Not getting the most out of something you already own is a very uniquely irritating feeling. It’s what happens when you pay for gigabit internet and find out you’re only getting 100Mbps because your router’s too old. Windows does this exact sort of thing all the time.
To be clear, power efficiency is not the villain here. Simply throwing more watts and more cores at a problem is not elegant engineering, but hey, it works! If your current machine cannot magically become more efficient through sheer enlightenment, then the next best thing is at least making sure it is allowed to perform as hard as it reasonably can. That’s where Windows’ hidden power plans come in.
Unlocking Windows’ hidden power plans
High performance and ultra-high pro max performance
Image by Amir Bohlooli. NAN.
By default, your Windows installation gives you two primary power options right out of the box: Power saver and Balanced. The names are pretty self-explanatory.
Power saver is the restrictive mode your laptop automatically switches to when you unplug it from the wall, or when it’s running dangerously low on battery. Balanced is the default middle-ground option that most people leave enabled forever. I’ll explain a bit later what each of these specific plans actually does, but right now, let’s talk about the extra, hidden settings.
Windows also includes more aggressive power schemes, including one called Ultimate Performance. This mode was originally intended for high-end professional workstations, in essence, machines where performance consistency matters more than efficiency. Interestingly, the plan is already there on your machine. It’s not an obscure third-party tweak and you’re not downloading anything exotic from a forum.
To unlock it, open Windows Terminal or Command Prompt and paste the command below:
powercfg -duplicatescheme e9a42b02-d5df-448d-aa00-03f14749eb61
That command tells Windows to duplicate the built-in Ultimate Performance power scheme and make it available on your system. Once you run the command, navigate to Control Panel, click on Hardware and Sound, and then go to Power Options. Look under the Show additional plans dropdown. You should now clearly see two brand-new options: High performance and Ultimate performance.
Under the hood of power management
What’s happening with these plans?
Image by Amir Bohlooli. NAN.
My CPU should idle around its base clock of 2.5GHz, but with the Ultimate plan, it always stays closer to 45GHz.
The name Ultimate Performance sounds like the sort of thing a motherboard vendor would print on a box next to some flaming dragon artwork, but the underlying idea is pretty straightforward. Ultimate performance mode is a power scheme specifically engineered to eliminate microscopic delays, which tech enthusiasts call micro-latencies. Instead of just raising the performance ceiling so your computer can run faster under a heavy load, it completely removes the floor, meaning your hardware is never allowed to rest.
Instead of just raising the performance ceiling so your computer can run faster under a heavy load, it completely removes the floor.
Let’s break down exactly what this means under the hood. First, it forces a one hundred percent minimum CPU state. Normally, your processor has the ability to “downclock,” which means it intentionally slows its operating frequency down when you’re just staring at the desktop or reading an article, thereby saving energy. With this plan active, your processor is stripped of its ability to relax. If your CPU is capable of boosting to a blazing fast 5.0 gigahertz, it stays hovering right near that top speed even when you’re doing absolutely nothing.
Setting / Component
🟦Power Saver
🟩Balanced
🟨High Performance
🟥Ultimate Performance
CPU Minimum State
5%
5%
100%
100%
CPU Maximum State
Throttled (~50-70%)
100%
100%
100%
Energy Perf. Preference
100 (Max Power Saving)
50 (Balanced)
0 (Max Performance)
0 (Hardcoded)
Core Parking
Aggressive
Dynamic
Disabled
Disabled
PCIe Link State (ASPM)
Maximum Power Savings
Moderate Power Savings
Off
Off
Hard Disk Sleep
10 minutes
20 minutes
0 (Never)
0 (Never)
USB Selective Suspend
Enabled
Enabled
Enabled
Disabled
Furthermore, this mode enforces zero sleep states across your entire system. Usually, to save power, Windows will tell your mechanical hard drives to physically stop spinning when they aren’t in active use. It also uses a feature called USB selective suspend to cut electrical power to idle USB devices like mice or keyboards, and it relies on PCIe link state power management to throttle the connection speeds to your graphics card and Wi-Fi adapter. Ultimate performance aggressively disables all of these power-saving interventions. Your hard drives never stop spinning, your USB ports are always fully energized, and your motherboard connections never power down.
Your hard drives never stop spinning, your USB ports are always fully energized, and your motherboard connections never power down.
It also hardcodes your processor’s energy performance preference (EPP) down to zero. The EPP is essentially the internal software governor that tells the processor how much it should care about saving energy versus pushing out frames. By setting this all the way down to zero, it ensures the system achieves maximum hardware polling rates. Setting the EPP to zero absolutely stops the operating system from ever stepping in to save a watt of electricity.
In terms of real-world impact, you probably won’t see higher maximum frames per second in your games or significantly faster video render times compared to the standard High performance plan. However, because the hardware never goes to sleep, you completely bypass the split-second delay of a CPU core having to wake up from an idle state to handle a sudden task. This can drastically improve your “one percent low” frame rates and it ensures incredibly smooth, uninterrupted data throughput for heavy workstation tasks.
Because this is designed for a desktop PC plugged directly into the wall, battery drain is considered a non-issue. But, you should absolutely expect noticeably higher idle temperatures and a constant, significantly higher draw on your home’s electricity.
So, should you use the Ultimate Performance plan?
The ultimate trade-off
With ultimate performance comes ultimate power consumption. Having read the breakdown above and understanding the aggressive changes this power plan makes to your system, it should be glaringly obvious that the Ultimate performance mode will use significantly more juice from the wall.
It’s identical to the drive modes in modern sports cars. When you put your car into Sport or Track mode, the engine idles at a much higher RPM, the transmission holds gears longer, and the throttle delay is completely eliminated. All of these mechanical tweaks are done to give you instantaneous, better performance, but it comes at the direct, unavoidable cost of burning through a lot more fuel. It is exactly the same concept here with your computer processor.
On a laptop, enabling this might be downright devastating.
On a laptop, enabling this might be downright devastating. Sure, with this plan active, your laptop’s performance won’t feel any different from when it was firmly plugged into the wall, but your battery will last drastically less time. You might actually watch your battery percentage drop in real-time.
At the same time, even if you are on a heavy desktop PC with great airflow, your idling temperatures are going to be noticeably higher. After all, performance isn’t free. Pumping more electrical power into a silicon chip always means generating more thermal heat, and heat is the silent, inevitable killer of absolutely everything in the technology world.
If you have the cooling, the power headroom, and no problem with your fans spinning loudly, go ahead and unlock the hidden plans. Try High Performance. Try Ultimate Performance. See whether your machine feels sharper, steadier, and more like it is finally being allowed to do the job you bought it for. Because sometimes the best PC upgrade is not new hardware at all. Sometimes it is just removing the leash.
