Microsoft has now rolled out a fix to mainstream Windows 11 users to address serious performance degradation on PCs with AMD Ryzen CPUs.
AMD and Microsoft recently confirmed Windows 11 and PCs with some AMD processors were seeing performance problems, in particular when using games or other demanding workloads.
As ZDNet reported last week, Microsoft rolled out a fix for the Windows 11 and AMD performance issues to Windows Insiders on the Beta and Release Preview channels with the Windows 11 build 22000.282.
SEE: Windows 11 upgrade: Five questions to ask first
Microsoft said the AMD fix for mainstream Windows 11 users was scheduled to arrive at the end of October and that same build has now arrived.
Microsoft says the update “addresses an L3 caching issue that might affect performance in some applications on devices that have AMD Ryzen processors after upgrading to Windows 11 (original release).”
The issue most sharply impacted Windows 11 users with Ryzen hardware when playing games, but it also affected PCs when running other computationally heavy workloads.
Microsoft and AMD earlier this month confirmed there might be up to a 15% dip in performance after installing Windows 11 on some AMD processors.
“Expected performance impact of 3-5% in affected applications, 10-15% outliers possible in games commonly used for eSports,” AMD said.
AMD’s “preferred core” technology also had issues with Windows 11, preventing it from optimizing hardware for performance. After installing Windows 11 the hardware interface to the OS (UEFI) “may not preferentially schedule threads on a processor’s fastest core”, AMD said.
The Windows 11 update doesn’t address this issue. However, in line with the Windows 11 update, AMD has released the chipset driver version 3.10.08.506. That version should fix the performance issues, AMD assures in release notes.
SEE: Microsoft’s Windows 11: How to get it now (or later)
AMD said chipset driver 3.10.08.506 “fully resolves the performance impact”. Windows 11 users can check that this driver or newer is present by going to Apps & Features within the Windows 11 Settings app.
AMD has outlined additional information to check the issue is fixed in PCs with Zen 3, Zen+, and Zen 2 architectures:
- For AMD processors with the “Zen 3” architecture: Systems configured with AMD Chipset Driver 3.10.08.506 (or newer) should report version 7.0.3.5 (or newer) for the AMD.Power.Processor.Settings entry in the Windows 11 Provisioning Packages interface.
- For AMD processors with the “Zen+” or “Zen 2” architectures: Systems configured with AMD Chipset Driver 3.10.08.506 (or newer) should have the AMD Ryzen™ Balanced power plan selected and active in the Control Panel > Power Options interface.
