Thursday, February 9th 2017
No Windows 7 Drivers for AMD Ryzen
AMD confirmed that it will not release Windows 7 drivers for its upcoming Ryzen series processors. It was earlier reported that the company is working on these drivers. The company, however, did state that it tested and validated Ryzen processors on a variety of operating systems, including Windows 7. "To achieve the highest confidence in the performance of our AMD Ryzen desktop processors (formerly code-named "Summit Ridge"), AMD validated them across two different OS generations, Windows 7 and 10," AMD said in a statement. "However, only support and drivers for Windows 10 will be provided in AMD Ryzen desktop processor production parts," the company added.
This doesn't necessarily mean that there won't be Windows 7 drivers for other socket AM4 chips, such as the 7th generation A-series "Bristol Ridge" APUs. AMD-supplied drivers are essential for these chips, as they drive the AMD Radeon integrated graphics, and Windows 7 continues to be a gaming platform. What happens now? Well, you can run Windows 7 on AMD Ryzen-powered desktops just fine, it's just that the OS won't support all of the processor's capabilities, such as some of the newer instruction sets it comes with.
Source:
DigiWorthy
This doesn't necessarily mean that there won't be Windows 7 drivers for other socket AM4 chips, such as the 7th generation A-series "Bristol Ridge" APUs. AMD-supplied drivers are essential for these chips, as they drive the AMD Radeon integrated graphics, and Windows 7 continues to be a gaming platform. What happens now? Well, you can run Windows 7 on AMD Ryzen-powered desktops just fine, it's just that the OS won't support all of the processor's capabilities, such as some of the newer instruction sets it comes with.
91 Comments on No Windows 7 Drivers for AMD Ryzen
On one hand, haven't used 7 on my desktop since 10 came out. And will prob never go back to it. So this lack of support means nothing to me. Plus you gotta drive that progress in some way.
On the other hand, there are still a ton of users on W7 who aren't planing to switch to 10 anytime soon.
But then again, it's not like it ain't gonna work at all.
My upgrade will also be to W10, no matter whether I go with Zen or not.
Pretty much anything you buy today can technically work with Windows 7 - both hardware and software.
W7 itself is a pretty good OS - stable, fast, fairly easy on resources. W10 is better, but it's not an upgrade worth few hundred EUR or USD...
This is an issue with Microsoft. They were a software company for most of the time and got seriously interested in hardware just few years ago. As a result we have to pay for their OS - something that should be a cheap addition to their other products.
And because we have to pay a lot for the OS, Microsoft has to convince us there is something to pay for, so they change the interface all the time... and that's why people prefer not to upgrade.
This whole strategy is deeply wrong. Apple solved this way better and that's why they're stealing customers.
On average you're right. Most people buy complete systems (usually laptops) that come with an OS. They can't do much with their PCs, so learning the new OS doesn't take them long.
But if you're building a PC yourself and you're a "poweruser", paying for a totally different OS and changing your whole workflow is just a huge inconvenience.
Imagine keyboard manufacturers rearranging the keys every few years. :)
The OS will be more and more useless if Intel would do the same. put focus on Windows 10 drivers and make them solid and stop trying to beat on a "dead" OS.
I work in insurance industry. Most of the staff has minimal computer proficiency, so actually most of the cost when upgrading a Windows or Office is not in software (or IT manpower), but in training and... a significant loss of work efficiency in the first days.
As you've said, it's really hard to convince anyone that investment in IT is a good idea - and it's not easier when there aren't any clear arguments.
To give an example of just how difficult an update to Windows 10 is in insurance (where profits and general IT systems quality are much lower than in banks etc):
When one of insurance companies in my country (top 5) jumped from Win 7 to 10 last year, it spawned 2-page articles about IT systems in many popular business magazines...
Just my opinion and the way I am guessing AMD are thinking as well.
Again this is just my opinion and take off of this. I cant believe they would cut themselves short in enterprise if they just didn't see the value. or Microsoft is paying them off? but doubtful
I have no beef with this. many of us took tried to run Windows NT (sp4+) and Windows 2000 pro much longer than we likely should have because we enjoyed the pure simplicity and speed. But we had to move eventually.
So I don't really care when new hardware begets new OS. I did of course nerf the hell out of the auto updates on windows 10 so I don't have anniversary yet. Which may influence things a bit.
But seriously this would be like paying for a brand new car and trying to tear out the new dash so you can throw in the one from your old car...
sure you may like it better, but the new dash is designed to work with the new car and old is designed to work with the old car. Forcing the old on the new isn't going to be pretty. And sure the manufacturer could make it possible to swap your new dash for the old one, but it's not exactly a high demand item and it would severly hamper future development.
And I call bullshit at this "no reason to support old OS" rationale. That old OS has nearly double the marketshare of the new one. I smell Microsoft behind this. Next they'll say their SMT isn't standard in-hardware, instruction-level parallelism and requires software support exclusive to 10! -_-
</annoyed rant>
Seriously, annoyance with the [not quite] new attitude aside, why does this actually matter in practice? Afaik, the only thing the processor lets the OS handle are the c states, no? And from what I could find, the latest instructions in Zen are RDSEED (from Broadwel days) and AVX/FMA instructions (ages old).