Windows 11 Low Latency Profile Could Boost App Launch Speeds by 40%
Here's the pitch: we're going to make Windows feel better to use by cranking up the CPU clock speed to the max when you undertake certain actions, such as opening the start menu or launching applications. A major part of the sluggishness seemingly inherent to Windows laptops is because they are aggressively scaling clocks, and turbo algorithms that spike CPU clock rates are apparently tuned to save battery more than to save performance.
This mode was first disclosed by Windows Central, but it was WindowsLatest who discovered that the mode is actually already present in the latest insider builds. To test it, the site used a heavily limited virtual machine running on an already middling (in terms of responsiveness) platform, a laptop with Intel's Core i5-13420H. The author, Abhijith, limited the virtual machine to two CPU cores and 4GB of RAM.
In his testing, Abhijith found that the low-latency mode made an immediate and obvious difference in the responsiveness of the VM. Without low-latency mode, there's a visible pause before things like opening the start menu, and launching Outlook is noticeably slower in his demo videos. It's easy to see why it makes such a difference; he checked task manager, and saw the CPU clock rate spiking to its maximum boost and staying there for several seconds after the app launch was complete.
Abhijith says "Low Latency Profile will be a game-changer for budget PCs," and that's a defensible take. But I honestly agree with him even more when he says "Of course, Microsoft should optimize the bloated Windows 11 code instead of aggressively overclocking the CPU to brute-force past the lag." Preach, brother. We won't reproduce all of his results here; head over to WindowsLatest to read the full post on the topic.
