Microsoft released the first-ever Patch Tuesday Update for Windows 11. While the update addresses multiple minor bugs and annoyances, it creates more trouble for PC owners using AMD CPUs.
It appears Microsoft’s obsession with Hybrid CPU Architectures, has a stellar impact on computers with the latest Intel CPUs. However, PC users who have AMD processors, just had their troubles extended.
Microsoft optimizing Windows 11 for Hybrid CPUs negatively impacts the performance of OS on AMD processors?
Microsoft officially released the stable version of Windows 11 to the general public last week. The company has been rolling out the successor to Windows 10 through an OTA (Over The Air) update.
Windows 11 won’t work on older Intel and AMD CPUs. However, it appears even the newer and officially compatible AMD CPUs are facing issues with Windows 11.
Windows 11’s first big patch Tuesday is in the books. While the patch fixed plenty of problems, it made a performance issue with AMD CPUs worse than before the patch, which is never a good thing.https://t.co/G1bYxz6cbI pic.twitter.com/46K2tizh2u
— ComTel.Cloud (@ComTelCloud) October 13, 2021
The first, general release build of Windows 11 reportedly slowed down AMD CPUs by about 15 percent. The negative impact on performance was noticeable in some workloads such as eSports games and single-threaded applications.
It is amply clear that Microsoft has been optimizing Windows 11 for Hybrid CPU Architectures. These processors have few cores for Performance and few for executing mundane tasks, called Efficiency Cores.
First post-launch update for Windows 11 causes more performance issues on AMD CPUs https://t.co/OMHuP84XBR
— OnMSFT.com (@onmsft) October 13, 2021
Intel’s latest Alder Lake CPUs have Performance and Efficiency. The company even makes processors that have a single core with a higher peak performance value (Turbo) than all other cores.
In an effort to optimize battery life, and still achieve better on-demand performance, Windows 11 selectively uses Performance and Efficiency cores. Needless to mention, the OS relies on the Efficiency cores a lot more frequently. It is this behavior of Windows 11, which is reportedly affecting the performance of the OS on AMD CPUs.
Latest Patch Tuesday adds latency woes to already troubled computers running on AMD CPUs:
Microsoft had indicated it was aware of the performance issues of Windows 11 on AMD CPUs. The company had further indicated that it was working to address the same.
Windows 11 received its first-ever Patch Tuesday. But, instead of alleviating some of the issues, it appears Microsoft may have further worsened the performance of Windows 11 on AMD CPUs.
Microsoft has limited Windows 11 to only a handful of CPUs, ignoring anything more than a year or two old, and works like crap with the few AMD CPUs that are supported.
We need this new OS …. why? https://t.co/wfnRjgT3gc
— Who? Me? (@TheWholeTruthXX) October 13, 2021
Tests conducted using AIDA64 Cache & Memory Benchmark, indicate that the L3 cache latency of the Ryzen 7 2700X CPU, which is around 10-11 ns on Windows 10, had increased to 17 ns on the release build of Windows 11. After applying the Patch Tuesday Update, the latency has further deteriorated to 32-34 ns.
Incidentally, AMD and Microsoft both said patches for this issue as well as a CPPC (preferred core) bug should arrive this month. Reports indicate AMD CPU owners should expect the patches created exclusively to address the AMD performance issues, could arrive on October 19 and October 21, respectively.