Question about Power mode setting in Windows

[lerodemmy]

This is set to Balanced by default.  What are the pros and cons of changing it to Best performance?

 

For example, would a game actually perform better if I change the setting?

 

I’m downloading a bunch of games right now, and I noticed that the fans got very loud when switching to Best Performance.  So that seems to be a con.

[emosun]

Just now, lerodemmy said:

the fans got very loud when switching to Best Performance.  So that seems to be a con.

well if the cpu runs hotter it's going to want more air so did you want the machine to go faster or be quieter

[aDoomGuy]

When on your desktop the CPU will go into lower power states by default. Best performance do not allow this to happen and you have noticed the results of that. I think there are minimal performance to be had in gaming but you might notice that your system will be a tiny bit snappier due to the higher idle frequencies.

[Lurking]

Those powersaving features were introduced a very long time ago and are very mature. Frequency will go up as needed without any noticeable delay. Maybe a lab test could show a difference. But I doubt a user would ever notice. A modern CPU even at low frequency is powerful enough to take user inputs without delay. Like if you click something that doesn't take much computing. By the time more computing is needed, the CPU id already up to speed. 

[GoodBytes]

The Power Plans is deprecated in favor of Power Mode.

You may have noticed that laptops only have 1 plan possible: Balance. and also, why the Power Plan panel is hidden from view.

 

Desktop still have the 3 default plans, but that is for more: Hardware or driver developers, or specialized latency sensitive programs.

The reason why you have power plans was because of old hardware (I am talking about Core 2 Duo days and older), didn't really support OS communication to know what is going on with the system (is it on battery? plugged in? Is the user running a program or a game? or just browsing folders...), and just used guesses and got whatever info it can get with the BIOS. This often led to laptop processors not conserving battery properly, or programs on the desktop who was pushing the system, but not enough to have the hardware, such as the CPU, to clock faster, and other strange behaviors, making it difficult to conserve power when needed, or get the performance when required, even for a desktop system.

 

Today (and basically since Vista), Microsoft and hardware manufacture work together defining new standards (so, Linux enjoys this too), to have that communication between hardware and OS. Now the CPU and the rest of the hardware of your system know what you are doing and can react properly to deliver the performance needed.

 

Typically, High Performance will REDUCE performance, as your system is warmer, preventing the CPU and GPU to turbo faster and/or longer. Using Balance keeps the system operating cooler when not under a consistent load (normal usage for most people), allowing the CPU/GPU to boost faster and/or longer when that short burst of performance is needed (example: loading a program). Now, if you are in a room that is 18C, open bench, and 360 rad AIO, probably you won't notice any difference. But in a normal case with decent but not fancy cooling solution, in a normal room temp (22-23C), then it could hurt performance when using High Performance.

 

It won't affect your games performance or your program performance. Why?

First, the switching speed of the CPU is in milliseconds (1 or 2ms). Your CPU doesn't do much in games. To reach from a min to max performance state, it takes about (15ms or less) for your CPU (and probably GPU too). As for heavy load, that load is consistent, so the CPU is already clocked to the highest it can (well, adjusted constantly based on cooling, and boost algorithm). 

 

Intel old chart showing Speed Shift Technology with its new (at the time) 7th gen Core i CPU.

It required Windows 8 to take advantage of the performance benefits in terms of speed adjusting based on load.
You can bet it is better and faster today. And it is also per core, these days.

 

 

[Mick Naughty]

My 9900k won’t downclock and idles aren’t 55c. So sometimes a bit more fan noise and unneeded power consumption. 
I keep it on balanced and adjust the maximum processor state to 50/60%. 
Just swap back when I need to actual things that require the power. 

[GoodBytes]

39 minutes ago, Mick Naughty said:

My 9900k won’t downclock and idles aren’t 55c. So sometimes a bit more fan noise and unneeded power consumption. 
I keep it on balanced and adjust the maximum processor state to 50/60%. 
Just swap back when I need to actual things that require the power. 

Check your UEFI settings. Make sure C states options, all of them, are enabled.