14 DAY TRIAL // With all the attention focused on the new Radeon Software Crimson driver, not many people noticed when AMD said that it would only support video cards powered by Graphics Core Next technology and a few others.
Many users were excited to get the new Radeon Software Crimson driver for their hardware, but some of them have noticed that it won’t work on older video cards. It looks like the company is focusing much more on the new products and they have moved a number of GPUs into the Legacy category.
When a GPU gets into Legacy, it means that no new features or support will be added for that hardware, with the exception of maybe a few minor updates to keep the cards working with newer components. It’s safe to say that people are not exactly thrilled.
Legacy means that you need to move on
If you’re using the video card for anything else than keeping a system alive, then you might need to upgrade. AMD likes to say that the video cards have reached peak performance optimization, but that’s just fancy talk instead of saying that they are done for.
“As a courtesy to our valued supporters we are providing a final ‘As Is’ Beta driver together with the release of the AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition. The AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition Beta driver includes the redesigned user interface as well as some enhanced features,” say the release notes.
So, if you’re wondering whether your card is in Legacy or not, here are the GPUs affected: AMD Radeon HD 8000 Series (HD 8400 and below), Radeon HD 7000 Series (HD 7600 and below), Radeon HD 6000 Series, and Radeon HD 5000 Series. This means that a lucky few who bought their video cards after 2013 still have viable GPUs in their PCs.
The fact that the Beta release for the new Crimson driver even exists for these products was just a courtesy, somehow makes it worse. The last driver that supports this hardware is a Beta, and the previous WHQL is AMD Catalyst 15.7.1, which was made available in July.