# The Quest for the Cause Unveils a Routine Windows Update with Uncommon Outcomes: A Performance Surge for Ryzen 9000
In the tech landscape, unexpected events are frequent, but the recent occurrences surrounding AMD’s Ryzen 9000 series and a Windows update have left both enthusiasts and industry professionals puzzled. What started as a standard update has transformed into a technical marvel, yielding double-digit percentage boosts in performance across nearly all current Ryzen CPUs. But how did this transpire, and what implications does it hold for the future of AMD’s processors?
## The Disappointing Launch of Ryzen 9000
To grasp the importance of these latest developments, we must rewind to early August 2024. On August 8, AMD unveiled the Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X, followed a week later by the Ryzen 9 9900X and Ryzen 9 9950X. However, this staggered release was not according to the initial schedule. AMD originally aimed to launch all CPUs showcased at Computex 2024 on July 31. The delay was linked to quality concerns with the initial batch of Ryzen 9000 processors, which did not meet AMD’s high standards.
In the aftermath of the launch, the new Ryzen CPUs garnered mixed reactions regarding their performance. While the Ryzen 7 9700X displayed some enhancements, particularly in gaming, the increases were modest overall. Numerous reviewers, including those at PCGamesHardware, voiced their dissatisfaction, noting that the Ryzen 7 9700X couldn’t even outpace Intel’s two-year-old Core i5-13600K in some benchmarks.
## A Concealed Admin Account as a Fix – Or Not?
Just as it seemed that the Ryzen 9000 series could be a disappointment, a potential explanation for the underwhelming performance surfaced. The YouTube channel Hardware Unboxed found that activating a hidden administrator account in Windows could enhance the Ryzen 7 9700X’s gaming performance by around four percent. Remarkably, this performance uplift wasn’t confined to the Zen 5 architecture; even the Ryzen 7 7700X from the earlier generation experienced a similar, albeit slightly lesser, increase.
However, this revelation was short-lived. Hardware Unboxed quickly retracted their conclusions, clarifying that the performance improvement stemmed not from a Windows bug but from a typical behavior of processors when operating within a Windows environment. The performance enhancements could simply be realized by running the game as an administrator, negating the necessity for hidden accounts.
## Windows 11 24H2: The True Catalyst for Change
As the situation became clearer, it was evident that the actual reason behind the Ryzen 9000’s disappointing performance was not a glitch, but rather a lack of optimization within the Windows operating system. AMD recognized this in a community blog post, explaining that the variance between their internal benchmarks and third-party test outcomes was due to the differences in Windows versions utilized. Specifically, AMD conducted their benchmarks in administrator mode that included code optimizations for jump prediction—optimizations that were absent in the Windows version used by the majority of reviewers.
These optimizations were part of a Windows update still in the preview phase at that time, accessible only to Windows Insider Program users operating on version 24H2. Consequently, only a select few testers could reproduce the performance improvements claimed by AMD.
Follow-up benchmarks conducted by KitGuru validated AMD’s assertions. The contrast between Windows 11 23H2 and 24H2 was substantial, with the preview edition offering as much as a 13 percent performance enhancement. Nevertheless, it’s crucial to note that this improvement was not restricted to the Zen 5 architecture; even Zen 4 processors benefitted similarly, indicating that the performance uplift was more related to the Windows update than the Ryzen 9000 series itself.
## The Jump Prediction: The Underlying Issue
To comprehend why the Windows update exerted such a significant influence on performance, we must explore the concept of jump prediction. In essence, CPUs execute program instructions sequentially, but they can also “jump” to another instruction based on specific conditions. Branch prediction is a strategy that enables processors to anticipate when such a jump will occur and what the target address will be, derived from prior instructions. This capacity helps keep the CPU functioning efficiently and boosts overall performance.
It seems that Ryzen CPUs encountered challenges with branch prediction across all Windows 11 versions that were not based on 24H2. The optimizations introduced in the 24H2 update resolved these issues, resulting in the notable performance enhancements observed in the Ryzen 9000 series.
## A Fresh Update for 23H2 with Comparable Effects
In response to community and media feedback, Microsoft rolled out the KB5041587 update for Windows 11 23H2. This update retrofitted the jump prediction optimizations from the 24H2 version.