There’s been a fair bit of hullabaloo over the hardware requirements of Windows 11. Although the OS should run just fine with most systems, the “officially recommended specs” have been on the high side. The omission of the 1st Gen Ryzen and pre-Coffee Lake processors has been at the center of these discussions. Microsoft has stated that it will re-evaluate its hardware requirements, but I suspect the damage has already been done.
Motherboard makers have decided to get some press out of this whole thing, announcing the list of boards “compatible” with Windows 11. Basically, every motherboard with support for TPM 2.0 is compatible which includes most models released over the last decade. These include Intel’s Intel X299, C621, C232, C236, C246, 200, 300, 400, 500, and AMD TRX40, 300, 400, 500 motherboards from all major OEMs.
In reality, what may actually prevent you from upgrading is lack of support for TPM, or if it’s disabled, and in rare cases, if you have a really old CPU. As such, announcing a list of compatible boards is really just a PR move. Since almost all SKUs are technically compatible with Windows 11, they’re really just stating the obvious.
