Microsoft is ready to release its next feature update for Windows 10, the November 2019 Update. As usual, the company has updated its processor requirements for the new version, but there are some surprises in there. For one thing, it retroactively changed the requirements for version 1903 while it was at it.
It"s a reasonable thing to do, since Windows 10 version 1909 is really just version 1903 with an enablement package to light up some new features. If 1909 supports certain new processors, then 1903 must support them as well.
On the Intel side of things, Microsoft updated them to say that they support 10th-generation Core processors, along with Xeon E-22xx. There"s also support for Atom J4xxx/J5xxx and N4xxx/N5xxx, Celeron, and Pentium, although specific models of Celeron and Pentium aren"t listed. On a side note, Intel 10th-gen is listed as Core i3/i5/i7/i9-10xxx, despite no 10th-gen Core i9 existing just yet.
In the AMD department, there"s still support for the company"s seventh-generation processors, including A-series, E-series, and FX-9000, along with Athlon 2xx, Opteron, and EPYC 7xxx. What"s new for AMD is support for Ryzen 3xxx CPUs, where previously only Ryzen 2xxx processors were listed.
What"s more interesting is the Qualcomm CPUs that are listed. Previously, version 1903 supported the Snapdragon 850, but that"s removed and replaced with both the Snapdragon 855 and the Snapdragon 8cx. It"s unclear if this is a misprint, but the Snapdragon 855 was never supposed to be a PC chipset; it"s for smartphones. It"s possible that Microsoft meant to write Snapdragon 850, which is a PC chipset that"s based on the Snapdragon 845.
Of course, we"ve reached out to Qualcomm for comment on this, so we"ll update this article accordingly. At this time, there"s nothing on the Qualcomm website about a Snapdragon 855 platform for PCs.
You might be wondering why Microsoft"s custom SQ-1 processor - the one used in its new Surface Pro X - isn"t on the list. That"s because the processor isn"t very custom. It"s really just a SKU of the Snapdragon 8cx that has some optimizations for the Surface Pro X.
Update: Qualcomm has confirmed that the Snapdragon 855 listed was a typo, and it should say Snapdragon 850. Presumably, Microsoft will update the page soon.