AMD has preemptively dropped support for Windows 10 on its new Ryzen AI 300 Series chips

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More than a year ahead of the official end of Windows 10 support, AMD's AI chips will forego support entirely

AMD Ryzen AI 300 Series Official Graphic
(Image credit: AMD)

Perhaps in another attempt to convince us that  "AI PCs" are somehow fundamentally different from the PCs we're already using, AMD has officially dropped support for Windows 10 from its new AMD Ryzen AI 300 Series platform. This can be observed by glancing at the official AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 specs page, which now only lists 64-bit versions of Windows 11, Ret Hat Enterprise Linux, and Ubuntu as having official support.

Is this a big deal? It depends on how much you like using Windows while also disliking Windows 11. Personally, I prefer Windows 10 as a daily driver, and will only resort to Windows 11 use for professional needs.

That said, the gaming performance and compatibility of Linux operating systems get better every day, so dropping Windows 10 shouldn't necessarily be a deal breaker for these CPUs. After all, the Ryzen 9 AI 9 HX 370 can perform formidably, even in Silent mode. But users who were interested in those laptops and wished to downgrade to Windows 10 are now totally out of luck, it seems. 

Still, considering the fact that Microsoft itself isn't fully dropping Windows 10 support until October 2025, this move does still feel slightly pre-emptive on AMD's end. Ultimately though, we can't realistically expect Windows 10 to get support forever, despite infamous comments from Jerry Nixon calling it "the last version" back in the day.

Still,  the absence of Windows 10 support on AMD's latest mobile platform is frustrating. There are a number of valid reasons for users to not want to "upgrade" to Windows 11, including updates that have enabled Start menu ads and watermarks on PCs without AI hardware. It's reasonable for AMD to start dropping Windows 10 support considering its upcoming end and the AI focus of its new Ryzen AI chips, but it's still a move that many  Windows 11 naysayers aren't going to appreciate.

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Christopher Harper
Christopher Harper
Contributing Writer

Christopher Harper has been a successful freelance tech writer specializing in PC hardware and gaming since 2015, and ghostwrote for various B2B clients in High School before that. Outside of work, Christopher is best known to friends and rivals as an active competitive player in various eSports (particularly fighting games and arena shooters) and a purveyor of music ranging from Jimi Hendrix to Killer Mike to the Sonic Adventure 2 soundtrack.

17 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Giroro
    68% of Windows users are still on Windows 10, despite Microsoft's constant harassment to upgrade. It's been reported that Windows 11 usage has actually declined this year, with users going back to Windows 10.

    Take the hint, AMD. Do you want to sell your silly "AI" processors to a general audience, or not?
    Reply
  • baboma
    >Take the hint, AMD. Do you want to sell your silly "AI" processors to a general audience, or not?

    This pertains to AMD mobile CPUs, not desktop CPUs. From evidence thus far, desktop will lag mobile in NPU adoption by at least a generation. You have another year to hang onto Win10 on desktop.

    There is no "general audience" who intentionally wipe the default OS in a new AI laptop to revert to an older OS.

    Whatever one may think of MS' AI features, Win11 will support AI and Win10 will not. If you don't care for AI, then you wouldn't buy an AI PC in the first place.
    Reply
  • Notton
    If you're going to bother with reinstalling Win10 on a laptop that came with Win11, you might as well try out linux first.

    I have ditched Win10 entirely for Win11. My X370 AM4 desktop lacked TPM and I couldn't get fTPM working properly, but after swapping it out for a B550 that had TPM, I switched it to Win11.

    In terms of care levels, I want windows modern standby to work properly. I want it to not be blasting the fans at full when the lid is closed and drained of batteries when I take it out of my bag.
    Reply
  • DS426
    It's probably more of a two-way street in that Microsoft won't support these next-gen AI APU's in Windows 10.
    Reply
  • hotaru251
    tbh not a shock. the main focus of these is the "ai" and win11 is what OS uses it. Just hoping desktop versions won't because WIN11 sucks.
    Reply
  • Alvar "Miles" Udell
    Completely unsurprising for AMD, they dropped Windows 8.1 support even while they advertised support for it on product boxes and when Microsoft was supporting it for over a year longer.
    Reply
  • gc9
    Isn't Windows 11 needed to use something like Intel "Thread Director" to schedule tasks in hybrid architectures where the CPU cores are not all the same? Windows 11 was introduced for Intel's hybrid CPUs with Performance Cores and Efficiency Cores. AMD's new mobile archectures is hybrid now also, with big-cache cores and little-cache cores. So maybe AMD's new mobile CPUs need Windows 11 to schedule threads on cores with non-uniform access to cache.
    Reply
  • usertests
    which now only lists 64-bit versions of Windows 11, Ret Hat Enterprise Linux, and Ubuntu as having official support
    There's more to life than Ret Hat, 'buntu, and Winblows 11. I bet you can downgrade to Win10 if you really wanted to.
    Reply
  • pbrainii
    Giroro said:
    68% of Windows users are still on Windows 10, despite Microsoft's constant harassment to upgrade. It's been reported that Windows 11 usage has actually declined this year, with users going back to Windows 10.

    Take the hint, AMD. Do you want to sell your silly "AI" processors to a general audience, or not?

    Now imagine if all new PC's and business PC's wouldnt come with only Windows 11 by default..
    Real W11 usage would be around 10%
    Reply
  • rluker5
    What does dropping support mean?
    Does it just mean that the graphics drivers won't be up to date and the NPU won't show up in task manager?
    If they did that to the desktop versions of Ryzen how many would care?
    Reply