One of them is that, whereas other reviewers tested using a regular user account with some admin access, AMD conducted its testing on Windows 11 23H2 in Admin mode, meaning that a local system administrator account was employed. It appears that this has an impact on the functionality of the “Zen 5” processors’ branch prediction units. “Our automated test methodology was run in “Admin” mode which produced results that reflect branch prediction code optimizations not present in the version of Windows reviewers used to test Ryzen 9000 Series,” AMD said in a statement.

One of them is that, whereas other reviewers tested using a regular user account with some admin access, AMD conducted its testing on Windows 11 23H2 in Admin mode, meaning that a local system administrator account was employed. It appears that this has an impact on the functionality of the “Zen 5” processors’ branch prediction units. “Our automated test methodology was run in “Admin” mode which produced results that reflect branch prediction code optimizations not present in the version of Windows reviewers used to test Ryzen 9000 Series,” AMD said in a statement.

AMD further noted that the company used Intel’s baseline power profile, which uses stock power limits for these processors (125 W base- and 252 W maximum turbo power in the case of the Core i9-14900K and the i7-14700K, for example), and that it tested the 14th generation Core chips using the same DDR5-6000 memory speed and timings.

AMD stated that it is collaborating with Microsoft to enable regular Windows 11 user accounts to exhibit the “correct” branch prediction behavior observed in admin mode. You won’t have to wait till Windows 24H2 is commercially released before these changes are included. Microsoft plans to make this available as a “optional update” ahead of schedule, which means Windows 11 23H2 may use it. The best part is that it appears that the “Zen 4” and “Zen 3” CPUs are also impacted by the admin mode discrepancy. This implies that Ryzen 5000 through Ryzen 7000 series processors should also experience improved performance in standard Windows 11 user accounts.