Windows 11 on some AMD Ryzen processors has performance issues

Windows 11 is officially out, and if you're in the market for a new PC, there are a handful already available with Microsoft's latest OS pre-installed. Most people, however, will most likely just be upgrading their Windows 10 PCs, which can bring some uncertainty over the minimum specs required by Windows 11. Unfortunately, even if your computer does meet those requirements, it doesn't always mean that the process and experience will be smooth and painless, as owners of devices running on some AMD processors are finding out to their dismay.

Microsoft had hard requirements for what CPUs are supported, regardless of how capable they were. There are certain features related to security that are not available on older silicon, but it seems that Microsoft may have only been looking at those factors when testing for Windows 11 compatibility. Now it seems that certain AMD Ryzen processors are exhibiting performance problems even if they're listed as compatible.

AMD reported two rather critical problems that affect the performance of some unidentified chipsets running some applications, in particular games. This is most prominent in one of two bugs where the latency of the CPU's L3 cache is tripled, which means that data in that supposedly high-speed memory area gets delayed considerably. AMD says that some games will see a 10-15% drop in performance in some games, particularly eSports.

The other bug affects more than just games and specifically targets applications that make heavy use of CPU threads. Ryzen processors affected by this issue include those with more than eight cores running above 65W TDP. In a nutshell, the bug prevents the CPU from putting the execution threads on the fastest cores of the processor, severely affecting performance.

The good news is that both Microsoft and AMD are aware of the issue, and an update coming this month is promised to fix it. Unfortunately, those who have already updated to Windows 11 will have no choice but to wait for that day. Hopefully, Microsoft will also block the update from even appearing on affected AMD Ryzen systems until the fix is made available.