There are many questions floating over internet regarding the subject of this entry. Users are confused, because Microsoft states that AMD Ryzen will not work properly combined with Windows 7. But is it true?
I’m a big fan of Windows 7 as well I got Ryzen 7 2700X processor. That’s why I decided to check it by myself. Here are the specs of my primary workstation desktop:
- AMD Ryzen 7 2700X
- 32 GB DDR4 3000 MHz
- AMD Vega 64 8GB HBM2
- MSI Gaming Pro X470
Most of the parts were the recent devices you can get from AMD at the time when bought. It works perfectly in Windows 10, but I prefer Windows 7 over 10.
I tried to find an answer for the question „will it work with windows 7?” and found no real and confirmed answer, so I had to install it on my computer. The very first problem I faced was no support for USB 3 by default. Of course I could modify Windows installer and bind any drivers but I had no time and I’ve found that my motherboard has PS/2 connector. I plugged my old PS/2 keyboard and Windows recognized keyboard. The next step is to create a DVD containing drivers for the motherboard. Thankfully MSI is providing drivers for both Win 10 and 7. After installing Windows 7 i had to burn DVD with drivers using some other workstation and start the setup process. MSI is even supplying an AM4 special patch for Windows 7. Also there is a driver for USB-3 and NVME SSD drives. That’s great. For graphics you need to download the package from AMD website. The graphics driver for Windows 7 is released along with Windows 10 version. They even dropped support for Windows 8.1, but still support Windows 7.
But how it performs? Well I must admit that I could be not fully objective and favor Windows 7 here, but it certainly works as great as Windows 10 release 1803. All games works perfectly. What is the most important thing it also runs great Visual Studio from 2005 to 2019. That’s a really wide supported set of Visual Studio releases! And it fits perfectly my needs.
For all unbelievers: Windows 7 really works with AMD Ryzen 7 2700X! You don’t really need to care about Windows 10. Just stay on 7 🙂
What bothered me apart from Ryzen support was the scaling issues. As you probably noticed I got 4k 31,5 inch panel and I’m using 150% scaling by default. But after installing all available updates for Windows 7 I can’t observe any issues regarding the UI scaling. Of course there are some older applications (like Visual Studio 2005) with some issues, but generally speaking it’s also acceptable. Just take a look.
