Microsoft seemingly trusts Intel Evo for Windows 11 PCs, no love for AMD Advantage

As Windows 11 is now generally available, Microsoft has itself put out a list of recommended hardware for buyers looking to get a new Windows 11 PC. On its blog post titled "A new PC is a great way to get Windows 11" that it published on October 12, the firm has given a few general recommendations via its Windows Resource Center like choosing an SSD for the boot drive, selecting the appropriate form factor, and more such simple yet helpful stuff.

Once you move down the page, there is another section where the company provides "a few more tips". Here, the Redmond Giant is seen recommending Intel's Evo platform for a Windows 11 laptop that "you can count on".

Intel introduced the Evo brand last year to indicate laptops that pack its 11th Gen Tiger Lake mobile processors or newer and all the best technologies it offers in such devices. Basically, it's a certification to show that these Intel PCs are "verified wonderful" (Image below).

In a way, it's a good thing as it is essentially meant to make buying laptops easier for uninformed customers and ensure that they are getting the latest available Windows 11-compatible products. However, unlike Intel's Evo, Microsoft does not bring up AMD's Advantage program here even though the latter's CPUs are also compatible with Windows 11.

AMD Advantage is also a certification program similar to Intel's Evo that AMD debuted alongside its Radeon RX 6000M mobile RDNA 2 graphics. In combination with that, these laptops sport Ryzen 5000 mobile processors, and these CPUs are officially supported by Windows 11 as they fulfill the system requirements criteria for the OS.

To be fair to Microsoft, mentioning AMD Advantage would probably make it seem like the Redmond giant is overlooking Nvidia GPUs completely since the Advantage program combines both CPUs and dedicated GPUs solely from AMD. This possibly explains why AMD Advantage isn't promoted by Microsoft the same way as Intel Evo is. And also, AMD Advantage was released much later and so these laptops are far rarer compared to Intel Evo devices.

Still, it can certainly make someone wonder as to why there is also no mention of at least AMD processors, alongside Intel's Evo, on Microsoft's Windows 11 PC buyer's guide.

Source: Microsoft