AMD Ryzen Processors Will Support Windows 7

AMD clearly still thinks there’s a market for running a 2009 operating system on 2017 hardware.

AMD Ryzen processors

Microsoft wants all computer users to upgrade to Windows 10. Even so, Windows 7 still accounts for 40 percent of the desktop operating system market share. Neither Intel or Microsoft support Windows 7 with drivers for Intel’s latest Kaby Lake processors, but AMD is set to throw Windows 7 users a lifeline with its forthcoming Ryzen chips.

The announcement of Windows 7 support for Ryzen processors was made during an information session held by AMD and reported by German-language website Computerbase (translated).

Ryzen processors use the Zen microarchitecture, the AM4 socket, and are expected to launch in March this year. The 14nm chips support DDR4 memory and will offer between 2 and 8 cores for the consumer market and up to 32 cores for servers. The first Ryzen processor expected to appear in March is an 8-core, 16-thread performance desktop chip with a clock speed of at least 3.4GHz. It does not include an integrated GPU.

As Microsoft will not add support for new processor architectures to Windows 7, it’s up to AMD to produce all of the necessary drivers itself for both the processor and the AM4 socket chipset. It’s unclear exactly why AMD would go to the trouble of doing this beyond making Ryzen accessible to the widest possible market. Even so, surely consumers upgrading to a Ryzen-based desktop PC would also opt for a move to Windows 10.

It may be the case that Windows 7 is still required to run certain pieces of bespoke software in a business setting. Here AMD could see an opportunity to win some major corporate contracts because it can replace aging hardware while retaining the software platform a company relies upon.

Source