Old and new Ryzen CPUs get a speed boost from optional Windows update

Enlarge / AMD’s Ryzen 7 7700X. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

Among AMD’s explanations for the somewhat underwhelming Ryzen 9000 performance reports from reviewers earlier this month: that the upcoming Windows 11 24H2 update would bring some improvements to the CPU scheduler that would boost the performance of the new CPUs and their Zen 5-based architecture.

But rather than make Ryzen owners wait for the 24H2 update to come out later this fall (or make them install a beta version of a major OS update), AMD and Microsoft have backported the scheduler improvements to Windows 11 23H2. Users of Ryzen 5000, 7000, and 9000 CPUs can install the KB5041587 update by going to Windows Update in Settings, selecting Advanced Options, and then Optional Updates.

“We expect the performance uplift to be very similar between 24H2 and 23H2 with KB5041587 installed,” an AMD representative told Ars.