Now here something incredible for all our AMD Ryzen fans. Microsoft has made available to Windows 11 23H2 all the upcoming AMD Ryzen enhancements that are in the beta of 24H2. As such, you can now get more performance from your AMD Ryzen CPUs for free.
Let’s start from the beginning though. A couple of days ago, HardwareUnboxed shared a video in which they tested the AMD Ryzen 9700X and the 7700X in over 40 games. For these benchmakrs, HU tested the latest Windows 11 version with the beta 24H2. And, as they found out, the 24H2 Update can boost performance on both Zen 4 and Zen 5 CPUs by an average of 10%.
Now what’s crazy here is that some games can get some pretty incredible performance improvements. For instance, Gears 5 saw a 35% performance boost. Similarly, Fortnite DX11 saw a 30% performance increase. Even Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, a game that can be CPU-bound, got a 22% performance increase. And that’s simply with a new update. Those gains are not from using a faster memory module or by overclocking the CPU. This is crazy.
Microsoft was originally planning to have these AMD Ryzen performance improvements in the 24H2 Update. However, the team has also made them available in the 23H2 Update. That’s the update most of you already have right now.
So, all you have to do is look for KB5041587 under Windows update > Advanced options > Optional updates. Once you find it, you can install it. And that’s it.
Do note that this is ONLY available on Windows 11. From what we know so far, Microsoft does not plan to bring it to Windows 10. That’s a bummer but hey, it is what it is.
As said, this is a free performance boost. I seriously can’t believe what’s going on here. Still, this is something that will put a smile on the face of all AMD Ryzen fans.
Lastly, I suggest watching the HU video. This video has over 40 benchies between Win11 23H2 (before it got the performance boost) and Win 11 24H2.
Enjoy and stay tuned for more!
![AMD Ryzen 7 9700X vs. 7700X: 40+ Game Benchmark [23H2 vs. 24H2]](https://www.dsogaming.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-youtube-lyte/lyteCache.php?origThumbUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FrlfTHCzBnnQ%2F0.jpg)
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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Microsoft using that "secret move" to lure us into forced updating to Win 11 because… gaming performance increase…yeah! right.
There is no other reason to have windows if you are not gamer.
Most professional software that adults actually use still doesn't run at all on Linux.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBG3PIvoX1M
You're right, but most of that software runs significantly better on OSX and it's not even close.
That depends on your profession:
For example, the CGI/VFX industry has been dominated by Linux since the early 2000s.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ebc43bfec4475dea24ef3867c9a4e56f9cb85f42afc5b95d023a5adfeea7f358.png
Basically, any industry that requires to handle insane amounts of data and/or has hard real-time requirements (like robotics) is poised to embrace Linux one way or another.
Well yes and no! Most softwares that work in mac work equally better in windows too. Infact many of the software companies prefer their native softwares or Web apps to be developed on windows so saying that Windows is just reserved for gaming is not entirely true.
Yes and yes. If you game you go windows for any other stuff there are alternatives.
Windows = gaming. Are you ok bruh?
Never disagreed with that. Just saying Microsoft knows what they're doing, and if not for the looks, they're giving another reason for users to switch to win 11 despite the fact that many of the games and softwares still have compatibility issues on it
is the R7 7800X3D included ?
Yes. If you are already on Win 11 there is already an optional patch. You don't need the H2 beta test garbage. Should be under optional updates as the OP says. If you are on Windows 10 I would wait. This could be related to TPM 2.0 "security" features being on by default that kill CPU performance in Win 11. People already take VBS, core isolation off that know about it and I see some people claiming no gains. Could be that the gains are really related to TPM 2.0 and not branch prediction at all.
Yes, I read a post with benchmark results of the 7800X3D. In Fortnite, the average fps went from 193 to 240fps, and the minimum fps went from 138 to 195fps.
Dont wait just do it. Also disable vbs and core isolation. You will get a great boost in perfomance from all this 3.
7800X3D benchmarks.
https://www.hardwareluxx.de/index.php/artikel/hardware/prozessoren/64313-optimierte-sprungvorhersage-zen-5-mit-windows-11-24h2-getestet.html
Finally a good windows update.
MS doing whatever MS can to lure gamers onto Win 11. Well, it's inevitable anyway. Extended support for Win 10 ends next year. I'll keep my gaming rig on Win 10 until the last minute though. I have a laptop on Win 11 and I just don't like it as much as Win 10.
Yeah I am very suspicious of this just being some change to TPM 2.0 optimizations when anyone that was sane already had those turned off. I want to see the VBS, Core isolation off in both benches before I believe any real uplift. Otherwise this is snakeoil.
There is tests for all you mention. VBS off etc, this update still gives you performance on top of them if you have them disable.
Where? Default settings in Windows 11 are all this crap on. If it's better with all of it on, then who cares. Show me Win 10 vs Win 11. Show me VBS, core isolation and inspectre off in all tests.
Let me clear of what I said. Vbs off core isolation off you get performance boost in win11. With the update you get even more if you have them of. Check youtube kitgurutech. The update works stop inventing conspiracy bullshit. You can keep win10 with less fps np.
These tests were made with VBS turned on.
Yeah just watched some tests on a 5000 series which people have claimed has insane gains as well. Zero gains. People that bypassed TPM 2.0 in the installer would never have those features turned on, so could be why they see no gains. Interesting coincidence that the beta Win versions close the bypass TPM 2.0 loophole. Whole thing smells fishy and they probably optimized VBS, core isolation to turn off when CPU hit a certain load or something.
Anyone with a CPU with e cores should be on Win 11 already.
They will be forced to push that back further because of the low adoption rate of Win 11
Win 10 still has a 65% market share compared to Win 11's 31%
Test with TPM 2.0 features like VBS core isolation and Spectre protections off on both patches or AMD and MS are both selling snakeoil and selling TPM 2.0 improvements or being temporarily shut off (they can always turn it back on) as something else. TPM has always been the elephant in the room with first Windows 8 and now 11.
Hardware Unboxed tested the update with VBS turned on. So much for snake oil.
Meanwhile intel users finding God, hoping their cpu's don't fail.
Laughing in Alder Lake.
Not massive, it's still something at least.
It's not just as you put it "a free boost"… Performance was there in the hardware, AMD/Microsoft had to finish the software.
I see conflicting results. Are people seeing any improvements if they already had TPM 2.0 insanity off like VBS and core isolation as well as using inspectre to remove "protection" for things that require physical access that no one has had broken otherwise? If so this is snakeoil. Windows 11 was already quite a bit slower than Windows 10 in gaming (and much slower in Linux in a Vulkan game) with the TPM 2.0 features on (default setting). I also find it highly suspicious that this optimization only comes now that they are making TPM 2.0 impossible to bypass in the installer. If these so called gains are related to turning off "security" features or them running better with this code optimization what's to prevent them from turning it on and screwing over performance again later in the future for other CPU families? We could be looking at fake uplift from "security" that isn't even needed on a gaming OS that requires CPU upgrades people don't need.
Actually, this has something to do with the new ZEN 5 architecture and the design.
“Zen 5” architecture relies on a wider "branch prediction" capacity than prior “Zen” generations of processors, hence the code works differently in the OS and firmware.
And AMD themselves have highlighted this in their latest blog after doing a thorough testing.
There have been some issues with the "Branch Predictor" feature not working as intended within Windows 11 OS, when used in conjunction with Zen 5 CPUs.
Some Core Parking issues have also been highlighted.
First of all, it now seems evident that AMD has probably launched an unfinished Ryzen 9000 series product stack (rushed out), which seriously requires more optimizations to provide the promised generational IPC uplift.
Zen 5 certainly needs more polish and optimizations within the BIOS, and at the chipset software stack/drivers level as well.
But an OS update is now required to leverage the upgraded Zen 5 branch predictor feature, because with Zen 5, we now have two independent instruction fetch streams feeding the branch predictor, thus allowing for 2-ahead taken branches (see image below).
The Win 11 24H2 version already had this fix for Branch prediction, but MS and AMD are now 'back-porting' it to the 23H2 OS version for the time being.
This also requires apps/games to be run in “ADMIN” mode to get the full performance out of it, which is what AMD initially did in their testing.
This is also why gaming benchmarks have seen varied results to a greater extent across several reviewers. Most of them were benchmarking on local user accounts and previous versions of Windows.
FWIW, this new "Branch Prediction" update only works as intended when running Windows 11 apps/games in "Admin" mode.
.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7ed0747ecb9b37e52c9d295e41f1ff0cccf61c7d6cacc153ce5ca40101b021f7.png
So we have fake security nonsense crippling performance in settings they aren't vulnerable in (spectre) and MS wants TPM 2.0 nonsense on by default, but now they want you to run in admin mode which is the worst thing you could possibly do for day to day use and having stability and security for the vast majority of users, while claiming TPM 2.0 is really about security?
What a complete joke. Same company that wants to take 5 second interval screenshots of our OS use as well with insanity like "recall".
What's the whole point then?
Are there really Windows users around that run in "Admin" mode for gaming?
The main point at this time appears to extract as much performance out of the new Zen 5 chips as possible.
And to achieve this AMD and MS have decided to patch some of the code in the upcoming Windows 11 OS update.
We can expect more patches and firmware/BIOS updates to be released in the upcoming months as well.
I'm not sure about the Admin mode though, because things aren't much clear as of now, since AMD has not explained which Admin mode they are actually referring to.
But as per some sources it appears to be a hidden Admin account with elevated privileges, and not just any local admin account.
This also created some confusion amongst gamers and reviewers alike, but we assume this new 24H2 Windows patch appears to have automatically resolved this issue for now.
Btw, I doubt users/gamers use Admin mode during gaming.
Win 11 has two Administrator modes and one of them is hidden. BEFORE the update you needed to enable the hidden Administrator account and run Windows using it but that's a bad idea if your computer is online. It was just a workaround and used as proof Windows got something wrong
With the Updates you do NOT have to enable the hidden Administrator account to work around the problem. The update has the workarounds/correction built in and I suspect only is enabled when you are playing a game instead of all the time like when you used the hidden Administrator work around
Win 11 has two Administrator modes and one of them is hidden. BEFORE the update you needed to enable the hidden Administrator account and run Windows using it but that's a bad idea if your computer is online. It was just a workaround and used as proof Windows got something wrong
With the Updates you do NOT have to enable the hidden Administrator account to work around the problem. The update has the workarounds/correction built in and I suspect only is enabled when you are playing a game instead of all the time like when you used the hidden Administrator work around
Hey Metal, i trust your opinions as you've been around a long time and used to write for DSOG. I'm tired of Windows can you recommend a Linux distribution best for gaming? I've heard good things about LMDE Linux Mint build on Debian. What do you like as an alternate for Windows 10/11?
Oh boy, here we go, I had hoped people would refrain from looking at Linux alternatives for at least another year until Windows 10 reaches EOL.
Anyhow, to answer your question:
NO, LMDE is about one of the worst Linux distros when it comes to gaming!
If you really can't hold off any longer, then I can at least recommend taking a look at Bazzite, which is about the closest thing you can get that resembles SteamOS right now.
But please make sure to apply all updates once you have installed the latest Bazzite 3.6 version, because only recently they have enabled full Linux kernel preemption by default, which is basically a must for any gaming-oriented distro to be taken seriously.
Nevertheless, I'd recommend that you look up how to dual-boot Bazzite with Windows, because it most definitely isn't ready for prime-time, yet…
EDIT:
Looks like Bazzite 3.7 just dropped a few days ago, which means you will get full Linux kernel preemption by default.
Still, don't expect perfection, at least for now…
Thanks for the in depth response! I've never even heard of
Bazzite, so thanks for this whole new vector into Linux. I have to find replacement programs not to mention using Windows since DOS and 3.1. With people like you around i hope to run into gurus to offer advice to ease the transition and gain wisodm. Thanks again LinuxIsTheFuture!
Oh one quick question buddy, why is LMDE no awful for gaming? Does it go through proton or wine of something? Please forgive my appalling lack of information on Linux, i want to be an expert overnight on Linux gaming 😉
You're welcome!
One major reason why LMDE is not suited for gaming purposes is that they are shipping software which is severely out of date, because they are based on Debian, which is best suited as a server OS.
On the other hand, think of Bazzite as a sort-of technical preview of SteamOS.
Even though they don't share the same heritage, Bazzite does imitate many core features of SteamOS very well.
And since Valve is a very slow moving entity, Bazzite is able to ship many technical advancements of Linux much earlier.
Just remember that there is still alot of work ahead of us…
Cheers!
It also affects Zen 4 which will also get a boost with this update. It's got to do with Win 11 just being junk like Vista and Win 8 were.
Moral of this story ….. Stick with Win 10 until Win 12 comes out
Except this helps a lot Zen 4 as well. So much so in fact that the average performance difference between 9700X and 7700X improved from 1%…
…to 2%.
Wow. So much, very big, so fast.
FWIW, this new "Branch Prediction" update only works as intended when running Windows 11 apps/games in "Admin" mode.
do you i have to add a new user admin user account to see the difference even if i m on 24H2 ?
Not fully sure about the Admin account though, since I have not tested this myself. But I don't think you would be needing a new user/admin account to see any difference.
Nice to see you're still around, Metal Messiah.
Hopefully the development highlighted in this article bodes well for the presumed 9800X3D as I'm looking to get myself a new PC once that and the Nvidia RTX 5000 series arrives!
Thanks Bob !
The gains were always there in Windows 10
And Microsoft actually wonders why so many people are holding out to upgrade to that Win 11 dumpster fire …… Like Vista and Win 8 before it it's just a skippable upgrade. People running Win10 still outnumber those using Win 11 by 2 to 1
I don't think it was a problem in Windows 10, it's the TPM crap they forced into it. The Windows 10 kernel works a lot different from the Windows 11 kernel, it's simpler and more streamlined
I've been using Windows since 1.0 and tested literally 100's of configurations using Windows 2.0 – 3.11 since I was a components tester for Gateway computers. Back then there were dozens of manufacturers for motherboards, memory boards and all the different peripherals (Floppy disk controllers, hard disk controllers, Serial and parallel port controllers, etc.) and they all claimed to be "IBM Compatible" but of course they weren't. My job was to find the most compatible devices as well as assess suppliers for reputation and manufacturing capabilities to ensure we'd have a solid supply chain. In the late 1980's Gateway computers were famous for being the most reliable compatible computers on the market and we couldn't build them fast enough because of the high demand from businesses and universities.
Experience is why I can say every other version of Windows turns out to be crap because basically they make some radical changes to the architecture usually at the kernel level and they don't get fully ironed out until the next version comes along.
Notable changes were made between XP and Vista and Vista was a pain in the a*s but the upgraded version Windows 7 was a banger …… Same thing with Windows 8, major changes because everyone thought tablets would "replace the PC" and Windows 8/8.1 was a pain in the a*s but the upgraded version Windows 10 was a banger. Now they made more radical changes in Windows 11 and it's been a pain in the a*s whether anyone wants to admit to it or not. Proof of that is after a month shy of 3 year Windows 11 only has a 31% market share while Windows 10 is 65%
They won't end Windows 10 support until Windows 12 come out because the market won't allow it. You can't have 65% of computers online with no security updates so Microsoft will continue to move the end of support date further into the future
thanks bro good to know your a veteran in pc stuff
salute 🙂
so did they fix it for win 10 or need to do it manually admin account ? and any info about old 5000 series ?
Yup looks like it's VBS core isolation. All it appears that has happened is Win 11 is now as fast as Windows 10 or Win 11 that bypassed TPM 2.0 in the install or turned those features off. Snakeoil.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9LOv6NP1HQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rHwTN6U5cs
Nice try, Bill Gates!
The updates breaks both Avatar and Star Wars Outlaws and I bet there will be a few other games ….. The thing about a benchmark is they don't tell you how the game will do in a longer session