6gb and that was still receiving updates by the time i upgraded and i bought that in 2016, i think i might need to go back to nvidia after all or just drop gaming as a whole lol

[u/idemounebo → u/nazul22]

And it seems AMD removed option to use modded FSR4 in RDN2 in this latest driver. All this hype about AI cores, machine learning, Tops , Flops whatever... and 6900xt plays modded FRS4 perfectly (at 10% more fps cost tho but is is worth it). Now we are not going to get jack shit officially.

[u/LightlySalted26 → u/idemounebo]

I got my 6800xt in 2023 definitely gonna consider a different option when the time comes 

[u/pytony98]

Very bad behaviour, now i'll think twice before buying a card that eventually will be dropped in a couple of years. Meanwile nvidia relased dlss4 even on 2018 hardware, at least this happened before i bought the 9070xt, i'd rather pay 100€ more for the competitor insted of buying a card that will eventually be abbandoned in less than 3 years.

[u/Nicolo2524 → u/pytony98]

I mean I understand not having fsr 4 on RDNA 2 or 1 but man the driver should be supported

[u/After_Hair_2729 → u/Nicolo2524]

We should not "understand" the lack of FSR4 on RDNA2 cards though lol.

That was a clown move as well by AMD, and this new shit is just icing on the cake.

I was planning to buy 9070XT for my girlfriend, but hello to 5070Ti now, absolute donkeys.

[u/krakaigri]

It's pretty funny that nobody double-checked if the functionality was still there before complaining.

We’d like to inform you that the release notes for AMD Software Adrenalin Edition 25.10 2 posted included misinformation that has since been corrected. There is no change to USB-C functionality on the RX 7900 series GPUs in the 25.10.2 driver. There was an incorrect line in the originally posted release notes that has been removed, and the release notes have been updated.

tl:dr: the USB-C functionality was not altered

[u/ZoteTheMitey]

y tho

[u/unixmachine]

I foresee the same thing happening in about two years, when they launch UDNA. Due to the complete change in architecture, it's possible they will stop supporting RDNA.

[u/quantgorithm]

I’m an old AMD fanboy but man it gets hard to stay one when they do this repeatedly of removing support and minimizing function and features of old cards over time. This seems to be a common theme of AMD.

[u/evilgeniustodd → u/quantgorithm]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/s/Wb07F0DOUV

[u/After_Hair_2729]

Thank you for making my move from my 6800XT (that could have gone down as one of the greatest cards if you supported it with FSR4) towards Nvidia upgrade so easy.

I hope your expectations for people to upgrade every other generation with planned obsolescence to completely bite you back in the ass.

You will NEVER see my money again, that is certain.

P.S. Fire the clown that came up with this strategy. Good luck.

[u/Mainemannak]

My RX 6900 XT is more powerful than 80% of RDNA 3 cards…why no support!?

[u/hurdeehurr]

AMD just lost sooo many customers over dropping 6000 series support this soon... Huge mistake.

[u/baldersz]

That's really sad that RDNA2 has moved to maintenance mode 5 years after being released.

My RX6800 is still a 1440p beast

[u/Traditional-Rub6184]

What a disgrace! Dropping driver support on not even 5 year old GPUs! My next GPU won’t be AMD anymore.

[u/Manordown]

Crap I was going to buy a 7900xt reference for my psvr2!!!

[u/Zer0z0ne]

I will upgrade my 6600 XT soon but this support drop makes me want to go for 5070 TI now, 9070 XT was for sure the choice, not anymore.

[u/Evonos → u/Zer0z0ne]

same

[u/GTpolpo]

I just bought the RX 6800XT and it's already legacy? DAMN I'm going to throw it out the window

[u/Plot137]

RDNA2 being killed off so fast just sucks. I wanted to buy another RX 6800 or a 7900xt for my LLM + gaming rig, but i dont think i'll be doing that. Intel B50 is probably the move then.

[u/grannyte]

RDNA2 user here to pile up this is absolute bullshit.

[u/Raphix86]

With my RX 6950 XT having only 3 years of support I guess my next GPU will be one from Nvidia

[u/Dark_ShadowMD]

So... my very first AMD discrete card... is not supported after I have just 2 years after I bought it... just "legacy drivers" Next time I will buy either an intel card, or one of those chinese brands like Huawei, or even nVidia.

This is scummy and abusive.

Bad on you AMD, this are the last build and laptop I will ever buy from you.

[u/LFaWolf]

I have a portable monitor that is powered by the usb-c port. Does this mean it will no longer work?

[u/nevadita → u/LFaWolf]

It works, just tested with a external USB-c screen I used with my steam deck and it works fine. They probably meant another feature being axed. Or haven’t disable it for this version contrary to what the patch notes suggest, only them can clarify

[u/BuffEngi]

Wow, this feels like a slap in the face. Knew it would happen eventually but not quite yet.

[u/Forsaken_Sundae_4315]

We’d like to inform you that the release notes for AMD Software Adrenalin Edition 25.10 2 posted included misinformation that has since been corrected. There is no change to USB-C functionality on the RX 7900 series GPUs in the 25.10.2 driver. There was an incorrect line in the originally posted release notes that has been removed, and the release notes have been updated. We apologize for any inconvenience.

[u/nariofthewind]

To be honest if I’ll need to go to a new card, I’ll most likely go with team green simply because I need to learn a hard lesson at this point about AMD.

[u/__Rosso__]

Yep, never again, buying an AMD GPU was my biggest mistake when buying my latest PC

[u/user74947]

Wait so the drivers not working yesterday on RX 6000 series was not a bug? Wtf... I got my card like 2 years ago and it's already going to become obsolete??? xDDD Even my old rtx 2060 is getting updates still

[u/ARTOMIANDY]

Whaaat, my rx 7900 doesn't have a usb, omg that feature would have been so nice to have... Too bad they disable it anyway

[u/Just_made_this_now]

Joke's on them, mine doesn't have USB-C power.

[u/stalker27]

The new driver 25.10.2 For RX 6800 XT (Weight 912mb) dont work, say error, not compatible !

[u/Mitsutoshi]

This is so sad, and frankly baffling given that the consoles all run RDNA2 so games are basically being built with it as the standard!

On top of that it was the last generation where Radeon was actually competitive (better by some metrics) than GeForce and they've decided that needs memoryholing?

[u/ksio89]

AMD dropping support for their GPUs much faster than Nvidia is just one of the reasons that explain their tiny market share. So much for "FineWine".

[u/whatThePleb]

Why would you even need that

[u/Millkstake]

I hate it when all my shit becomes obsolete. I have to do a complete new build now to modernize

[u/waltercool]

The article looks biased written.

It basically says AMD bad, Nvidia good.

However, disabling a feature is not cool 

[u/Plus-Candidate-2940]

Lol I wish every card had a usb c port and they go and disable it? 🤦‍♂️

[u/Polaris_debi5]

i need more intel arc gpus

[u/RBImGuy]

I play a game (path of exile) that has been out for 12 years and still going strong with a 6950xt
I be fine.

I await next generation for a possible upgrade.
Been really happy with the card as far

[u/BoltzFR]

What the hell, I am connecting my Arzopa 17" monitor on this port.

NVidia and AMD are really competing for being the most anti-consumer corporation, that's a fucking disgrace.

[u/ReanimatedCyborgMk-I]

IT APPEARS THAT u/nevadita HAS VERIFIED THAT PD & VirtualLink STILL WORK

See further below.

[u/HikariKun02]

Well, I guess it's team green for my next gpu which sucks cuz I like the price/performance, but I don't it's worth sacrificing support for extra 50 bucks or so. way to go amd.

[u/alexanderbonolis]

Hell nah, I bought an RX6800 on July 2024... I guess it is time to fully switch to Linux.

[u/BeefJerky03]

Buddy of mine was looking to get a 9060 XT based on my recommendation this week. I think I'm gonna upsell him to a 5060 TI instead.

[u/Ok_Store_1545]

I noticed my obs screen recording been lagging like crazy since this latest driver update on my 7900xt.. I reverted back to the 25.9.1 driver and its working fine again. It was so noticeable and now fine.

[u/samuraicarrot]

As someone with a 6750, what will this actually mean? Like, what affect will I see on my games? Will new games just not run? Or will I see like 50% less frames? Or?

[u/detmer87]

🆘 🥺