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AMD Ryzen Won't Get Dedicated Windows 7 Drivers But Is fully Supported
A while ago we posted a news item that AMD would be fabbing specific Windows 7 drivers based on a report from computerbase. As it turns out, that is not the case. Ryzen processors however are supported and working on Windows 7.
Considering that the Ryzen 8-core parts do not have an Integrated GPU, it actually could make sense. It is AMD themselves that confirmed this rumor, AMD also states that they have 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. Last August, Microsoft said that Intel’s Kaby Lake and AMD’s Ryzen chips will officially be supported only under the company’s flagship Windows 10 operating system.
“As new silicon generations are introduced, they will require the latest Windows platform at that time for support,” a Microsoft spokeswoman said last August. “This enables us to focus on deep integration between Windows and the silicon, while maintaining maximum reliability and compatibility with previous generations of platform and silicon.”
Windows 10 is Microsoft’s most hip OS, with support for the latest APIs and drivers, a dedicated base of gamers has stuck with Windows 7. If AMD supplied Ryzen drivers for Windows 7, all would be well: Windows 7 users could continue to game on their older, stabler OS.
US Prices of AMD Ryzen Processors Surface As Well - Starts at $316.59 - 02/09/2017 11:37 AM
A good spot from the colleagues at TPU. Yesterday we already showed you the EU prices of the top end R7 Ryzen processors. Now in the USA the prices have surfaced in ShopBLT as well....
AMD Ryzen R7 lineup of 8-core 16-thread CPU Prices Revealed - 02/08/2017 02:59 PM
Not a day goes by without an AMD Ryzen update it seems. In this latest bulletin we can report you that the Euro price for the AMD Ryzen R7 8-core, 16-thread Processor have been spotted. ...
AMD Ryzen 4.2 GHz Processor entry surfaces at Taobao with 28th Feb Availibility - 02/07/2017 11:27 PM
If you visit taobao.com through this link you will notice an entry for Ryzen. Taobao is a Chinese online shopping website similar to eBay, Amazon and owned by the Alibaba Group. The AMD Ryzen proce...
AMD Ryzen Chips 10% Smaller When Compared to Intel Skylake Dies - 02/07/2017 03:14 PM
AMD states its upcoming Ryzen core fits into a 10 percent smaller die area than Intel’s currently shipping second-generation 14nm processor. Analysts and even Intel engineers in the session ...
AMD Ryzen R7, R5 and R3 Processor Line-up listed - 02/04/2017 08:50 AM
Ah yes, a new day a new Ryzen related post! This one is fairly tasty and interesting though as website coolaler is listing the complete line up of AMD Ryzen processors ssors, including names. ...
fry178
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#5390710 Posted on: 02/09/2017 10:22 PM
Guess thats why they talk about "support", e.g. they don't want to have deal with troubleshooting some 10y old win 7 install running a zen chip, over the phone..
Guess thats why they talk about "support", e.g. they don't want to have deal with troubleshooting some 10y old win 7 install running a zen chip, over the phone..
MadGizmo
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#5390753 Posted on: 02/10/2017 12:33 AM
Kind of an oxy-moron to say "no drivers for Windows 7" and "fully supports Windows 7". The CPU is x86; of course it will run Windows 7. That's why its based on that architecture. I have no doubt AMD (or Intel for that matter) could design something much better than a ~30 year old architecture that has been mutilated over the years, but it isn't within their interest to break backward compatibility. I'm sure even Windows 98 could run on Zen. But to be supported means it is tested and intentionally made to be fully functional.
This is why you'll find software that may say "supports Windows 7" but works fine on XP despite it not being supported. The reason is because if you're using XP and something goes wrong, it isn't supported, so the developers can just simply say "you aren't meeting our requirements, so we don't have to help you any further".
When AMD talks about "support and drivers for Windows 10" then it does not necessarily mean end-user support. I read that as features supported by the CPU which need to be incorporated in the OS itself, like new instructions which often cannot be handled by a driver. Other features can be added to a driver, usually in more than one (in a so called "class driver", which is a collection of drivers for various subsystems in the SOC).
In short, the features which require changes to the OS itself, can only be made by MS. However, if Ryzen is backwards compatible then no "support and drivers" are required for older operating systems and they work just fine. I think that's the message.
Kind of an oxy-moron to say "no drivers for Windows 7" and "fully supports Windows 7". The CPU is x86; of course it will run Windows 7. That's why its based on that architecture. I have no doubt AMD (or Intel for that matter) could design something much better than a ~30 year old architecture that has been mutilated over the years, but it isn't within their interest to break backward compatibility. I'm sure even Windows 98 could run on Zen. But to be supported means it is tested and intentionally made to be fully functional.
This is why you'll find software that may say "supports Windows 7" but works fine on XP despite it not being supported. The reason is because if you're using XP and something goes wrong, it isn't supported, so the developers can just simply say "you aren't meeting our requirements, so we don't have to help you any further".
When AMD talks about "support and drivers for Windows 10" then it does not necessarily mean end-user support. I read that as features supported by the CPU which need to be incorporated in the OS itself, like new instructions which often cannot be handled by a driver. Other features can be added to a driver, usually in more than one (in a so called "class driver", which is a collection of drivers for various subsystems in the SOC).
In short, the features which require changes to the OS itself, can only be made by MS. However, if Ryzen is backwards compatible then no "support and drivers" are required for older operating systems and they work just fine. I think that's the message.
David3k
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#5390788 Posted on: 02/10/2017 02:51 AM
CPU "Instruction Sets" can always be taken advantage of by a program without the need for the OS being "aware" of it; all the CPU's functions are always exposed when "asked" by a program.
While the OS itself CAN take advantage of CPU instruction sets, it doesn't need to support those instructions to allow programs to use it. OS "Support" for those instructions usually just means various parts of the OS can call on those instructions and take advantage of it, but unless they program a part of the OS to NOT function without those instructions (making it more a requirement than just "supported") it will always run.
Now, if Microsoft somehow plugs in a new update that will make Windows 7 check if a certain function or CPU generation is present then proceed to run worse or not run at all, that'd be outright sabotaging an existing product, and they'll not likely do this.
At any rate, previous versions of Windows will always continue to work on newer CPUs as long as nobody REMOVES any instructions and all the OTHER requirements for booting an older OS are met, like being able to use drive interfaces. (You can still install Windows 98 on some newer systems, but there has to be a "bios" either emulated by the UEFI or real, and an IDE mode for SATA ports)
Edit: As a simple example: Emulators I run in a Windows 7 test system can take take advantage of AVX2 despite the OS not having been updated to "accommodate" for it. ("support" for it wasn't patched in, the test system is SP1 and an offline system, so no updates)
I read that as features supported by the CPU which need to be incorporated in the OS itself, like new instructions which often cannot be handled by a driver.
CPU "Instruction Sets" can always be taken advantage of by a program without the need for the OS being "aware" of it; all the CPU's functions are always exposed when "asked" by a program.
While the OS itself CAN take advantage of CPU instruction sets, it doesn't need to support those instructions to allow programs to use it. OS "Support" for those instructions usually just means various parts of the OS can call on those instructions and take advantage of it, but unless they program a part of the OS to NOT function without those instructions (making it more a requirement than just "supported") it will always run.
Now, if Microsoft somehow plugs in a new update that will make Windows 7 check if a certain function or CPU generation is present then proceed to run worse or not run at all, that'd be outright sabotaging an existing product, and they'll not likely do this.
At any rate, previous versions of Windows will always continue to work on newer CPUs as long as nobody REMOVES any instructions and all the OTHER requirements for booting an older OS are met, like being able to use drive interfaces. (You can still install Windows 98 on some newer systems, but there has to be a "bios" either emulated by the UEFI or real, and an IDE mode for SATA ports)
Edit: As a simple example: Emulators I run in a Windows 7 test system can take take advantage of AVX2 despite the OS not having been updated to "accommodate" for it. ("support" for it wasn't patched in, the test system is SP1 and an offline system, so no updates)
MadGizmo
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#5390901 Posted on: 02/10/2017 10:59 AM
CPU "Instruction Sets" can always be taken advantage of by a program without the need for the OS being "aware" of it; all the CPU's functions are always exposed when "asked" by a program.
Yes. Intrinsic functions, (inline) assembler code, linkers, etc., will probably support Ryzen sooner or later. However, this article is about the OS. I was limiting my comments to that.
CPU "Instruction Sets" can always be taken advantage of by a program without the need for the OS being "aware" of it; all the CPU's functions are always exposed when "asked" by a program.
Yes. Intrinsic functions, (inline) assembler code, linkers, etc., will probably support Ryzen sooner or later. However, this article is about the OS. I was limiting my comments to that.
thatguy91
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#5390907 Posted on: 02/10/2017 11:43 AM
It's likely in the future that non-SSE/AVX and related instructions will be removed completely from the CPU. That is, native x86 code. Apparently these take die space that would be better served with some other function or capacity. It's probable that these will be achieved through automatic hardware emulation of the instructions using more advanced instructions. Even though there is an emulation overhead, native x86 in comparison is quite slow and would likely still perform better when emulated using more advanced instructions. The same applies for MMX/SSEx etc instructions that have been superseded by faster 'versions'.
It's likely in the future that non-SSE/AVX and related instructions will be removed completely from the CPU. That is, native x86 code. Apparently these take die space that would be better served with some other function or capacity. It's probable that these will be achieved through automatic hardware emulation of the instructions using more advanced instructions. Even though there is an emulation overhead, native x86 in comparison is quite slow and would likely still perform better when emulated using more advanced instructions. The same applies for MMX/SSEx etc instructions that have been superseded by faster 'versions'.
sverek
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#5390911 Posted on: 02/10/2017 12:08 PM
Can't have broken drivers if you don't release them.
Can't have broken drivers if you don't release them.
Agent-A01
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#5391027 Posted on: 02/10/2017 04:04 PM
Can't have broken drivers if you don't release them.
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Kind of an oxy-moron to say "no drivers for Windows 7" and "fully supports Windows 7". The CPU is x86; of course it will run Windows 7. That's why its based on that architecture. I have no doubt AMD (or Intel for that matter) could design something much better than a ~30 year old architecture that has been mutilated over the years, but it isn't within their interest to break backward compatibility. I'm sure even Windows 98 could run on Zen. But to be supported means it is tested and intentionally made to be fully functional.
This is why you'll find software that may say "supports Windows 7" but works fine on XP despite it not being supported. The reason is because if you're using XP and something goes wrong, it isn't supported, so the developers can just simply say "you aren't meeting our requirements, so we don't have to help you any further".