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Microsoft May Drop Windows 11 CPU Requirements to Intel 6th Gen Skylake Processors

Microsoft’s original requirements for Windows 11 included a minimum of 8th Gen Coffee Lake processors on Intel’s side and the 2nd Gen Ryzen processors on AMD’s end. As already reported, this was an unpleasant surprise for many as a lot of users are running Windows 10 on the 1st Gen Ryzen and the Kaby Lake/Skylake processors. Luckily, Microsoft seems to have realized this and has started testing its new OS on older systems.

According to some owners of the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 which uses Intel’s 6th Gen Skylake processors, the incompatibility tips in the Windows 11 Insider/Preview version have disappeared, indicating that Microsoft may drop the minimum processor requirements to the 6th Gen Core processors.

Furthermore, the company has removed the line from its original Windows 11 blog post that stated that the 6th Gen Core and Zen 1 processors would be incompatible with the new operating system. At the moment, the following models of the Surface Book are officially supported:

  • Surface Book 3 (May 2020)
  • Surface Book 2: Models with 8th Generation Intel Core (i5-8350U or i7-8650U, not i5-7300U) only (November 2017)
  • Surface Go 2 (May 2020)
  • Surface Laptop 4 13.5″ (April 2021)
  • Surface Laptop 4 15″ (April 2021)
  • Surface Laptop 3 13.5”(October 2019)
  • Surface Laptop 3 15”(October 2019)
  • Surface Laptop 2 (October 2018)
  • Surface Laptop Go (October 2020)
  • Surface Pro 7 plus (February 2021)
  • Surface Pro 7 (October 2019)
  • Surface Pro 6 (October 2018)
  • Surface Pro X (November 2019)

We expect Microsoft to support the Skylake and Zen 1 processors in the future as there’s literally no reason for them not to. Besides, there’s nothing like some good press.

Areej Syed

Processors, PC gaming, and the past. I have been writing about computer hardware for over seven years with more than 5000 published articles. Started off during engineering college and haven't stopped since. Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Divinity, Torment, Baldur's Gate and so much more... Contact: areejs12@hardwaretimes.com.
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