Some reviewers have been underwhelmed by the performance on offer with some of AMD's latest generation Ryzen CPUs. As it turns out, a Windows bug may have thrown a wrench into the works for launch reviews of these processors. 

HardwareUnboxed was hot on the case when it came to Ryzen 9000 performance and the disparity between independent tests and AMD's own benchmarks. After further discussions, an unusual Windows bug was discovered, which could be impacting performance, particularly in games.

It appears that the gaming performance of AMD's Zen 5-based CPUs could be affected by system account privileges. Allegedly, inadequate account privileges may lead to reduced gaming performance, even for local administrator accounts. AMD suggests using the hidden administrator account to ensure you have the correct privileges to maximise gaming performance.

HardwareUnboxed's recent assessment showed a gaming performance boost when using a new account, with the Ryzen 7 9700X particularly impacted. Despite AMD claims that only Zen 5 CPUs were affected, HardwareUnboxed also decided to test the Ryzen 7700X, which also gets a performance boost, albeit a smaller one, in the same conditions.

Testing 13 games at 1080p resolution, HardwareUnboxed observed a 3.8% performance gain for the Ryzen 9 9700X and a 2.6% rise for the Ryzen 7 7700X when a fresh account was used. AMD also advised reviewers to ensure proper provisioning when switching CPUs by upgrading or reinstalling chipset drivers or, ideally, performing a new installation of Windows. The issue seems specific to gaming and is yet to be confirmed by Microsoft, but AMD stated it would be fixed in an upcoming Windows update.

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KitGuru says: Although 3.8% isn't much, it's always nice to get a free performance upgrade. Hopefully, it won't take long before Microsoft fixes this bug.

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