AMD’s latest CPUs are among the top processors available, but they don’t show a significant improvement compared to their previous-generation counterparts. This lackluster performance might be due to a recently discovered Windows bug that affects Ryzen gaming performance. This suggests that Zen 5 CPUs are more remarkable than they initially appear.
However, there’s a twist. While addressing the bug does improve Zen 5 performance, it has a similar effect on Zen 4 CPUs, effectively keeping the performance gap between the two generations minimal. Here’s how it all unfolds.
The discovery was made by Hardware Unboxed. When testing the new Ryzen 7 9700X, they noticed inconsistencies in benchmark results compared to what AMD had expected. Upon further investigation, it was revealed that using an administrator account in Windows significantly boosts performance in tasks like gaming, while it has no impact on sustained all-core workloads.
It was discovered that there’s a hidden layer of administrator account settings in Windows that many users are unaware of. Activating this account provides better performance in certain workloads, such as gaming. This finding was corroborated by benchmarks run by Hardware Unboxed.
In benchmark tests like Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, enabling the administrator account resulted in noticeable performance improvements for both Zen 5 and Zen 4 CPUs. This closed the performance gap between the two generations.
For instance, in The Last of Us Part 1, both Zen 5 and Zen 4 CPUs showed performance boosts when the administrator account was utilized. This indicates that the Windows bug affects gaming performance across multiple titles.
To test this yourself, you can activate the administrator account in Windows by following a specific command. However, AMD assures that this bug will be addressed in a future Windows update.
In conclusion, while the Windows bug does impact Ryzen gaming performance, and Zen 5 seems closer to Zen 4 due to this bug, overall, the difference between the two generations is not significantly altered.
