As far as I know there is nothing actually stopping points 1-4. The last one I have no experience.
I donāt get this thread.
- The ability to use Thunderbolt.
Wel what do you use thunderbolt for - Iām sure you can go without it.
- The ability to use Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit
- The ability to use Windows 8.1 Professional (64 bit, of course)
- The ability to use Linux Mint 64 bit (Thatās Debian - not Ubuntu)
These are all the same points to me. Threadripper supports linux officially (But like most other companies they only list Ubuntu). A distro is only a distro, it makes no real difference. If you want the cinnamon desktop environment just install it on Ubuntu and you now own a supported OS.
It is not uncommon for new Tech to not be supported on old OSās, we are struggling to get the Win 10 kernel to play nice with this CPU - what is the chances of this happening on an OS that is on its way out?
- The ability to use my LSI RAID card without issue.
There are hardware raid cards working fine with Threadripper, you can try other models.
To me this just seems like you are someone that really doesnāt like change. If you are going to one system to another different compatibility is sometimes a given. At the end of the day you can get the job done - might just be in a slightly different way.
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Whatās not to get? These are things Iād really like to see and things iād really like NOT to give up. Sure I could always buy new hard ware. We could all buy new hardware. Do you know anyone who will buy my brand new, sealed-in-the-box, Intel 6900K? It really is simple. As the paying customer those are the things Iād really like to see. I guess Iām just not that flexible. I want Thread Ripper to be flexible instead. Yes. You are struggling with Windows 10, you said. Well, I donāt want to struggle with Windows 10. Win 7 is still good and is supported until 2020. Windows 8.1 is supported to 2023. No reason AMD should not make it possible to use those operating systems on Thread Ripper if Thread Ripper is supposed to be an adequate Work Station platform. Frankly, I donāt think it is.
From what I understand there is no official support for Windows older than Windows 10 on Intelās Kaby Lake or newer and AMDās Ryzen or newer.
So for your Windows 7/8.1 support youāll need Skylake or older for Intel or Excavator or older for AMD.
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Well indeed then if you donāt want change then Threadripper might not be for you. That is fine.
Just cause it doesnāt work for you doesnāt mean it doesnāt work for others. There are lots of people loving what Threadripper provides them. Itās a big world, one situation doesnāt necessarily define a product. You have to look at the use cases other people need from it too.
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Thatās true. I have stated my view based on my experience and my opinion. I realize so many struggle with Windows 10 which makes me wonder why AMD chose such a buggy operating system to base its architecture on. I wonder what will happen when Microsoft finally āgets itā and and ditches Windows 10. Approximately 40% of Windows users still use Windows 7. Did AMD even consider this? Anyway, itās all in my lead post. Iām sure there are people who absolutely love Windows 10 too. Thereās a little masochist in us all, right?
Thank you. This is precisely the reason I got the 6900K but that was before Spectre/Meltdown became a big issue and now Iām not so sure I want to open that box.
I am sure it exists for ThreadRipper because of exactly this, but I remember when the 9000 series of Intel stuff came out and Ryzen quite a few tested them on 7 and 8.1 because it was ānot supportedā but that does not mean wonāt work just that you are on your own.
Instead of postulating and coming up with reasons for not wanting it either stop torturing yourself and drop the idea or test it and see for yourself, the answers are there for the having, no such thing as a free lunch.
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That is very reassuring Zibob, but as I stated earlier, Iām not an I.T. I donāt know how to hack systems to make them work on hardware that isnāt made to work with specific operating systems. Wendel might be able to get Thunderbolt to work on Thread Ripper and thatās all well and good but Iām not prepared to engage in anything that volatile. I know people who say they have hacked systems such as Windows 7 to work on Thread Ripper. Good for them! They wonāt get their updates and they might even be risking other things that Iām not prepared to go into here. Iām just very disappointed. I was almost ready to cross over to AMD but it looks like Iām stuck with that Intel chip after all.
The hack is get a USB stick. Put the win 8.1 Installer on it and goā¦ That is literally it.
Thatās a beautiful hack! I think I could handle that! 
And for the thunderbolt end Wendel has done this and videoed the processā¦
It is all there, just look a little. None of us can help you if you wonāt help yourself.
excuse to bitch about AMD
as to windows 7, it is out of extended support in about 338 days.
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sorry but you are either wilfully ignorant, a paid shill, or genuinely have no idea how these things work.
as stated many times in this thread (possibly actually your other thread). no modern CPU is officially supported in windows 7 since about 2015. either AMD or intel. this is microsoftās decision in order to force windows 10 adoption.
threadripper is not ādesigned for windows 10ā by AMD at all. no more than intel skylake onward is. in fact, windows 10 has issues on high end threadripper parts because the kernel needs to be fixed.
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You could totally install and run windows 7 or 8.1 on TR.
But wenn it comes to windows 7 it will need some fiddling with usb3.0 support.
Windows 7 out of the box does not support usb3.0 and nvme drives.
But you can totally modify an original windows 7 iso by adding usb3.0 drivers,
and nvme eventually.
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No need to call OP ignorant or a shill. Not everybody on L1T has the same knowledge on how stuff works.
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Thunderbolt on < Z270 is super, super buggy.
You can run Thunderbolt via an Alpine Ridge controller on boards like the Gigabyte Aorus Extreme X399 or Designare X399. Itās basically fine at this point. I think you canāt technically call it Thunderbolt since intel is dragging ass on certifying it (gee, I wonder why). So in a way āNo Thunderboltā is like complaining a non-intel CPU isnāt intel. A bit circular. Iāve demonstrated that thunderbolt does actually work fine on TR.
Older windows does work.
#4 is because of an Agesa update snafu. If you run a board with an older bios (with older Agesa) itās fine. But there is a kind of no-mans-land if youāre running an older kernel but a newer bios because it tries to activate encrypted memory, and the system hangs. Thatās largely fixed now, though.
#5 Iām using a SAS9361-8i without issue. Some of the reallllly old PCIe 2.0 cards work best in the chipset PCIe slots, not direct attached, but the CLI utilities work fine for flashing/monitoring.
In a lot of ways Linux works much better with TR than windows. The agesa thing was just getting kernel patches mainlined out of sync with an agesa update, which hopefully they learned from that experience. Intel is guilty of breaking stuff with microcode updates, too:
The worst one I ever saw was Windows Server BSOD on Nehalem era 1366 xeons when power management was enabled but the latest platform/chipset driver was not loaded on windows server before the windows update that brought the microcode update. That was not a fun tuesday night for a lot of admins.
I suppose you could use the older windows version in a virtual machine without issue, too.
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That is like demanding an FX-CPU to support Windows 3.11, Software supports Hardware, not the other way round.
Win7 works on Ryzen 1000 with some driver injection before install. Threadripper is an entirely different beast though.
Silicone is brittle, no bending to be done on any CPU without breaking it.
Needed to make a joke, donĀ“t hate me.
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Thank you, thank you, thank you. At last I feel like somebody understands. 
Thank you Wendell, for offering me a sensible solution. I truly appreciate it. Yes, I was a victim of what you shared here regarding that Microcode. I spare you the details. Intel actually recalled the chip on me but you know already how down time can be a killer. Limited resources left me unprepared. Perhaps I am suffering from a few hostility issues after all. Thanks again.