Windows 11 ships with settings designed for a wide range of use cases — not specifically for performance. Many of its default configurations prioritise battery life, background services, and aesthetics over raw performance. A focused set of adjustments brings out the hardware's full capability.
Power Plan
The most impactful single setting: set the power plan to "High Performance" or "Ultimate Performance." Navigate to Control Panel → Power Options → High Performance. On laptops, only do this when plugged in. On desktop PCs, there is no reason not to run High Performance all the time.
The reason this matters: Windows uses power states to reduce CPU frequency at idle and under light loads. High Performance mode reduces latency between a CPU activity request and full clock speed being delivered.
Game Mode
Windows 11 includes a Game Mode that prioritises CPU and GPU resources for the active game. Ensure it is enabled: Settings → Gaming → Game Mode → On. It also disables Windows Update download throttling during gaming sessions.
Startup and Background Apps
Review startup programs (Task Manager → Startup) and disable anything not essential. Review background app permissions (Settings → Privacy → Background Apps) and disable for apps that do not need to run continuously.
GPU Scheduling
Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling (HAGS) is a Windows feature that reduces CPU overhead in GPU-heavy workloads. Enable via Settings → Display → Graphics → Change Default Graphics Settings → Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling. Results vary by system, but on modern hardware it typically reduces stuttering in GPU-intensive games.
Disable Search Indexing on SSD
Windows Search indexing runs periodically and can cause brief slowdowns. On an NVMe SSD where file search is already fast, indexing provides less benefit. To disable: right-click the drive in File Explorer → Properties → uncheck "Allow files on this drive to have contents indexed."