Andrew E. Freedman Social Links Navigation Andrew E. Freedman is a senior editor at Tom's Hardware focusing on laptops, desktops and gaming. He also keeps up with the latest news. A lover of all things gaming and tech, his previous work has shown up in Tom's Guide, Laptop Mag, Kotaku, PCMag and Complex, among others. Follow him on Threads @FreedmanAE and BlueSky @andrewfreedman.net . You can send him tips on Signal: andrewfreedman.01
logainofhades That didn't take long. The backlash was pretty quick. HUB and Daniel Owen posted videos on it last night. AMD's discord was quite busy over it too. Reply
LabRat 891 I'm not exactly sure what's just happened. A 100% false story about AMD pulling USB-C USB-PD support from certain MBA cards then A confusing report of RDNA 1 and 2 losing day1 patching support, etc. The latter news didn't even make sense, as there are currently-selling handhelds, desktop parts, etc. that utilize RDNA2. Did AMD release this info themselves? It was harmful enough to PR, to imagine otherwise…. Reply
tamalero LabRat 891 said: I'm not exactly sure what's just happened. A 100% false story about AMD pulling USB-C USB-PD support from certain MBA cards then A confusing report of RDNA 1 and 2 losing day1 patching support, etc. The latter news didn't even make sense, as there are currently-selling handhelds, desktop parts, etc. that utilize RDNA2. Did AMD release this info themselves? It was harmful enough to PR, to imagine otherwise…. AMD has a long story of shooting themselves in the foot so many times.. so no surprise if this was actually a real story lmao. Reply
-Fran- Typical AMD PR disaster, move along everyone, nothing more to see here. Le sigh… In all seriousness, good thing the over-reaction made them reconsider. Regards. Reply
Amdlova Another AMD thing! just remember the Intel NUC hades… The Intel Hades Canyon NUC was officially unveiled at CES 2018 and was initially expected to launch in Q2 2018, with the NUC8i7HNK model available first, followed by the NUC8i7HVK a few weeks later. (2018) AMD has discontinued official driver support for the Radeon RX Vega M graphics found in the Hades Canyon NUC, leaving users without access to updated drivers from AMD's official website. (2020). AMD and support = S! Reply
nervousstate "Techy gamers freaking out because they don't understand basic programmer jargon". This is not news. Maintenance mode implies "No new features" not "No support". This happened to Windows 10 four years ago… This also happened with every past generation of Nvidia cards without being communicated…. Reply
usertests Amdlova said: Another AMD thing! just remember the Intel NUC hades… The Intel Hades Canyon NUC was officially unveiled at CES 2018 and was initially expected to launch in Q2 2018, with the NUC8i7HNK model available first, followed by the NUC8i7HVK a few weeks later. (2018) AMD has discontinued official driver support for the Radeon RX Vega M graphics found in the Hades Canyon NUC, leaving users without access to updated drivers from AMD's official website. (2020). AMD and support = S! That was an unloved Frankenstein product. Could have been Intel's fault? Maybe Intelvidia SoC/APU buyers will have a better experience in 2031. Reply
einheriar Three possibilities. 1 The driver marketing team trying to find where they can cut costs, were releasing a trial balloon and see how people reacted.. They got their response 2 The driver marketing team has been smoking too hard and misunderstood the goal of the driver programmers 3 The driver marketing team members let out a Halloween scary joke that had too much effect- Reply
hwertz LabRat 891 said: I'm not exactly sure what's just happened. A 100% false story about AMD pulling USB-C USB-PD support from certain MBA cards then A confusing report of RDNA 1 and 2 losing day1 patching support, etc. The latter news didn't even make sense, as there are currently-selling handhelds, desktop parts, etc. that utilize RDNA2. Did AMD release this info themselves? It was harmful enough to PR, to imagine otherwise…. I'm guessing none of it was false (the USB-C thing was from AMD's own release notes, which apparently were mistaken) and the RDNA 1 and 2 are AMD having to backtrack after massive blowback. Reply
periscope157 Their clarification means nothing and they have not take back anything or changed their minds, its just talk. It is still just bugfixes and maintenance mode as if some games break completely they will fix them. Amd has historcally about 5-6 years of support for their cards and then hopefully bugfixes for a couple of more years. I was really not aware of this lack of updates as I assumed they were on par with Nvidia. At least with Nvidia you know that the cards will work for many years with at least 10 years before they are classified as Legacy products. I will not recomend Radeon Cards anymore if they are not significantly cheaper. But Nvidia will probably lower the prices on their cards with more vram in the spring and AMD will have nothing and terrible driversupport. I was really rooting for Radeon to start competing with Nvidia but they are morons and dont understand that they need to have their cards everywhere to be able to compete on the Ai scene as well. I guess the Ai company circle jerk is a thing and AMD do know how to navigate with Nvidia manhandling them. This change will not be great for the latest xboxes but as it is now Xbox is dead in the water anyways and the new xbox handhelds work better with Bazzite Linux as Microsoft cannot maintain a good operating system since they went Ai. But Microsoft will be affected by this crap AMD is pulling even more. Playstation 5 do their drivers in house but my guess is that the optimazations that amd does is part of the optimazation work as it is on Linux and Steam. So AMD graphicscards has a shorter life than modern smartphones. Right now the only reason for Radeon cards is that they are basically on par with Windows. Only the latest 9000 cards has a bit more work before they are on the same level as in windows. Reply
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpu-drivers/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpu-drivers/amd-clarifies-that-rdna-1-and-2-will-still-get-day-zero-game-support-and-driver-updates-discrete-gpus-and-handhelds-will-still-work-with-future-games#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
- Early Black Friday PC and hardware deals — sales and deals on components, accessories, and 3D printers already live
- Intel is giving away up to three games worth $280, including Battlefield 6, with the purchase of select Core Ultra 200 series products — 2025 Holiday Gaming Bun
- Windows insider creates Windows 7 install measuring just 69MB — system boots, but has been pruned so severely ‘virtually nothing can run’ for now
- MSI Pro MP165 E6 Portable Monitor review: Budget-friendly, average performance
- NVIDIA, NPS Commission the Navy’s AI Flagship for Training Tomorrow’s Leaders
Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.