When Windows 11 launched, AMD Ryzen owners quickly discovered the new OS could hit performance hard. Multiple third-party review sites have confirmed that AMD CPUs were taking a hefty L3 cache latency penalty under Windows 11 and paying a penalty for it in real-world applications and games. While some programs were unaffected, AMD’s guidance suggested a 3-5 percent penalty on average with an even higher penalty being possible “in some games.”
According to AMD, those issues should now be resolved with the availability of Microsoft KB 5006476 and AMD chipset driver 3.10.08.506. That Windows 11 update contains a number of bug fixes and quality of life improvements, including problems with Bluetooth device latency, performance degradation in unspecified applications post-Windows 11 upgrade (this only affects users who upgrade from Windows 10), and a number of various UI issues.
The “Improvements and fixes” section of the KB report indicates that Microsoft has fixed errors related to race conditions, some general Start Menu wonkiness, and problems with interrupt handling that could cause system hangs. Microsoft has also fixed a bug that could cause PowerShell to create infinite child directories, threading issues that could make the Windows Remote Management Service hang during high load, a few memory leaks, and edge cases that prevented various types of data from being properly displayed on second monitors.
Apart from the high-profile AMD fixes, most of this is pretty standard housekeeping, especially this early in a new OS release. That’s not to say it isn’t important. Some of the bugs Microsoft references can make functions unavailable or cause lockups, crashes, and erratic behavior. Several changes have been made to printer behavior. These do not appear related to the PrintNightmare bug that Microsoft has been grappling with, but printer reliability under Windows 11 should be better than it was. Finally, the update makes some unspecified changes to the Windows 11 servicing stack, which should allow for smoother updates going forward.
Thus far, the post-launch period of Windows 11 has been quiet. Multiple reviews pointed out at launch that the OS seemed a bit unfinished, and many of the bug fixes Microsoft has announced in this update should address that complaint. Feedback from end-users on whether they intend to upgrade in the near term is mixed; PC Gamer published survey results on the eve of launch claiming that over 3/4 of their userbase either wasn’t planning to upgrade to Windows 11 or wasn’t planning to do so in the immediate future.
The centered Taskbar can be moved back to its usual position if you don’t like the option.
It’ll be interesting to see what gamer uptake looks like relative to Windows 11. During the Windows 10 push, gamers consistently adopted the OS more quickly than the general user base. This may have been due to its inclusion of DirectX 12, which was consistently discussed as a long-term reason why gamers might want to move from Windows 7 / 8.1 to Windows 10.
There is no real equivalent feature for Windows 11, since DirectStorage support will be coming to Windows 10 in some form. Given that Microsoft is pushing people not to upgrade to Windows 11 unless they have a TPM 2.0 module, the adoption rate for the new software could lag Win 10 substantially — or the ongoing impact of the pandemic and increased PC sales overall may help offset the change.
ExtremeTech intends to move to Windows 11 for reviews, given the fact that Windows 11 is supposed to run better on Intel’s upcoming Alder Lake CPUs, but we’ll examine the performance impact of using both operating systems. Unless you specifically plan to buy Alder Lake or particularly want to run Windows 11 we don’t see any particular need to upgrade at the moment. The OS isn’t a must-have item at this time, and it isn’t crazy to watch and see if any further issues appear before pulling the trigger on an upgrade.
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