As part of a raft of updates coming this spring, Microsoft will be bringing a new power management system that “reduces micro-latencies” and enhances overall system performance through a series of tiny performance bumps. Unfortunately, that sounds quite dull, so Microsoft has decided to call its new mode “Ultimate Performance,” which should get your IT department all hot and bothered.
The mode will only work on non-battery-powered high-performance workstations running Windows 10 Pro, so it’s not aimed at your average laptop user, or even gamers. Instead, it’s meant to improve performance on high-end workstations at the cost of battery life.
“Demanding workloads on workstations always desire more performance. As part of our effort to provide the absolute maximum performance we’re introducing a new power policy called Ultimate Performance,” Windows Insider boss Dona Sarkar explained. “Windows has developed key areas where performance and efficiency tradeoffs are made in the OS. Over time, we’ve amassed a collection of settings which allow the OS to quickly tune the behavior based on user preference, policy, underlying hardware or workload.”
“This new policy builds on the current High-Performance policy, and it goes a step further to eliminate micro-latencies associated with fine grained power management techniques. The Ultimate Performance Power plan is selectable either by an OEM on new systems or selectable by a user. To do so, you can go to Control Panel and navigate to Power Options under Hardware and Sound (you can also “run” Powercfg.cpl). Just like other power policies in Windows, the contents of the Ultimate Performance policy can be customized.”
In addition to the new Ultimate Performance mode, the next build of Windows 10 will also have some redesigned emoji, a new app permissions framework, and a whole host of bug fixes.
