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ronch
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Win10 only for Cabbie and Zen

Wed Aug 31, 2016 12:04 pm

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3112663/ ... ws-10.html

Well, there goes my Zen upgrade plans. I don't know how I'm gonna get Zen and run Win7 on it. I don't care if a billion of you like it. I don't. And probably won't. Nobody can force you to like something. Hopefully some bloke will write some drivers for 7 but it'll be kinda like how that guy once wrote drivers for Creative for old SB cards to work with 7. Or something like that. 

So what else is new? Microsoft has always been using drivers to make old OSes fade away. It's just that Win8 and derivatives mark the first time I vehemently rejected a new Windows OS. 8 sucked hard, and 10 feels a lot like 8 to me, still. Yes it has the Start Menu again but no, I'm not falling for it. Even the flat colors are killing me. Metro or whatever you call it now can stick it where the sun don't shine for all I care. 

I feel let down by Intel and AMD. Yes this has always been the way it went but they know many folks wanna stick with 7 but they both just wanna polish Microsoft's apple. They both don't need Microsoft to write drivers for 7. They know how 7 works because they have written drivers for it and they know how their CPUs and chipsets work. So what's so hard about it? This is artificial and forced obsolescence at its worst. 

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Re: Win10 only for Cabbie and Zen

Wed Aug 31, 2016 12:12 pm

The processors will likely still run Windows 7 and 8 fine, and even get updates for them.

MS just won't guarantee the OSes work as intended for said procs.
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Re: Win10 only for Cabbie and Zen

Wed Aug 31, 2016 12:16 pm

I don't see way you'd blame AMD and Intel for MS's decision. They can't force MS to support their CPUs the way they'd like.
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Re: Win10 only for Cabbie and Zen

Wed Aug 31, 2016 12:20 pm

LostCat wrote:
The processors will likely still run Windows 7 and 8 fine, and even get updates for them.

MS just won't guarantee the OSes work as intended for said procs.

Yeah I seem to remember this "story" making the rounds when Win8 was released also.  It's not like Microsoft asked Intel and AMD to include some widget which makes running past versions of Windows impossible.  They just won't offer support for systems using those CPUs if they're not running Win10.
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Re: Win10 only for Cabbie and Zen

Wed Aug 31, 2016 12:26 pm

Not supported is not the same as "doesn't work" unless MS goes back and patches them to actually limit what CPUs can run.
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Re: Win10 only for Cabbie and Zen

Wed Aug 31, 2016 12:31 pm

1. Of course those new CPUs can run Win7, but it won't be fun when you browse the CD that came with your AM4 board and find no drivers for Win7. So it means you'll be sticking with generic SATA drivers, power management drivers, etc. Not much fun running a graphics card using generic Windows drivers, is it? I reckon it'll be like that. Sure it'll work, but it won't be optimal. Maybe far from optimal.

2. They all suck for conspiring to force everyone to get 10. Microsoft is forcing Win10 upon everyone by asking Intel and AMD to not put out drivers for Win7, and said chip makers are deliberately sucking it up with MS by deliberately not writing drivers for 7. As i've said, they KNOW the inner workings of 7 because they HAVE written drivers for it since it came out and they sure as hell know how their respective chips work. But no, they're not doing it because they're in bed with MS.
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Re: Win10 only for Cabbie and Zen

Wed Aug 31, 2016 12:39 pm

TBH it really isn't reasonable to expect MS to keep updating a 7 year old OS to fully support new hardware.

It may not be as simple as a device driver. New architectural features in the CPU may require support in the CPU context switch logic and/or scheduler.

If newer versions of Windows piss you off that much, then either stick with your old hardware until Windows 7 goes EOL (in 2020), or run a non-Microsoft OS.

Edit: And given that I haven't heard anything about significant significant changes to the ISA this time around, I suspect 7 will run without incident anyway. It just may not run as well as it could if it was officially supported.
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Re: Win10 only for Cabbie and Zen

Wed Aug 31, 2016 12:46 pm

It's the same problem the other way around (new software for old hardware). At some point, either will get old enough that support can no longer be guaranteed, even if there is no technically good reason for it, because neither can be bothered to put the time and effort into writing drivers for old software or hardware.

I recently updated to Windows 10 on a system with Radeon HD 4850. AMD decided it didn't would to support anything older than HD 5000 products, even though there is no technical reason why HD 4000 (a DirectX 10.1 part) products can't work with Win 10. Windows 10 does provide a driver, but it comes with markedly reduced functionality. I can either live with it or upgrade.

So it goes.
 
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Re: Win10 only for Cabbie and Zen

Wed Aug 31, 2016 12:52 pm

It's not just me though. Companies that rely on custom software that has been tested to work with 7 will have to redo testing and validation with 10. I reckon it's no easy thing. Yes they can stick with what they have now but those computers will die one by one and that's where the problem comes in. They buy a new mobo and find no official drivers for Win7. That may be ok for home users but I imagine corporate IT guys will be a bit more demanding.

Yes new chips may have new features that are no longer under MS's obligation to support but chip companies can patch that up, I reckon, with drivers.

Also, if both chip makers want nothing to deter people to upgrade to their newest chips, they will want to make sure users of Win7 can go right ahead and buy their new stuff with no fear that Win7 is not officially supported.
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Re: Win10 only for Cabbie and Zen

Wed Aug 31, 2016 12:58 pm

ronch wrote:
It's not just me though. Companies that rely on custom software that has been tested to work with 7 will have to redo testing and validation with 10.

They're going to need to to that anyway when Windows 7 goes EOL. If I was in charge of such things at a company with that kind of custom software and a lot of desktops, I'd do one more refresh with hardware that is officially supported by Windows 7, then go Kaby Lake / Zen (or whatever else is current then) when Windows 7 gets phased out.
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Re: Win10 only for Cabbie and Zen

Wed Aug 31, 2016 1:06 pm

just brew it! wrote:
TBH it really isn't reasonable to expect MS to keep updating a 7 year old OS to fully support new hardware.

It may not be as simple as a device driver. New architectural features in the CPU may require support in the CPU context switch logic and/or scheduler.

If newer versions of Windows piss you off that much, then either stick with your old hardware until Windows 7 goes EOL (in 2020), or run a non-Microsoft OS.

Edit: And given that I haven't heard anything about significant significant changes to the ISA this time around, I suspect 7 will run without incident anyway. It just may not run as well as it could if it was officially supported.

I agree with JBI here. Maybe you should take a look at Linux?
 
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Re: Win10 only for Cabbie and Zen

Wed Aug 31, 2016 1:29 pm

There is one recent example where the support problem was literal: Windows 8.1 x64 won't install on certain very old AMD processors due to a missing instruction.  Still, it's pretty rare that running the OS is physically impossible.
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Re: Win10 only for Cabbie and Zen

Wed Aug 31, 2016 1:40 pm

I get that some people don't like a variety of things about Win 10, but at the same time, Windows 7 was released in 2009 -- how long do you expect it to continue being supported? It's 7 years old already. 

You're absolutely entitled to not migrate to the more recent versions of Windows, but when you do so you are inevitably going to forego some level of support for newer hardware. It's unrealistic to expect to have it both ways. 
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Re: Win10 only for Cabbie and Zen

Wed Aug 31, 2016 2:04 pm

I am 99% sure there will be community backported/modified drivers to get them to run on Win 7 anyway, if there are any major components (aside from GPU) that do need drivers. GPUs will probably be dead in the water, unfortunately.
 
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Re: Win10 only for Cabbie and Zen

Wed Aug 31, 2016 2:06 pm

ronch wrote:
Not much fun running a graphics card using generic Windows drivers, is it? I reckon it'll be like that. Sure it'll work, but it won't be optimal. Maybe far from optimal.

Surely whether or not graphics drivers will run on Windows 7 depends on the graphics card and not the CPU, no?
 
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Re: Win10 only for Cabbie and Zen

Wed Aug 31, 2016 9:36 pm

K-L-Waster wrote:
I get that some people don't like a variety of things about Win 10, but at the same time, Windows 7 was released in 2009 -- how long do you expect it to continue being supported? It's 7 years old already. 

You're absolutely entitled to not migrate to the more recent versions of Windows, but when you do so you are inevitably going to forego some level of support for newer hardware. It's unrealistic to expect to have it both ways. 

Well, I'd expect them to at least support it until they provide a viable successor to Windows 7 Enterprise. Still waiting for the non-Facebooky version of Win10.
 
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Re: Win10 only for Cabbie and Zen

Wed Aug 31, 2016 9:48 pm

Yan wrote:
ronch wrote:
Not much fun running a graphics card using generic Windows drivers, is it? I reckon it'll be like that. Sure it'll work, but it won't be optimal. Maybe far from optimal.

Surely whether or not graphics drivers will run on Windows 7 depends on the graphics card and not the CPU, no?

With most CPUs having IGPs, eh. But I think that point is moot anyway, Microsoft doesn't build graphics drivers. The CPU and GPU makers do, so regardless of the OS I'd still expect a newly launched CPU from AMD to have Win 7 and newer graphics drivers available. 

Microsoft has stated before new hardware will still function on its older OS's, it just won't provide special driver support for new features or functionality. If we hark back to AMD's Bulldozer days remember Microsoft literally had to work with AMD to rewrite its scheduler and release it as a hotfix to Win 7 just to improve performance on AMD's awful chips due to the way the core architecture was set up. Things like that are  what Microsoft has stated it won't do on older OS's. 

Going by the press material it sounded like Zen will be presenting itself to the OS scheduler in such a way to avoid this very problem... if it doesn't then sure it will still run Windows 7, but it is going to have some awful performance that won't be fixed in a second scheduler hotfix. It's another reason I'm very curious to to see how Zen's launch goes...
Last edited by Kougar on Wed Aug 31, 2016 9:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
 
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Re: Win10 only for Cabbie and Zen

Wed Aug 31, 2016 9:50 pm

I personally find it hard to believe that motherboard makers, the guys that actually supply OS drivers for audio, I/O, etc, won't be offering any driver other than Win 10.
 
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Re: Win10 only for Cabbie and Zen

Wed Aug 31, 2016 10:17 pm

ronch wrote:
8 sucked hard, and 10 feels a lot like 8 to me

I jumped onto a Windows 8 machine the other day and whoa, that was a horrible experience.

I feel very comfortable jumping back in to my Windows 7 test environments coming from Windows 10. I view Windows 10 as a worthy successor to Windows 7. I'd even go as far to say that Windows 10 is a damn fine OS for desktops.
 
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Re: Win10 only for Cabbie and Zen

Wed Aug 31, 2016 11:12 pm

ronch wrote:
1. Of course those new CPUs can run Win7, but it won't be fun when you browse the CD that came with your AM4 board and find no drivers for Win7. So it means you'll be sticking with generic SATA drivers, power management drivers, etc. Not much fun running a graphics card using generic Windows drivers, is it? I reckon it'll be like that. Sure it'll work, but it won't be optimal. Maybe far from optimal.

2.  They all suck for conspiring to force everyone to get 10. Microsoft is forcing Win10 upon everyone by asking Intel and AMD to not put out drivers for Win7, and said chip makers are deliberately sucking it up with MS by deliberately not writing drivers for 7. As i've said, they KNOW the inner workings of 7 because they HAVE written drivers for it since it came out and they sure as hell know how their respective chips work. But no, they're not doing it because they're in bed with MS.

As other have mentioned, "won't be officially supported" just means it won't have Microsoft's official stamp of approval.  It's not as if they're intentionally breaking functionality; they're just choosing not to retroactively add support for a new chip to an old OS.  The CPUs should still work fine (as you seem to be aware), they just won't be able use any brand-spankin-new instruction sets or features.  This doesn't seem unreasonable.  

As for chipset drivers, when did AMD say they wouldn't be releasing any?  Seeing as how they're playing from well behind, I'd be surprised if they didn't aim for as much marketshare as possible.  It also wouldn't shock me to see Intel backpedal from their original statement after a bit of outcry, though they're in a much better position to shrug it off.  

Think of it this way:  Did Win98SE (1999) have official support for Core2Duo (2006)?  I don't think any variant of Win9x supported multi-core, meaning that WinME didn't support the A64-X2 just 4.5yrs later. I know this is a different era, but it's not as if this differs much from what they've historically done.
 
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Re: Win10 only for Cabbie and Zen

Wed Aug 31, 2016 11:26 pm

NovusBogus wrote:
K-L-Waster wrote:
I get that some people don't like a variety of things about Win 10, but at the same time, Windows 7 was released in 2009 -- how long do you expect it to continue being supported? It's 7 years old already. 

You're absolutely entitled to not migrate to the more recent versions of Windows, but when you do so you are inevitably going to forego some level of support for newer hardware. It's unrealistic to expect to have it both ways. 

Well, I'd expect them to at least support it until they provide a viable successor to Windows 7 Enterprise.  Still waiting for the non-Facebooky version of Win10.

You would be talking about Windows 10 Enterprise, which even has a Long Term Support branch.
 
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Re: Win10 only for Cabbie and Zen

Thu Sep 01, 2016 12:14 am

The Egg wrote:
As other have mentioned, "won't be officially supported" just means it won't have Microsoft's official stamp of approval.  It's not as if they're intentionally breaking functionality; they're just choosing not to retroactively add support for a new chip to an old OS.  The CPUs should still work fine (as you seem to be aware), they just won't be able use any brand-spankin-new instruction sets or features.  This doesn't seem unreasonable.  

As for chipset drivers, when did AMD say they wouldn't be releasing any?  Seeing as how they're playing from well behind, I'd be surprised if they didn't aim for as much marketshare as possible.  It also wouldn't shock me to see Intel backpedal from their original statement after a bit of outcry, though they're in a much better position to shrug it off.  

Think of it this way:  Did Win98SE (1999) have official support for Core2Duo (2006)?  I don't think any variant of Win9x supported multi-core, meaning that WinME didn't support the A64-X2 just 4.5yrs later. I know this is a different era, but it's not as if this differs much from what they've historically done.

I don't think anybody really cares what MS is doing to do, or not do, but these reports seem to be suggesting that AMD/Intel (and possibly their motherboard OEM partners) aren't going to produce drivers either. And that definitely would be a problem.

It remains to be seen what actually happens with the final product, but I for one wouldn't want to stake a Kaby or Zen build on whether it can run my OS of choice. Even Skylake is looking a little bit iffy based on some recent saber-rattling from Intel. I don't see this situation ending well for anybody.
 
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Re: Win10 only for Cabbie and Zen

Thu Sep 01, 2016 7:47 am

NovusBogus wrote:
Well, I'd expect them to at least support it until they provide a viable successor to Windows 7 Enterprise. Still waiting for the non-Facebooky version of Win10.

Doesn't the existing Enterprise version of 10 already remove most of the crapware-like aspects?
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Re: Win10 only for Cabbie and Zen

Thu Sep 01, 2016 7:55 am

K-L-Waster wrote:
I get that some people don't like a variety of things about Win 10, but at the same time, Windows 7 was released in 2009 -- how long do you expect it to continue being supported? 

Until 2020. At which point I'll worry about Windows 10. Gonna enjoy the hell out of 7 while it lasts though. My i5 is more than enough to get me by for four more years.
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Re: Win10 only for Cabbie and Zen

Thu Sep 01, 2016 1:32 pm

just brew it! wrote:
NovusBogus wrote:
Well, I'd expect them to at least support it until they provide a viable successor to Windows 7 Enterprise. Still waiting for the non-Facebooky version of Win10.

Doesn't the existing Enterprise version of 10 already remove most of the crapware-like aspects?

Actually code-removed like the Win8 start menu or just pinky-swear turned off and eagerly waiting for the black hats to find the switch? I've not seen any compelling evidence that it's the former, though I could have missed the memo. Either way it's gonna need to be vetted by a whole lot of non-aligned security wonks before the big guys take it seriously. Then they'll start planning the transition, which usually takes a year or two.
 
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Re: Win10 only for Cabbie and Zen

Thu Sep 01, 2016 2:04 pm

ludi wrote:
There is one recent example where the support problem was literal: Windows 8.1 x64 won't install on certain very old AMD processors due to a missing instruction.  Still, it's pretty rare that running the OS is physically impossible.

That issue wasn't unique to AMD; it also applied to the 90nm Smithdale Pentium D parts. The 65nm Preslers were fine with running it, outside of a performance hit in 64-bit mode and limitations of most compatible memory controllers that would keep your addressable memory to 3.25 gigs or less.

As for the rest: I won't be surprised if platform drivers are as well-behaved under Win7 as they are in Win10, but CPU-specific tuning won't be done by Microsoft. Whether that's functionally irrelevant or meaningfully impactful remains to be seen, but if Bulldozer's performance on pre-Win8 OSes is a metric the difference will probably amount to less than 10%.
Last edited by Concupiscence on Thu Sep 01, 2016 2:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Win10 only for Cabbie and Zen

Thu Sep 01, 2016 2:30 pm

just brew it! wrote:
Doesn't the existing Enterprise version of 10 already remove most of the crapware-like aspects?


Some. Most might be overstating it.

Still, having said that, this thread is fairly pointless. "I choose to stay behind the times, AND I choose to complain audibly about it."
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Re: Win10 only for Cabbie and Zen

Thu Sep 01, 2016 3:29 pm

The only issue I see for this, is if AMD refuses to release Windows 7/8/8.1 chipset drivers for the motherboards.
There should be no reason why Summit Ridge (no GPU) shouldn't work with these OSes.
However, it becomes more of an issue with Raven Ridge (with integrated GPU), as AMD probably won't release graphics drivers.
As the CPUs are still x86/x86-64 compatible, there should be no "technical" reason why they couldn't run these older Microsoft operating systems.

However, since MS is officially supporting Windows 7 until January of 2020, I'd still think that it would be in both AMD and Intel's best interests, that they don't purposely withhold drivers for these, still, officially supported operating systems, as it only shoots themselves in the collective feet.
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Re: Win10 only for Cabbie and Zen

Thu Sep 01, 2016 3:33 pm

sircharles32 wrote:
The only issue I see for this, is if AMD refuses to release Windows 7/8/8.1 chipset drivers for the motherboards.
There should be no reason why Summit Ridge (no GPU) shouldn't work with these OSes.
However, it becomes more of an issue with Raven Ridge (with integrated GPU), as AMD probably won't release graphics drivers.
As the CPUs are still x86/x86-64 compatible, there should be no "technical" reason why they couldn't run these older Microsoft operating systems.

However, since MS is officially supporting Windows 7 until January of 2020, I'd still think that it would be in both AMD and Intel's best interests, that they don't purposely withhold drivers for these, still, officially supported operating systems, as it only shoots themselves in the collective feet.
(Just my 2 cents)

There are still more Win7 and Win8.x boxes than Win10; functional graphics support isn't getting phased out until Microsoft abandons the platform outright, and it may linger for a little longer in professional series products. Motherboard chipset support is likely to continue in the same vein. As Microsoft warns, they just aren't going out of their way in the future to ensure new CPUs work on pre-Win10 versions, so it's likely that lower performance, less fine-grained power consumption control, and other issues will stem from that. C'est la vie.
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Re: Win10 only for Cabbie and Zen

Tue Sep 06, 2016 10:04 am

Yan wrote:
ronch wrote:
Not much fun running a graphics card using generic Windows drivers, is it? I reckon it'll be like that. Sure it'll work, but it won't be optimal. Maybe far from optimal.

Surely whether or not graphics drivers will run on Windows 7 depends on the graphics card and not the CPU, no?


Should've made myself clear. I was using that scenario to illustrate how it must feel like running a new CPU without proper driver/OS support.
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