Strix Point APUs could mark the end of Windows 10 support from AMD as the company focuses on AI

midian182

midian182

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A hot potato: Despite Windows 10's global user base remaining larger than Windows 11 by a wide margin, AMD is reportedly set to stop providing drivers for the older OS starting with its Strix Point APUs. It comes as Team Red, like every other company, champions itself as an investor in all things AI, hence it favoring Windows 11 over 10. There's also the fact that Microsoft will end support for Windows 10 in 2025.

The report comes via a Weibo post from someone said to be Lenovo's China manager. The person claims that AMD's Zen 5 CPUs will feature around a 10% IPC increase, while also mentioning that starting with the Strix Point APUs, AMD will stop providing Windows 10 drivers.

Statcounter's latest report earlier this month showed that Windows 11's global user share had fallen for the second month in a row, down to around 26%, while Windows 10 climbed back to almost 70%.

But it seems that the greater number of users doesn't matter to AMD, and it's probably due to its unrelenting focus on AI. It was recently reported that the company is preparing a new naming scheme for its Zen 5-based mobile CPUs that will include the term "AI" in the very lengthy names. Asus's upcoming VivoBook S16 laptops, for example, are said to be powered by the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 170.

The Strix Point chips, due for launch in 2024, come with the latest integrated XDNA 2 NPU for native AI tasks. Combined with the integrated GPU, the APU will offer up to 77 TOPs of local AI processing.

Accessing all the extra AI smarts baked into Strix Point will require Windows 11, which receives more AI/Copilot-based features and tools with virtually every update.

While dropping Windows 10 drivers because there are more AI features coming to Windows 11 will doubtlessly annoy many people, there is a more understandable reason behind AMD's decision: Microsoft is ending Windows 10 (Version 22H2) support on October 14, 2025. Organizations that want to continue using the OS after this date will have the option of enrolling their PCs into a paid Extended Security Updates (ESU) subscription, but it's not cheap: $61 per device for the first year, $122 in the second year and $244 in the third.

Further illustrating how much AMD is trying to escape from Nvidia's AI shadow, the company recently wrote a blog post on 55 years of innovation at AMD – it mentioned "AI" 23 times.

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Strix Point APUs could mark the end of Windows 10 support from AMD as the company focuses on AI

 
Wow, this is a big shift! AMD seems to be all in on AI, even if it means dropping Windows 10 users. It's understandable since Windows 11 offers more AI features, but still stings for those who haven't upgraded yet. With Windows 10 reaching end of support soon anyway, I guess it pushes everyone towards the newer OS. Here's to the future of AI-powered laptops!
 
Good to see AMD would rather submit to the will of Microsoft even when it's again their own best interest as a company and is willing to lose the good will of people.

Sometimes is like AMD wants to perpetually be considered the second best choice (At least in terms of how hard it is to actually buy preconfigured systems with AMD chips which remains like 15-20% of the available consumer options, likely worst for for business PCs even) with self-defeating decisions like this.
 
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Dimitriid said:
Sometimes is like AMD wants to perpetually be considered the second best choice (At least in terms of how hard it is to actually buy preconfigured systems with AMD chips which remains like 15-20% of the available consumer options, likely worst for for business PCs even) with self-defeating decisions like this.
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But Intel will probably do the same thing.
 
trparky said:
But Intel will probably do the same thing.
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True, but intel doesn't needs to recapture consumer or enterprise PC market share: they're still outselling AMD by quite a large margin.

I know it's unfair given how intel got into their market dominant position to begin with (Extremely questionable and should have resulted in stronger consequences than the anti-trust case results) But given their situation, that's the hand AMD has been dealt: They have to be better than intel, not just on tech but on public perception as well and this ain't going to accomplish.
 
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Pathetic move but I saw it coming. I predicted Windows 12 won't even boot without an NPU so it'll be a moot point anyway when Win 10 EOL's.

 
I sense that many of you don't realize the things that can be done with AI. Just because it's being marketed as AI doesn't mean that it's going to be used for just AI. A lot of the new hardware that is being baked into newer chips can be used for all sorts of things, everything from cleaning up the background of a video conference call to filtering out background noise to even perhaps upscaling lower resolution video and/or photos without having to brute force it using older, more lengthy processes.

There's a ton of things that can be done with these new NPUs that aren't just about pushing AI. AI is just one thing that these NPUs can do.
 
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Nelson28 said:
Wow, this is a big shift! AMD seems to be all in on AI, even if it means dropping Windows 10 users. It's understandable since Windows 11 offers more AI features, but still stings for those who haven't upgraded yet.
Click to expand...

All laptops with Strix Point will ship with Windows 11. The only thing this prevents is downgrading to Windows 10. It doesn't hurt any current users.
 
Nelson28 said:
Wow, this is a big shift! AMD seems to be all in on AI, even if it means dropping Windows 10 users. It's understandable since Windows 11 offers more AI features, but still stings for those who haven't upgraded yet. With Windows 10 reaching end of support soon anyway, I guess it pushes everyone towards the newer OS. Here's to the future of AI-powered laptops!
Click to expand...
They are dropping windows 10 support because of how expensive it is to support it after MS ends regular windows 10 support in 2025.

$61 per device for the first year, $122 in the second year and $244 in the third - this is insane.
 
So, many of us bought into Socket AM5 with the intention of purchasing future AMD processors for it. But with Windows 11's built in ads and anti-privacy/anti-consumer features, I have no interest in W11. Windows 10 LTSC (with some 3rd party software) has been fantastic.

AMD has a history of not supporting legacy hardware as long as it's competition. That has made me hesitant to buy AMD GPUs again. Now they potentially are doing it on the CPU side. I would encourage all to push back on this. Even if it does not effect you on this particular hardware, the industry needs to hear that users want confidence that the stuff we buy from these giant corporations will be supported longer.

Power users particularly have the responsibility to spread the word and vote with our wallets as we are the ones who understand and have a voice on this!
 
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