Microsoft backports AMD branch prediction improvement to Windows 11 23H2, update available now — more users will see Ryzen performance improvements

If you're patiently waiting for Windows 11's 24H2 update to see a performance bump for your Zen 3, Zen 4, or Zen 5 CPU, you no longer need to twiddle your thumbs. In a statement to Tom's Hardware, AMD said that the branch prediction optimizations allowing for those improvements have been backported to Windows 11 23H2.

The update, KB5041587, can be found under Windows Update > Advanced options > Optional updates.

"We expect the performance uplift to be very similar between 24H2 and 23H2 with KB5041587 installed," an AMD spokesperson said.

Windows 11 24H2 is currently in Release Preview as part of Windows Insider. A handful of reviewers have found multiple games showing performance uplifts, though at least one has seen regressions in some titles as well.

While the improved performance should go back to Zen 3, it's really AMD's new Ryzen 9000 series processors that need a bit of a shine. Some of the new chips, like the Ryzen 9 9950X, saw negative reviews when critics couldn't replicate AMD's performance uplift claims. AMD claimed that numerous factors led to this occurrence, from Intel's 13th and 14th Gen Core instability issues to using a Windows "admin" profile rather than a standard user account.

"[The Ryzen 9 9950X] lags behind competing chips in gaming, and the generational gains are small enough in some productivity workloads that the previous-gen Ryzen 9 7950X is an attractive alternative," Tom's Hardware managing editor Paul Alcorn wrote in his review at launch.

But if the branch prediction in Windows 11 24H2 — and now Windows 11 23H2 via this optional update — increases performance as dramatically as preview builds have shown, it could potentially breathe more life into AMD's latest processors when it comes to gaming and certain productivity workloads. We'll have to do some testing of our own to see the difference.

AMD referred to this branch prediction as "AMD-specific," so we'll have to do some digging to see if there's an Intel version of this code or if Ryzen owners will have something to brag about with this update.