AMD has now confirmed that it is shifting focus away from older graphics architectures like RDNA 2 and older. These will no longer receive optimizations for new games through drivers.
AMD’s RDNA 1 and RDNA 2 graphics architectures, which were launched in 2019 and 2020 respectively, have now been moved to “Maintenance Mode.” This means that graphics cards based on the architectures will continue to receive drivers that address bugs or security holes. However, they will no longer receive specific optimizations for game titles in future drivers.
The latest set of Radeon drivers, version 25.10.2, will be the last time the Radeon RX 5000 and 6000 series will receive such updates. From now on, AMD’s focus will instead be on RDNA 3 and RDNA 4.
How this will affect APUs whose graphics chips are based on one of the older graphics architectures remains to be seen. Products such as the Steam Deck are based on APUs with RDNA 2-based graphics chips.
