A few motherboard manufacturers have provided details of which of their products are ready for Windows 11 when it starts rolling out at the end of the year.
To be precise, Asus, Biostar and Gigabyte have announced a list of currently compatible motherboards, although before PCs running these components are good to go with Windows 11, they may need a touch of tweaking in the BIOS. More about that in a moment, but first let’s list the compatible boards, as highlighted by Tom’s Hardware and Wccftech.
- Asus compatible Intel motherboards: C261 Series, C422 Series, X299 Series, Z590 Series, Q570 Series, H570 Series, B560 Series, H510 Series, Z490 Series, Q470 Series, H470 Series, B460 Series, H410 Series, W480 Series, Z390 Series, Z370 Series, H370 Series, B365 Series, B360 Series, H310 Series, Q370 Series, C246 Series
- Asus compatible AMD motherboards: WRX80 Series, TRX40 Series, X570 Series, B550 Series, A520 Series, X470 Series, B450 Series, X370 Series, B350 Series, A320 Series
- Biostar compatible Intel motherboards: Z590 Series, B560 Series, B460 Series, H510 Series, B250 Series
- Biostar compatible AMD motherboards: X570 Series, B550 Series, A520 Series, B450 Series, X470 Series, X370 Series, B350 Series, A320 Series
- Gigabyte compatible Intel motherboards: X299 Series, C621 Series, C232 Series, C236 Series, C246 Series, C200 Series, C300 Series, C400 Series, C500 Series
- Gigabyte compatible AMD motherboards: TRX40 Series, 300 Series, 400 Series, 500 Series
Note that these aren’t necessarily the finalized lists of supported hardware for Windows 11, and other motherboard ranges will be added – this is just the state of play as it currently stands, so don’t despair yet if your particular board isn’t listed above.
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BIOS trip
As mentioned, those motherboards are fine with Windows 11, but may still require a trip to the BIOS to flick a switch to enable TPM (Trusted Platform Module) support. As Tom’s Hardware spotted, Gigabyte observed: “Lots of Gigabyte Intel and AMD motherboards can pass the TPM 2.0 verification of the Windows 11 by simply enabling the TPM-related function in the BIOS. By this advanced BIOS setting, Gigabyte motherboards can pass the TPM 2.0 verification of Windows 11 to prevent TPM 2.0 support becoming an issue to users during their system upgrade.”
Further remember that while you’re in the BIOS doing that, you may also need to enable Secure Boot, which is also part of the minimum system requirements for Windows 11. Again, that’s a matter of flicking a switch, but the exact location of the switches depends on your motherboard and BIOS version, so while these are theoretically fairly easy things to do, it may be a confusing process for the less tech-savvy (particularly given that the BIOS isn’t a place where you want to make a misstep).
Predictably, given these requirements there has been a good deal of confusion around compatibility with Windows 11, a situation that hasn’t been helped by the fact that Microsoft’s PC Health Check app – the utility which lets you know whether your PC is compatible with the incoming OS – has in some cases been giving out errant information (with the tool’s findings lacking in details, too).
Remember that you also need a compatible CPU for Windows 11 as well, plus there are other minimum system requirements.
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