In the grand pantheon of GPU history, we usually remember the titans and the disasters. We remember the GTX 480 (Fermi) for being a nuclear reactor, and the GTX 970 for its memory controversy. But rarely does anyone talk about the middle children—the mid-range chips that actually populated the majority of PCs in the early 2010s.
Enter the GF106.
If you owned a graphics card between 2010 and 2012, there is a high probability you were driving a monitor with a GF106 core. It was the silicon heart of the legendary GTS 450 and the mobile powerhouse GT 555M. Looking back at the driver support for this architecture offers a fascinating case study in how NVIDIA treats its "budget performance" segment: aggressive optimization followed by a long, slow fade into obsolescence.
The GF106 is the codename for the graphics processor (GPU) found inside the Nvidia GeForce GTS 450. It was part of the Fermi architecture (400/500 series), released around 2010.
If you are looking for drivers for this card, you are likely dealing with legacy hardware.
Cause: GF106 is Compute Capability 2.1. Newer software dropped support for CC 2.x. Solution: Use older software versions:
You are stuck on driver 391.35, but you can still tweak the driver’s control panel for better gaming or productivity.
If you are trying to keep an old PC alive:
If you are building a new PC and trying to use this card, it acts as a bottleneck for almost any modern CPU. It is best used as a temporary display adapter until you can upgrade.
If the proprietary NVIDIA GF106 driver fails repeatedly, consider these alternatives:
The GF106 is a graphics processing unit (GPU) die based on NVIDIA’s Fermi architecture (specifically, the GF100/GF110 family’s optimized mid-range variant). It was manufactured on a 40nm process and targeted the entry-level to mid-range desktop and mobile markets between 2010 and 2012.
Key characteristics of GF106-based cards:
Do not expect to play recent AAA titles (2020–2026) on a GF106 card. The driver lacks:
The card is suitable only for: