Newegg offering PC custom combo deals. If you need upgrade for Win11 tariffs - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: ballsystemlord
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2025, 05:53:27 pm
content: Hello,For those of you who need/want to upgrade, Newegg is offering custom combo deals.(World wide): It is expected that the forced Win11 upgrade will cause a shortage of PC components.(US): Though most parts are exempt, US tariffs are expected to hit hard around the 3rd business quarter or the holidays because of the demand for new PCs because of the forced Win11 upgrade. And the extra supply companies stocked before the tariffs came into effect will run out soon.When I say there are deals to be had, I mean you can save $100s USD on a new PC through discounts on the mid to high end parts.You can see the deals by accessing almost any CPU page which will offer you a combo just under the pictures of the CPU. You then just select "see more". I can't give a direct link as the page seems to change URLs from time to time.These deals are not static. You'll find better/worse ones on different components (or the same, in the case of CPUs), a week from now then you would find today.I hope it helps.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 13, 2025, 11:13:28 am
content: Quote from: ballsystemlord on July 12, 2025, 05:53:27 pmWhat makes you say this? I see no evidence of a PC component shortage.

author: AVGresponding
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2025, 12:07:52 pm
content: Meh... just use w10 LTSC. That's good until what, 2033 or something?

author: J-R
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2025, 10:51:37 pm
content: I agree that there probably will be limited hardware supplies in some areas. So either buy before then or wait until the dust settles for the best experience. I am not a fan of Newegg's combo deals because in a lot of cases it is just so they can limit sales of desirable items and also get rid of less-desirable items.However, a good choice in my opinion is simply to upgrade to Windows 11 using the various trivial work-arounds. I work under an MS site agreement and we specifically asked MS if it would break the license agreement terms if we used them. Specifically, to clean install W11 on an unsupported machine you modify the registry during the PE setup, and to upgrade a W10 machine to W11 you also add an entry to the registry before launching setup. In both cases, MS states that this is an "officially" provided method so does not break any legal terms, but is not supported. They also stated there would be no guarantee of it working in the future.So in my opinion, the path to take is to upgrade to W11 rather than buy new hardware, but if at some point in the future MS blocks updates or otherwise makes it risky to run in this manner you could buy new at that point.LTSC is an option but typically requires a clean install, although there are some tricks to perhaps do this in-place in some cases.LTSC also requires an enterprise/corporate agreement with Microsoft to even obtain the license. Furthermore, the last W10 LTSC, 2021, will only work with KMS (key server) and not with MAK (multiple activation). So the machine has to be able to reach the on-premise KMS server every so often to remain activated. LTSC 2019 does work with MAK keys, so activate once and you're good. So be careful which one you pick. LTSC 2019 is supported until 2029 (10 years), and LTSC 2021 until 2027 (5 years). It is plausible that some newer software will not work with LTSC 2019 and will require LTSC 2021.

author: coromonadalix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 14, 2025, 02:01:11 am
content: ill say be prepared, because w11 22h4 have added functionalities that are a pain in the @>>>>>>>>>>>>core isolation drivers rejections etc ... and M4oft dont tell you that until you search a loti have perfectly running hardwares on w10 and up to w11 23h2 builds, after that M$oft decided to force hw makers to update them or provide new certified or signed ones according to their rules, if not, you have errors in the hardware manager, you install your drivers tons of time and they always fail

author: ballsystemlord
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 14, 2025, 02:12:59 am
content: Quote from: Halcyon on July 13, 2025, 11:13:28 amFrom what I have read, MS estimates that there are 400million PCs that will not support W11. Now IDK what sort of countries these PCs are located in. But when I read things in the 10s or 100s of millions, I assume there will be scarcity for a while.https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2025/01/18/microsofts-forced-upgrade-new-warning-for-450-million-windows-pc-owners/The article seemed to say that MS requires a new TPM, probably their Pluton one, to work with W11. The problem with this is that Pluton effectively embeds MS firmware and HW into your PC. You can't get rid of it. It's capable of connection to the internet without your knowledge or consent.https://www.anandtech.com/show/16269/microsoft-pluton-hardware-security-coming-to-our-cpus-amd-intel-qualcommhttps://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-Partner-Security-Enginehttps://www.phoronix.com/news/Lenovo-Pluton-Windows-Default

author: ballsystemlord
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 14, 2025, 02:17:57 am
content: Quote from: J-R on July 13, 2025, 10:51:37 pmIf it makes a difference to you, I normally find that Newegg is at price equivalence compared to Amazon when it comes to most PC components. It is true, of course, that Newegg's combo deals are based on what doesn't sell that well, but then, if you want to save and the parts are perfectly good PC parts and will work for your use-case, why not?

author: coromonadalix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 14, 2025, 09:44:25 am
content: well i do not rely on amazon and newegg, some prices are good, and some are very say: inflated and absolutely wrong,Amazon love to play with numbers over the year period, you have tools to check that, you'll see their gameyou have many computers parts providers, do a run check with all of them as i did, i paid over 3100$ 1 month ago for a new complete rig, and the prices where better than prime days or elsewhere lollAliexpress is not absolute, they are not good in some components too

author: AVGresponding
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 14, 2025, 09:49:31 am
content: Quote from: J-R on July 13, 2025, 10:51:37 pmcough-massgrave-coughNB: NSFW

author: coromonadalix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2025, 12:42:36 am
content: loll ltsc is so easy to activate, same as office 2021 ltsc loll

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 15, 2025, 04:03:51 am
content: Quote from: ballsystemlord on July 14, 2025, 02:12:59 amTo my knowledge, Windows 11 will work with any PC with TPM 2.0. This is almost every motherboard manufactured in the last 10 years. I don't see Microsoft's Pluton security processor as being any different, it just integrates TPM 2.0 onto the CPU itself.I'm not sure where Forbes are getting their "400 million PCs" figure from, they don't say.

author: ballsystemlord
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2025, 04:52:15 am
content: Quote from: Halcyon on July 15, 2025, 04:03:51 amLike most mainstream sources, forbes doesn't cite their sources. But they do link to a previous article which specifically calls out the TPM requirements."The issue is hardware and the TPM hurdle that will stop around 400 million PCs globally from ever upgrading."https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2025/01/04/microsoft-dangerous-update-warning-65-of-all-windows-users-must-act-now/

author: J-R
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2025, 04:56:23 am
content: Obviously there are plenty of ways to do things illegally and work arounds like MAS have been around for eonsAll volume license editions of Windows can be installed and run indefinitely without activation, no modifications necessary. You do have a watermark, but you could at least make the claim that it was an oversight rather than an illegal act.TPM 2.0 is not the only thing Windows 11 checks for before installation/upgrade. You also have CPU generation, amount of RAM and free disk space, secure boot, and existing software application checks (they either need to be removed first or will be removed during installation).The hardware requirements can be bypassed by simply opening Regedit and typing in keys that are 100% plain text and provided by MS for various purposes. (For example, "AllowUpgradesWithUnsupportedTPMOrCPU" or "LabConfig".)MS Pluton is similar to Apple's security chip. In my opinion, while both add some security features, they are clearly motivated more by complete control rather than some altruistic love for the end-user.

author: Simmed
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2025, 07:09:59 am
content: un-upgradeQuote

author: guenthert
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2025, 04:11:30 pm
content: Where others see a shortage of new PC components due to the forced upgrade to Win11, I see a buying opportunity of pre-enjoyed PC components for those happily using older versions or Linux.

author: J-R
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2025, 07:10:12 am
content: This discussion could likely go on forever, but for the curious: yes, you can really drag the old hardware along quite a bit and newer hardware, such as 5-10 years old 100% doesn't need to go into the landfill. Just bypass the requirements as previously mentioned.Windows 11 24H2 did add a hard requirement for SSE 4.2, which means pre-2008 Intel Core 2 generation CPUs have to stick with 23H2 which will lose support October 2025. But 24H2 works with CPUs newer than that.Windows 10 to 11 migrations are happening at a decent clip, but as of right now, they are essentially even at about 48% each. I think there is a good chance MS is going to wait until the last minute and announce extended support for Windows 10, or simply silently continue to provide updates. Having so many Windows 10 computers hanging around past the November 2025 patch Tuesday is surely going to make everyone at MS extremely nervous. I don't think they'll risk the potential brand damage. But we'll see.One thing the older hardware can struggle with is modern streaming video codecs that leverage hardware acceleration. So your cell phone can decode 4K YouTube no problem, but a 15 year old CPU/GPU combo could be brought to its knees by lowly 720p. Other tasks will be fine though.For the Apple folks, of course you also have options for keeping old hardware going, such as OpenCore Legacy Patcher.And of course, in all cases, Linux...