AMD's Ryzen 9000 Series and the Windows 11 24H2 Update: A Performance Boost on the Horizon
AMD has recently shed light on the performance of its Ryzen 9000 series processors, which have garnered mixed reviews. The company attributes some of the initial underwhelming performance reports to the anticipated Windows 11 24H2 update. This update is expected to enhance the CPU scheduler, ultimately benefiting the new CPUs and their Zen 5 architecture. In a proactive move, AMD and Microsoft have collaborated to backport these scheduler improvements to the existing Windows 11 23H2 version. Users with Ryzen 5000, 7000, and 9000 CPUs can easily access the KB5041587 update through the Windows Update section in Settings, navigating to Advanced Options and then Optional Updates.
According to an AMD representative, “We expect the performance uplift to be very similar between 24H2 and 23H2 with KB5041587 installed.” Notably, the current iteration of Windows 11 23H2 had previously restricted CPU scheduler optimizations to users with Administrator accounts; this update now extends those benefits to standard user accounts as well.
Older AMD CPUs Benefit, Too
While AMD’s primary focus has been on the Ryzen 9000 series, the 24H2 update—and the 23H2 version with the KB5041587 update—also brings enhancements for users of older CPUs utilizing the Zen 4 (Ryzen 7000/8000G) and Zen 3 (Ryzen 5000) architectures. However, AMD has yet to specify the extent of these improvements.
Early testing by the Hardware Unboxed YouTube channel has revealed promising results for Ryzen 7000 CPU owners. Their analysis indicated an average frame rate increase of approximately 10 percent for the Zen 4-based Ryzen 7 7700X across a variety of games. The Ryzen 7 9700X showed a slightly greater improvement of 11 percent, as AMD had projected. Interestingly, at default settings, the performance gap between the 9700X and the nearly two-year-old 7700X remains minimal, with only a 2 to 3 percent difference, regardless of whether the 24H2 update is applied.
This early data suggests that both Ryzen 7000 and Ryzen 5000 users can anticipate at least a modest performance boost from upgrading to Windows 11 24H2—a welcome enhancement delivered through a software update. However, there are caveats to consider. Hardware Unboxed conducted their tests focusing solely on CPU performance in gaming scenarios at 1080p, utilizing a high-end Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090. In higher resolutions, such as 1440p or 4K, the GPU typically becomes the performance bottleneck, diminishing the visibility of CPU performance gains.
The update has taken already impressive frame rates and elevated them further; for instance, one game saw an increase from an average of 142 FPS to 158 FPS on the 7700X, and from 167 FPS to 181 FPS on the 9700X. Such increments, while statistically significant, may be challenging for most users to perceive. Other workloads may also experience enhancements; AMD reported a 6 percent faster performance in the Procyon Office benchmark under Windows 11 24H2, although concrete data on real-world workloads remains limited.
It is important to note that performance improvements are not expected in heavily multi-threaded tasks where all CPU cores are engaged simultaneously, nor in single-threaded workloads that rely on a single core. AMD’s benchmarks for both single- and multi-threaded versions of the Cinebench test showed no performance variation between Windows 11 23H2 and 24H2 for the Ryzen 9000 series.
Additionally, the Ryzen 7 9700X’s performance was somewhat constrained by its lower 65 W TDP compared to the 105 W TDP of the Ryzen 7 7700X. Despite both CPUs performing similarly in the games tested, the 9700X remains the more efficient option, capable of achieving higher speeds if its TDP is manually adjusted or if features like Precision Boost Overdrive are utilized. Evaluating the 9700X against the 7700X at stock settings may not accurately reflect the generational performance advancements offered by AMD's latest architecture.