Question Windows 11 CPU Requirements Makes No Sense. Evidence Inside ↓↓↓

[Zucker2k]

I'm sorry Microsoft but 2.6GHz base, 3.1GHz multi core turbo, and 3.5GHz single core turbo is plenty fast for me............. and you. Even your app says so.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

I'm sorry Microsoft but 2.6GHz base, 3.1GHz multi core turbo, and 3.5GHz single core turbo is plenty fast for me............. and you. Even your app says so.

Ah, but it's merely a 6th gen core. So no support for you. You need an 8th gen minimum if you want to run 11.

MS and their arbitrary requirements.

 

[zir_blazer]

Have you been missing the news? Certain W11 security features rely on Processor features that if enabled, had way too much overhead on older Processor generations, at which point Microsoft drew the line. But yeah, in theory it should work anyways if somehow you bypass whatever checks there are.

 

[Zucker2k]

Have you been missing the news? Certain W11 security features rely on Processor features that if enabled, had way too much overhead on older Processor generations, at which point Microsoft drew the line. But yeah, in theory it should work anyways if somehow you bypass whatever checks there are.

The point is that there's no one easy explanation for why the CPU support list is the way it is, and we're left guessing about the rationale. And this is why that cynical argument about Windows 11—that it's a ploy to sell new PCs to people who don't need them yet—resonates. Never mind that Windows 10 will continue to receive security updates through at least 2025 and that its ubiquity (and underlying similarity to Windows 11) means that most major apps will continue to support it for years.
Microsoft's communication on this subject raises too many questions and provides too few satisfactory answers. And for computers that are already out there, installing Windows 11 doesn't seem to actually improve security in any way that wasn't already possible with Windows 10—getting more people to enable Secure Boot and TPM 2.0 on their self-built systems is good for the platform's security as a whole, but these features are already enabled on Windows 10 PCs made and sold by major OEMs. And that accounts for the vast majority of PCs out there, particularly in businesses and governments that stand to gain the most from improved security.

 

[Shivansps]

ehm, i installed yesterday the latest insider build on a A6-9500...

 

[zir_blazer]

You missed this paragraph...

Microsoft hasn't spelled this out as clearly as it could, but the best rationale for the processor requirement is that these chips (mostly) support something called "mode-based execution control," or MBEC. MBEC provides hardware acceleration for an optional memory integrity feature in Windows (also known as hypervisor-protected code integrity, or HVCI) that can be enabled on any Windows 10 or Windows 11 PC but can come with hefty performance penalties for older processors without MBEC support. We've covered HVCI and MBEC in more detail here.

According to the first link, you can lose 30-40% performance on unsupported Processors. That is quite sizeable, and can't be simply hidden under the rug. Just imagine the headlines, "New Windows version makes the system up to 40% slower than Windows 10 on a few year old computers". Reminds me of when Nested Virtualization (To run a VM inside a VM) was first introduced, it worked, but without certain Processor features was slow as hell.

Do note than on non-OEM systems HVIC doesn't come enabled by default, which seems irrational if you are going to drop support for non-MBEC supporting Processors.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

ehm, i installed yesterday the latest insider build on a A6-9500...

Performance? How well does it run and how usable is 11?

 

[Geegeeoh]

It's not about how powerful it is per se.
MBEC are on AMD with Zen+, and Intel 8th gen.

 

[Shivansps]

Performance? How well does it run and how usable is 11?

As well as you would expect a dual core Bristol Ridge to run... i did run the jetstream2 browser test.

You can definately feel it to be a little slower during web browsing. It seems like the cores spike to 100% both sooner and longer while loading pages. You can see that for some reason it seems to score higher on iGPU tasks under W11, that may be due to the UI changes from 10 to 11.

 

[VivienM]

Some of us have been screaming bloody murder about this since it was announced in June - i7 7700 with 64 gigs of RAM here that I thought I would get a lot of life out of when I bought a 3070 GPU...

Honestly, this whole thing has now been proven to be complete BS. I now have Windows 11 running on BIOS/MBR systems with no TPMs, no secure boot, and 10 year old CPUs, and it works just like a new feature upgrade of Windows 11. There's little evidence that they are doing anything that actually requires newer processor security features - even if they are, they clearly have left the old code to do it the old way on old processors for now.

So either:
1) They want to create this new baseline to actually add code requiring it in a feature update in 6-12 months, or
2) They came up with this idea to cause a lot of people to dump a lot of perfectly good PCs by 2025 and make a lot of money selling OEM licences for the replacement machines that are bought. I suspect they are shocked at how many sandy bridges and ivy bridges, if not older, are still in active use running Windows 10 21H1 and maybe this is their response.
(This is the problem with MS making Windows upgrades free instead of much pricier than OEM licences - now they don't have any financial incentive to care about your old hardware)

 

[Insert_Nickname]

I suspect they are shocked at how many sandy bridges and ivy bridges, if not older, are still in active use running Windows 10 21H1 and maybe this is their response.

Undoubtedly.

(This is the problem with MS making Windows upgrades free instead of much pricier than OEM licences - now they don't have any financial incentive to care about your old hardware)

From a business perspective, they'd certainly prefer if you went with one of their 365 products.

 

[Thibsie]

Skylake? Win10 21H1 still runs okayish on Core2quads with an SSD and 4GB mini.

 

[Zucker2k]

Skylake? Win10 21H1 still runs okayish on Core2quads with an SSD and 4GB mini.

Yup! 4 cores/8 threads and wicked fast with 32gb overclocked RAM

 

[VivienM]

From a business perspective, they'd certainly prefer if you went with one of their 365 products.

For better or worse, they don't sell Windows on a subscription basis to consumers. So... I think they would prefer you regularly buy new PCs with fresh new OEM licences to use your 365 subscription stuff on.

 

[DIY_Computer]

this entire windows 11 requirement thing is definitely just not for "security". the tpm module will most likely be used for drm and to lock pcs and take user control away down because i guess all these years we have had far too much freedom from our tech giant overlords.
I still dont understand the cpu requirement, if it supports tpm why lock out a cpu? more oem licences? if an old cpu has tpm it still supports their bottom line of putting a chip you dont need in everyones pc for an unknown possibly anti consumer purpose. money/oem windows license sales seems too obvious to be the answer but it could be that.

 

[Geegeeoh]

I still dont understand the cpu requirement

Again: MBEC instructions.
On AMD with Zen+, Intel 8th gen.

 

[Zucker2k]

Again: MBEC instructions.
On AMD with Zen+, Intel 8th gen.

According to the article @zir_blazer linked, OEMs don't even turn on the feature because of fears of loss of performance, among other things.

Assuming MBEC support was Microsoft's goal here, there are two big problems. The first is that not all processors that support it are on the Windows 11 support list (most notably 7th-generation Intel Core CPUs). Some processors that are on the list don't appear to support MBEC (namely AMD's Ryzen 2000-series CPUs and their Zen+ architecture). This may be why Microsoft doesn't explicitly call out MBEC support in any of its posts on the Windows 11 requirements; you have to dig further into the company's documentation to have it spelled out that HVCI works best with MBEC and that MBEC is only available in Intel Kaby Lake or AMD Zen 2 processors and newer.
The other problem is that HVCI isn't even enabled by default in Windows 11. To enable it, open the Windows Security app, navigate to Device security, click Core isolation details, and turn on Memory integrity. This is the exact same way the feature already works in Windows 10. Microsoft does advise OEMs to enable it by default on new systems with 11th-generation Intel Core or AMD Zen 2 processors and newer, though, even then, it's not a strict requirement. This is, again, the state of the feature as it currently exists in Windows 10.

 

[Geegeeoh]

AFAIK you have loss of performance (and also stability iusses) if you don't have MBEC capable processor since it has to emulate.
You are fine with capable CPUs.
Also Intel 7th gen MBEC "does not work well" (might be chipset related) that's why it was cutted... except the model used on Surface.

 

[Micrornd]

Read -
Ways to install Windows 11 (microsoft.com)

 

[Zucker2k]

Read -
Ways to install Windows 11 (microsoft.com)

I know many ways to install Win 11, the issue is support through Windows update and who knows what else may crop up.

 

[Micrornd]

I know many ways to install Win 11, the issue is support through Windows update and who knows what else may crop up.

The point was that this is the "official" way released by Microsoft for the released version of W11, not some cobbled up way based on pre-release versions of W11.
And, yes, installing W11 on any device not officially supported relieves Microsoft of supplying updates or support for that device.

 

[VivienM]

The point was that this is the "official" way released by Microsoft for the released version of W11, not some cobbled up way based on pre-release versions of W11.
And, yes, installing W11 on any device not officially supported relieves Microsoft of supplying updates or support for that device.

So far, it appears as though the hardware requirement checking may only be for feature updates, but who knows. I think things will become clearer after the first couple of cumulative updates.

 

[MarkizSchnitzel]

You missed this paragraph...


According to the first link, you can lose 30-40% performance on unsupported Processors. That is quite sizeable, and can't be simply hidden under the rug. Just imagine the headlines, "New Windows version makes the system up to 40% slower than Windows 10 on a few year old computers".

So just disable those features if the processor check fails for that, and pop up a warning that you will be running a less secure system?
I don't really care, either way, W11 brings nothing to the table for me (other then I think I'd like the simplified file explorer). But still.

 

[igor_kavinski]

And, yes, installing W11 on any device not officially supported relieves Microsoft of supplying updates or support for that device.

I wonder how long before some enterprising hacker writes a tool to lie about the hardware to Windows, making it think that it's running on supported hardware

 

[Genx87]

Heh ASUS supports the ROG Strix Z270f and z270i but not Z270G for bios upgrades. When I build a new computer around 2030 will avoid them like the plague.