Microsoft provides clarifications on Win11 specs, says it is evaluating in adding 7th gen CPUs and Ryzen 1 series CPUs

[GoodBytes]

17 minutes ago, Vishera said:

If a Pentium 4 runs better than your first gen i7 then something is not right with your configuration

LOL! That doesn't even run. This is a slide show.

[Izineth]

9 hours ago, steelo said:

Out of curiosity, is a ryzen 5 1600 af considered to be 1st gen or 2nd?

That should be a 2nd gen Ryzen because its a tweaked 2600 rebranded to 1600.

 

Also people don't seem to be understanding the restriction is nothing to do with how old the cpu is or how fast or slow it is, its all about hardware security features that the older chips are missing.

 

The older chips just don't support the required hardware memory integrity and virtualization based security systems.

[NumLock21]

6 hours ago, Kisai said:

Have you seen what running Win10 on a underspec'd laptop is like? I've seen Win 10 run on things that took literately a half hour too boot, and the device was still available for sale.

I'll say that I've seen more than you have so I won't be surprised by systems way under specs for the OS it's trying to run. BTW, there is a difference between running on a under power/underspec system vs a perfectly good spec system that didn't make MS idiotic Windows 11 cut off.

[NumLock21]

DP as this isn't a direct response to the post above.

 

Microsoft has taken down the Windows 11 health check, it's not there anymore. It was earlier today.

Now it just says Coming Soon

 

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-11

[Quartz11]

Here's hoping they extend the requirements further down.  I'd like to use W11 with my workstation with a Xeon E5 1680 V2...  Very powerful system still with quad channel RAM.  The motherboard supports TPM 2.0 module.

[suicidalfranco]

Guys it's simple,
I've got it all figured out:

Don't upgrade, buy a new laptop. Easy. You must coonsume

[leadeater]

2 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

LOL! That doesn't even run. This is a slide show.

Would be interesting if someone who is running Windows 11 on anything 8th Gen or above could go through and disable features one by one, like VT-x/VT-d, TXT etc and see at what point there is an impact to OS responsiveness. I'd be interested if it's possible to pin point down which or which combination does actually create performance issues.

 

As you mention your i7 930 does have some performance/responsiveness problems with Windows 11 and I doubt it or any newer CPU with similar behavior has much to do with "general performance".

[RejZoR]

Now they are backpedaling. Well, I've already decided I'm really going with Kubuntu this time on all non gaming systems. Screw you Microsoft and your stupid made up requirements.

[RedRound2]

This is so stupid. What does Windows 11 have that exclusively requires 7th gen Intel and later? For a "better" expereince, they should mandate something meaningful like SSDs on OEM laptops. Most people are still fine with dual core processors from Sandy bridge era for their needs and Microsoft is basically forcing fragmentation onto their eco system.

 

Also my 3770K is certainly faster than than a modern U or a Y series chip, so this makes even less sense

 

Why has Microsoft always been run by such dumb dumbs? They're only relevent today because of their early market grapple with Windows. 

[Master Disaster]

Translation: We were going to arbitrarily drop support for these CPU's but the OEMs who provide us with the bulk of our money complained so we're working with them to fix the issue.

[tikker]

22 minutes ago, RedRound2 said:

Also my 3770K is certainly faster than than a modern U or a Y series chip, so this makes even less sense

How does that comparison make sense. You are comparing a top of the line overclockable (desktop) CPU with ultra and exreme low power (laptop) chips. Hardly fair no? Why, when making this argument, do people so often compare the highest enthusiast tier OC model to the lowest tier power effeciencey focussed chips. Compare your 3770k to a 7700k, or a 10700k.

 

You don't need a nuclear reactor if a 9V battery suffices. You're not going to choose a 3770k for a portable ultrabook for work or some light productivity.

 

  

13 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

Windows 11 raises the bar for security by requiring hardware that can enable protections like Windows Hello, Device Encryption, virtualization-based security (VBS), hypervisor-protected code integrity (HVCI) and Secure Boot. The combination of these features has been shown to reduce malware by 60% on tested devices. To meet the principle, all Windows 11 supported CPUs have an embedded TPM, support secure boot, and support VBS and specific VBS capabilities.

Wow @LAwLz I'm impressed with your detective work in the other thread predicting HVCI and VBS to be (part of) the reason (or Microsoft saw your explanation and stole it to save themselves )

[Kilrah]

12 minutes ago, tikker said:

How does that comparison make sense. You are comparing a top of the line overclockable (desktop) CPU with ultra and exreme low power (laptop) chips. Hardly fair no? Why, when making this argument, do people so often compare the highest enthusiast tier OC model to the lowest tier power effeciencey focussed chips.

How does it not when the whole point is to say "it's not becasue it's old that it's slow"? Not talking of efficiency there.

[SADS]

It seems silly for Intel to push people to upgrade their CPUs right now.... because I'm pretty sure they would be pushing people towards AMD sales rather than Intel given the recent product offerings....

 

I realise that there's probably security concerns, but surely Intel Gen 7 support should be in there, at least, if not earlier.

 

I currently run a 7700K and its fine for most of the games that I play. In fact, I haven't upgraded it in a while because I haven't felt like the generational performance leaps haven't been enough to be worth the upgrade (probably not quite so true today though now i'm jumping like 4 gens). But if i was forced to upgrade, I would probably be leaning towards buying AMD this time instead.

 

 

[Master Disaster]

39 minutes ago, tikker said:

Wow @LAwLz I'm impressed with your detective work in the other thread predicting HVCI and VBS to be (part of) the reason (or Microsoft saw your explanation and stole it to save themselves )

Lets break these claims down then...

 

VBS

Requires an X64 CPU that supports Intel VT-x or AMD-V, SLAT/EPT, IOMMU, UEFI and HVCI.

 

Intel VT-x

Support for VT-x was added to Pentium 4s back in 2005.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86_virtualization#Intel_virtualization_(VT-x)

 

AMD-v

AMD-v support was added to Athlon 64s back in 2006.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86_virtualization#AMD_virtualization_(AMD-V)

 

SLAT/EPT

Intel added EPT to Nahalem CPUs in 2008. AMD added support to Phenom II & Opteron in 2007.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Level_Address_Translation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86_virtualization#Intel_virtualization_(VT-x)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86_virtualization#AMD_virtualization_(AMD-V)

 

IOMMU

IOMMU has been a thing since we moved away from separate north & south bridges and adopted PCIe for everything.

 

UEFI

Been standard since what, Sandybridge (Z77) and AMD FX.

 

HVCi

HVCi is a software/driver signing thing, it has no special hardware requirements (at least AFAIK).

 

Edit - Almost forgot TPM

VBS states it recommends a TPM but does not require one

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/device-experiences/oem-vbs

[RejZoR]

Bunch of these security features could operate on optional basis. But I bet they want to do some DRM bullshit which is why they need all this encryption enabling stuff.

[GreatnessRD]

1 minute ago, RejZoR said:

Bunch of these security features could operate on optional basis. But I bet they want to do some DRM bullshit which is why they need all this encryption enabling stuff.

This is most definitely about DRM.

[Master Disaster]

6 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

Bunch of these security features could operate on optional basis. But I bet they want to do some DRM bullshit which is why they need all this encryption enabling stuff.

Nah, I genuinely do think these changes were intended to protect users and go some way towards fixing the "Windows is insecure and full of virii" view most people have.

 

They just took it WAAAAY further than they had to.

 

4 minutes ago, GreatnessRD said:

This is most definitely about DRM.

If that were true then the opening of the MS Store to basically everyone wouldn't make any sense. If you're going to lock down your OS then you don't allow its built in store to serve unverified apps.

[Kilrah]

10 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

and go some way towards fixing the "Windows is insecure and full of virii" view most people have.

This. 

Most of it is likely to improve this common thought at all costs, an image/reputation thing in the end and catch up to the likes of Apple, who have been using these technologies for a long time. You just don't notice it since you've got no choice and it's all hidden there. 

[Master Disaster]

Interesting theory...

 

I've been thinking about why MS would want to create such a system and had the idea, I wonder if MS are planning to implement something similar to Apples Secure Enclave. A secure area of memory that is used by the OS to store & hash sensitive data like passwords, biometric data & payment info. Doing this would 100% require a TPM and I wonder if they plan to pull it off by using Hyper-V or a Windows Subsystem for X type service to create an ULTRA secure VM that runs in the background all the time.

 

Thoughts?

[Murasaki]

11 hours ago, poochyena said:

Seems kinda misleading since its not windows 11 improving, its just the hardware thats improving. a win11 machine isn't more secure than a win 10 machine if the hardware is the same.

When I first heard them saying its going to be the most secure Windows yet and then these requirements dropped I'm like okay so it's gonna be more secure by making people upgrade to newer hardware and not do anything yourselves? Cool beans m$.

[jagdtigger]

14 hours ago, flibberdipper said:

Breaking the Law by Juadas Priest playing loudly in the background

 

Spoiler

 

Funny its not supported, in terms of CB scores its about at the 9100F's level.

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

15 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

In the end, they'll blame it on Windows.

which is completely justified. it's a completely arbitrary limitation. i got it to work unmodified in a virtual machine on my 2011 MacBook Pro. natively it would never run it due to the arbitrary limits but in a VM it doesn't care at all.

[tikker]

2 hours ago, Kilrah said:

How does it not when the whole point is to say "it's not becasue it's old that it's slow"? Not talking of efficiency there.

I'm not sure what you mean. Because updates go beyond speed alone and I'm not saying it's slow because it's old? I'm saying that stating your 3770k to be faster than a chip that is designed to efficient, not fast is a strange comparison to make. That's like saying a 780 Ti is faster than a 1030. Yeah no shit.

2 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

Lets break these claims down then...

Not claiming to be an expert on this. I'm just going on this (bold part mine):

On 6/27/2021 at 12:57 PM, LAwLz said:

One of the big problems with HVCI is that it requires quite a lot of system resources to constantly check and pass the code trying to run in kernel mode. That's why Intel has a feature they call "mode-based execution control" (MBEC) and AMD has a feature they call Guest Mode Exaction Trap (GMET, although in Windows it is still called MBEC).

According to this blog post I found, the performance difference between a MBEC/GMET capable processor running Windows with HVCI enabled is about 40% compared to a non-MBEC/GMET capable processor.

In order words, turning on HVCI on a processor that doesn't have MBEC or GMET is a massive performance hit to some programs.

 

Anyone wanna guess when Intel started adding MBEC to their processors?

It started with the 7th gen Xeons, and it might not have been until the 8th gen consumer chips.

I haven't been able to find reliable info about when AMD started adding MBEC but it seems to be either Zen+ or Zen2. My guess is on Zen+ since that's what Microsoft says is the minimum recommended for Windows 11.

and found it nice to see a prediction agree with released information.

[Master Disaster]

13 minutes ago, tikker said:

Not claiming to be an expert on this. I'm just going on this (bold part mine):

Oh I know, it was aimed at Microsoft, not you

[TudorF]

I think this move is made for the sake of gaining marketing points. Once Win11-supporting devices come out, both OEMs and Microsoft can use this as a selling point and claim their devices are the most secure and stable on the market.

It must have been decided at a high level in the corporate pyramid that they need a major change to stay competitive, considering what they expect in the coming years from Apple and the Android ecosystem.