Windows 11 scores varied wildly

[mp5allstar]

So I have a brand new computer system - 5900X, RTX 3080, 32GB 3600Mhz FuryX RGB, and 2TB Seagate Firecuda 520. Back in march I have done a couple of changes to my CPU to yield the CPU results that are in the 39,000 range. After several months of filling up my NVMe with games, programs, documents, etc, and installing Windows 11 last week, I decided to conduct the same test. I have been struggling with the score (currently in the 36,000s) but it drops all the way down to 30,000 if at that particular moment the Prime number score is in the mid 40s Not much rhyme or reason, but my DiskMark score went from 37601 in March to 22181 today, and my memory mark score went from 3516 in March to 3174 today.

I have heard the prime number test needs fast memory and possibly storage, but what confuses me is from test to test the prime number score goes from the mid 40s to the mid 220s. The Physics score was always crap at the ~1500 range.

Compared to other Ryzen 5900X processors, they are in the 39-41k range.

Any ideas what is happening here?

PS I included a graph of the Prime Number.

[mp5allstar]

Ok so for SURE it is Windows 11. I rolled back the update and redid the test, and sure enough here are my results.

I still noticed that the disk drive is most likely the one to blame. See the attached pictures for each test (ironic i did the W11 on the 10th and W10 on the 11th, go figure). FYI see my next post for the pictures.

ALSO of note is i kept re-running the prime number score and only when it was during the first 5 minutes of boot time did i see scores in the mid-200s. Once the computer settled down it was at the mid 40s.

Since now i know it is the OS, I updated back to Windows 11 (I can sacrifice some performance for the new OS, love it!) but when re-running the test I do not have the insanely low prime score but it is lower across the board. The diskmark is the same as the previous windows 11.
'

I hope any of this information is helpful to the community, and if anyone wants more info just let me know, thanks!

[mp5allstar]

Windows 11 was conducted first, rolled back to Windows 10, immediately done the full test and here you go!

[David (PassMark)]

If this was true (Win11 hurts CPU & disk performance) it would both be unexpected and pretty big news in the IT world. I suspect there must be some sensible explanation for this. e.g. different power saving setting, additional Win11 background activities for a few hours, like rebuilding the Windows search index.

We run some tests today to see what our results are. We only have one Win11 machine at the moment. So it won't be conclusive.

[David (PassMark)]

So we did a quick test here.

This was with a Ryzen 9 5900x CPU. But running in a VMWare with just 4 Cores allocated to each VM. So far from a conclusive and comprehensive test. But enough to show that there isn't some systematic CPU performance issue that effects all systems all the time.

Win11 was slower in all cases. But only by a very small amount (unnoticeable to the user). If it is just intermittent background activity causing this, taking the max of several short run samples tends to minimize the impact. The two bottom images show this. So I don't think Win11 has done anything to the hardware setup, but it may well be the case that there is some extra background load.

[mp5allstar]

Understood. Then it must be either an application or a driver that is not optimized with Windows 11, as your VM will more or less eliminate those possibilities. To narrow down the issue I will have to uninstall all my applications or reinstall Windows 11, then conduct a performance test after every application installation. I am not 100% sure if i will do that, but if i do i will post my results.


I just redid my CPU Passmark, and the issue with the prime numbers is low again. I will see if there are any processes running in the background that will kill my DiskMark and Prime Number Scores.

[David (PassMark)]

The Primes and Physics tests use a bit more RAM than the other tests. So any bad RAM setup will impact performance.
However bad RAM setups (e.g. single channel mode rather than dual channel, or bad timings) tend to stay bad. They don't jump between good and bad.

Example
https://forums.passmark.com/performa...ormance-solved

3rd party software can also stuff things up from time to time
https://forums.passmark.com/performa...ath-tests-help
https://forums.passmark.com/performa...0177#post50177
(but those symptoms don't match this case)

[GameRoof]

I have noticed this possible issue as well. It is definitely directly caused by Windows 11 in my opinion. I am using a Ryzen CPU similar to the OP, but I am on a Ryzen 5 5600X. My prime number score specifically is lower by a significant, even huge margin (35 vs 135). Sometimes it will be okay and bench at the expected ~135, but most of the time it is at around 35. The cause is definitely not related to thermals from what I can see, or RAM (my RAM is running in dual channel and has the same scores as it did on W10). The issue occurred on a squeaky clean install of Windows 11 and hasn't improved over time. All other elements of the CPU test show better than average scores for my CPU, it's just the prime number score dragging it down on W11.

I also have a much lower 2D score (665 vs 1014) on Windows 11. However, 3D score, disk mark, and memory mark show no noticeable difference from W10 and are good.

[David (PassMark)]

much lower 2D score (665 vs 1014) on Windows 11

Maybe it's all the extra processing power required to draw those rounded corners on all the windows?
Do you have a break down of the individual 2D results?

We'll see if AMD knows anything about the Prime number.

[GameRoof]

Here is the breakdown of my 2D score on Windows 11, but I don't know my Windows 10 breakdown anymore so I would have to reinstall Windows 10 in order to check that. If I get some spare time to do so I will certainly post the breakdown from W10 here, but hope this is helpful. I am on an RTX 3060 Ti FE. The 3D score is normal (slightly above average of the card).

[mp5allstar]

Just did testing after my computer was running for an hour:



...and then I redid JUST the Prime number test:


Nothing else changed within the ~1-2min between these tests besides grabbing coffee in between. which again all the other numbers above are 10-15% less than Windows 10, but the prime number score is 4-5x from its peak..

[David (PassMark)]

We aren't sure what the cause is.

Would be interesting to hear if other people see the same effect. To see if it is related to particular hardware, particular drivers, or something else.

Locally, we are back into COVID lockdown. But once that is passed we'll setup a couple of additional physical machines with Win11 to test.

[GameRoof]

Sounds great, best of luck with finding the cause eventually haha

[David (PassMark)]

Problem has been reproduced and is being looked into. No idea of the cause at this point. (Power control throttling, thermal throttling, cache flush, some background task being triggered, ...... lots of possibilities)

[mp5allstar]

Well i am glad i wasn't crazy!