Summary
Windows 10 is on the verge of its death. Mainstream support will end in October 2025, and some people will be able to enjoy a brief extended support period that will only give you updates up until 2026. By then, though, it will get harder—and NVIDIA will make it a lot harder.
NVIDIA has committed to providing crucial updates, including performance optimizations for new games and apps, for Windows 10 users all the way up to October 2026. On one hand, this is way past Microsoft’s end-of-life date for Jul 28, 2025, and just about the time you’ll get if you grab the Windows 10 ESU that will extend security updates up until next year. As a reminder, you have a few ways to get that—you can pay for it, redeem it using Microsoft Points, and more recently, you can use OneDrive to grab a free update package. On the other hand, it will also mean that updates for your GPU have a set expiration date unless you decide to upgrade your operating system.
NVIDIA is releasing a Game Ready Driver update today that includes Windows 10 users, which comes with performance optimizations for some upcoming titles and expands the G-Sync Compatible program, adding 62 new monitor displays to the list—this certification assures that these monitors have been validated by NVIDIA to deliver a baseline variable refresh rate (VRR) experience, reducing screen tearing and stutter for smoother gameplay. Windows 10 users will get a few more updates throughout the next of this year and for most of next year, but then, it’ll dry out.
We can’t say this is exactly surprising. The issue is that despite being a decade old (and will be 11 years old by the time NVIDIA discontinues support), Windows 10 remains incredibly popular, and that’s partly because of Microsoft’s stringent requirements for updates that basically force users to get a new PC if it’s an old unit. NVIDIA is actually under no obligation to keep things running after October 2025, so it’s pretty cool that it’s actually giving users a bit more time. It might not be enough for a lot of people, though. But NVIDIA is actually just one of many that will proceed to phase off Windows 10 support down the road—it’s just one of the ones that will have the most direct impact, since it will affect pretty much everyone who currently uses an NVIDIA GPU.
On the subject of support, by the way, graphics cards based on the Maxwell, Pascal, and Volta architectures—which include popular series like the GeForce GTX 900 and 10-series—will receive their final Game Ready Driver update in October 2025, after which you’ll get quarterly updates until October 2028. So you have a few months to find a new graphics card, regardless of what operating system you’re running with it.
