The upcoming Windows 11 24H2 upgrade will bring major performance improvements to Zen 5 systems.

AMD promised a 16% IPC increase over Zen 4 parts when it previewed the Zen 5 architecture. The new chips easily beat the older ones on heavily threaded benchmarks but the gains in games were smaller. Many gamers were disappointed, believing that the new chips did not offer enough to convince them to upgrade.

AMD acknowledged this concern in a blog posting, saying that its internal testing was "run on admin mode" and produced results which reflect branch prediction code improvements not present in Windows reviewers' version used to test Ryzen 9000 Series. The blog continues to say that the Windows 11 24H2 upgrade will improve Zen 5's gaming performance when it is released later this year.

According to Hardware Unboxed's testing, Windows 11 24H2 can deliver double-digit performance improvements in many titles.

Zen 5 architecture has made significant improvements in branch prediction. Better branch prediction results in fewer wasted clock cycle, which leads to better performance and energy efficiency. But improved branch predictions are worthless without software awareness. The OS plays a crucial role. Why weren't these optimizations available sooner?

Hardware Unboxed reported that Zen 4 chips achieved gains under 24H2, making us wonder why AMD or Microsoft weren't capable of delivering these optimizations months, if not years, in advance. Zen 5's gains over Zen 4 may not have changed much with these optimizations but they would look better against the Intel competition.

Zen 5 isn't a slouch, even without the 24H2 improvements. Our reviews of the Ryzen 5 (9600X), Ryzen 7 (9700X), Ryzen 9 (9950X) and Ryzen 5 (9600X) highlight their power efficiency and cooler running. They could have been a little bit better.

Windows 11 24H2 will be released later this year. You should install it to get the most out of your chip. Nick will have to sleep less again to see how this update will affect the PC Gamer benchmarks.

Windows Insiders can download the Windows 24H2 Update. This update will be available before X3D chips are released, which is good news for gamers. They will compete with Intel's Arrow Lake family. It'll be a thrilling battle, even though we don't yet know how each family will perform.