If you’ve been using your Windows laptop exactly how you found it in the box, you might be leaving considerable performance on the table. It’s one thing to debloat your PC if you want a faster, cleaner Windows 11, but if you’re using the wrong power plan — and you likely are — your laptop isn’t going to perform at its full potential.
Assuming that your laptop comes preset to use the best power plan for performance can be an expensive assumption. Not int terms of money, but in terms of raw, everyday performance. It does require some Control Panel digging, but the result is well worth the effort.
Windows power plans aren’t as simple as they look
What these settings actually control behind the scenes
Your Windows power plan does more than just control when your PC goes to sleep or when the screen turns off. It’s a collection of hardware and system settings that control how your PC uses energy, and it does so by controlling hardware parameters like your CPU speed, screen brightness, storage, and even how your USB ports are powered. For everyday performance, the metric you’re concerned about is CPU speed.
Generally speaking, your Windows laptop will be using the Balanced power plan out of the box. Under this plan, Windows dynamically adjusts your CPU’s clock speed based on what you’re doing. Under light loads like browsing or streaming, the processor slows itself and hence, reduces its power consumption. When the loads go up, the processor’s clock speed goes up, increasing the power consumption.
On paper, this seems like the perfect balance between battery life and performance, especially on thin and light laptops with relatively powerful components that can drain the battery in just a few hours if run on full performance. However, in reality, there’s often a delay before your processor responds to the loads you’re running, which is why your laptop might often end up feeling sluggish when it shouldn’t.
Balanced isn’t always the best choice
Why the default plan can hold your performance back
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When you’re using the balanced power plan, Windows sets the minimum processor state to around 5%. This means that when your CPU is idle or under light loads, it slows down to 5% of its maximum performance, a fraction of its rated speed. This CPU state management is by design and is meant for battery-powered laptops. But on a plugged-in desktop or laptop, you’re essentially forcing your CPU to catch up every time you start a resource-intensive task.
Dell has even documented this change officially. Despite the Balanced profile showing the maximum CPU at 100% under load, the processor returns to a low default clock speed very quickly between bursts of load. You’ll see this most visibly when rendering, audio production, or any workload that sends fast, back-to-back commands to the CPU.
These are the plans that matter
Screenshot by Yadullah Abidi | No Attribution Required.
So what do you do if you want to use your CPU close to its full potential? Well, Windows already has a solution for you, it just won’t show it as easily. The OS comes with an Ultimate Performance power plan that essentially lets the CPU run free and use as much power as possible to run at its full speed regardless of the system load.
On laptops, Windows tends to lean heavily on power saving, so sometimes the higher performance plans are hidden to avoid users obliterating their battery life. It makes sense for battery life, but if you want to push your hardware, especially when you’re plugged in while gaming, rendering, or compiling code, you’re leaving performance on the table.
Thankfully, unlocking Windows’ hidden performance plan is quite easy. You can use a single terminal command to show all Windows power plans, even the ones it hides from you.
To see all the plans you have, open a Windows Terminal or PowerShell window (preferably with administrator access) and run the following command:
Screenshot by Yadullah Abidi | No Attribution Required.
powercfg /list
In case you don’t see a high-performance plan, usually called Ultimate Performance, there’s a simple fix. Windows knows the GUID of this plan and can enable it if you ask nicely. Just run the following command:
Screenshot by Yadullah Abidi | No Attribution Required.
powercfg -duplicatescheme e9a42b02-d5df-448d-aa00-03f14749eb61
This command tells Windows to create a new power scheme based on the built-in Ultimate Performance template, giving it a new GUID that will now show up in the /list output. This power plan is designed to squeeze every last bit of performance from your system, minimize latency, and keep your hardware at full blast, instead of Windows stepping in every few minutes to aggressively reduce core clocks and power states.
Windows 11 made things more confusing
Hidden settings that complicate the basics
Credit: Gavin Phillips / MakeUseOf
Windows 11, in its attempt to simplify power plan management, has made the process more complicated. You see, in addition to the classic power plan settings in the Control Panel, Windows 11 also added Power Modes inside its new Windows Settings app. The two systems exist independently of each other, and can often step on each other’s toes.
How the function also differs from laptop to laptop. However, a good rule of thumb is to assume the Control Panel power plan — the one you can unlock using the aforementioned powercfg command — takes precedence. So if you’ve already selected the Best Performance power plan in Windows Settings but never touched the Control Panel, you might still have a legacy balanced power plan overriding settings.
So which one should you use?
The best pick depending on your workflow and hardware
The answer is quite simple. If you’re on the move and need to save battery life, switch to the Balanced power plan in both the Control Panel and Windows Settings apps. If you’re plugged in and don’t need the battery life, switch to the highest performance plans available in both places.
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Changing the same setting twice in two different apps is a bit of a hassle, especially considering that Microsoft doesn’t exactly make it easy to access them. However, it’s the only way to ensure neither setting is overriding the other, and your laptop is actually running in the power mode you want.
