Thursday, August 22nd 2024
AMD Works with Microsoft to Improve Zen 3 thru Zen 5 Performance in Windows 11 24H2
AMD Ryzen 9000 "Granite Ridge" desktop processors have been out for a couple of weeks now, and the "Zen 5" based processors have fallen short of gaming performance expectations, set mainly by some of the numbers AMD put out in its Computex 2024 reveal for the processors. The consensus among the tech press is that these processors are roughly 3-5% faster than Ryzen 7000 series "Raphael," but with noteworthy improvements in energy efficiency. AMD set out to study why there are such vast deltas in performance between its numbers and those of reviews, and arrived a few possible explanations. The company also stated that it is working with Microsoft to fix this in the next major update to Windows 11.
One of them is that AMD's testing was done on Windows 11 23H2 with Admin mode (i.e. a local system administrator account was used), while some reviewers tested with a regular user account that has some admin privileges. Apparently this affects the way the branch prediction units of "Zen 5" processors work. "Our automated test methodology was run in "Admin" mode which produced results that reflect branch prediction code optimizations not present in the version of Windows reviewers used to test Ryzen 9000 Series," AMD said in a statement.
AMD also pointed out that in its first-party tests that compare Ryzen 9000 series processor models to Intel's, the company ran the 14th Gen Core chips with the same DDR5-6000 memory speed with the same timings, and used Intel's baseline power profile that uses stock power limits for these processors (125 W base- and 252 W maximum turbo power in case of the Core i9-14900K and the i7-14700K, for example).
AMD said that it's working with Microsoft to bring the "correct" branch prediction behavior seen in admin mode to regular Windows 11 user accounts. These updates will be incorporated in the retail release of Windows 24H2, although you won't have to wait until then. Microsoft will release this as an "optional update" sooner than that, so it could be implemented on Windows 11 23H2. Here's the best part—it turns out that the admin mode discrepancy even affects "Zen 4" and "Zen 3" processors, which means even Ryzen 5000 thru Ryzen 7000 series processors should get a performance uplift in regular Windows 11 user accounts.
Source:
AMD
One of them is that AMD's testing was done on Windows 11 23H2 with Admin mode (i.e. a local system administrator account was used), while some reviewers tested with a regular user account that has some admin privileges. Apparently this affects the way the branch prediction units of "Zen 5" processors work. "Our automated test methodology was run in "Admin" mode which produced results that reflect branch prediction code optimizations not present in the version of Windows reviewers used to test Ryzen 9000 Series," AMD said in a statement.
AMD said that it's working with Microsoft to bring the "correct" branch prediction behavior seen in admin mode to regular Windows 11 user accounts. These updates will be incorporated in the retail release of Windows 24H2, although you won't have to wait until then. Microsoft will release this as an "optional update" sooner than that, so it could be implemented on Windows 11 23H2. Here's the best part—it turns out that the admin mode discrepancy even affects "Zen 4" and "Zen 3" processors, which means even Ryzen 5000 thru Ryzen 7000 series processors should get a performance uplift in regular Windows 11 user accounts.
48 Comments on AMD Works with Microsoft to Improve Zen 3 thru Zen 5 Performance in Windows 11 24H2
I guess we will see........ MAYBE
Is this kind of bug related to Windows 11 only? If yes, that'd be a total pain-in-the-ass for the Microsoft ... I can imagine lots of gamers rolling back to Win10 to "unlock" missing performance.
I wonder whether W1zz would have some time to test it (same machine, same 4-5 games, different OSes).
Anyhow, you pay for Windows and what you get is the OS that does not utilize the CPU properly.
On the other side is for instance Linux, which is free and does it right.
You pay to get worse. Ridiculous.
Otherwise, no complaints. Just moved my G14 over to 24H2 IoT as well. Hoping to pick up a bit of battery life along with properly cleansing it of Asus filth services
but I know some people really hate on Store. I personally don't think it's anywhere near the most egregious thing MS has done and it's never been responsible for any of MS' biggest fuckups on my setups, but if you don't need it I guess there's no reason to install it
In my point of view Windows and Linux with the userspace is hardly optimized for the recent processors like the Ryzen 7000 Series or newer.
Linux itself got just recently some options to activate / set for a few security issues, scheduling, how the processes are placed on which core. I started to check and lookup those new options which come or change with a new kernel. Note: Linux - i mean the kernel, only the kernel. Anything else is the userspace, toolchain, and so on.
Gcc is barely optimized for the Ryzen 5000 or newer processors in my point of view.
AMD Ryzen 9000X3D 3D V-Cache CPUs Reportedly Delayed To CES 2025
W7 Fixed most of the complaints people had with Vista, and by the time W7 released, most hardware manufacturers had finally sorted out proper drivers for the new kernel.
W8 Was the start of the interface and GUI schizophrenia since all of the Modern UI stuff was just slapped on top of W7 and all the "classic" W7 stuff was still running the show under the hood.
10 basically rolled back Sinovsky's abomination of a UI and gave people the W8 they really wanted back in 2012, but the Modern UI schizophrenia is/was still present and incomplete.
11 is a continuation of 10 - ulimately all we've had is further UI experimentation by Microsoft of bolt-on features, a still-incomplete migration to Modern UI, and yet more failed attempts to move everyone to Microsoft's cloud services via incessant nagging. Under the hood it's basically still Vista, warts and all.
They always tend to do good stuff and shoot themselves in the foot with things they overlook or poorly communicate.
By the way I would like to get 5600X3D in Europe :P
Even the initial review had a very small focus on gaming.
It's just not something you can extrapolate from.
EDIT: personally I can tell when a Windows update effects gaming performance.
Even then, consider just how much more work it takes for AMD and Intel to get that extra 5% we're looking for. They go into Windows to fix the issues, but probably start making new ones in the process.
Microsoft do not have the talent nor desire to develop a new OS, and stuff like this is the end result.