Microsoft says Windows 11 is 2x faster, except they used ancient PCs to benchmark Windows 10

[midian182]

Facepalm: Microsoft is once again aggressively pushing users to move from Windows 10 to Windows 11. This time, the Redmond firm is boasting that the newer OS is up to 2.3x faster than its predecessor – but fails to mention its deeply flawed testing methodology.

Tech giants aren't renowned for their honesty and openness. When it comes to making claims and pointing to benchmarks, it's not just Nvidia that plays fast and loose with the truth.

With Windows 10's October 14 end-of-life date approaching fast, Microsoft is publishing articles seemingly every other day to convince users to update to Windows 11. In the latest blog, Executive Vice President and Consumer Chief Marketing Officer Yusuf Mehdi writes that Windows 11 is 2.3x faster than Windows 10.

The figure comes from Geekbench 6 Multi-Core benchmark scores – Microsoft used just a single synthetic test for this claim – but this link (aka.ms/w11claims) buried in the footnotes contains an interesting section.

"Based on testing performed by Microsoft in December 2024 using Geekbench 6 Multi-core score comparing a selection of Windows 10 PCs with Intel Core 6th, 8th and 10th generation processors and Windows 11 PCs with Intel Core 12th and 13th generation processors."

FYI: Over the years, TechSpot has benchmarked Windows 11 vs Windows 10 several times. The first time was in 2021, and then again with variations of gaming tests and CPUs here, and here, and last time was in 2024.

So, Microsoft decided the best way to show off how much faster Windows 11 is than 10 wasn't to test both on the same systems. Instead, it ran Windows 11 on Intel machines from 2022 to 2024, and Windows 10 on Intel laptops between seven and nine years old.

For comparison, the weakest device Microsoft used in the Windows 10 test was an Intel Core i3-6100U CPU, a 2-core/4-thread chip built on the 14nm process. The closest 13th-gen equivalent, the Core i3-1315U, has six cores and eight threads, can turbo up to 4.5GHz, and is built on the Intel 7 (10nm) process. Its IPC performance is estimated to be up to three times better than the 6th-gen chip.

Microsoft does add the disclaimer that "performance will vary significantly by device and with settings, usage and other factors," but most people aren't going to see it, and the 2.3x faster claim in the main post is shockingly misleading.

The reality is that Geekbench 6 scores for both operating systems on the same machine would be almost identical, but a blog titled "much older hardware is slower than newer hardware!" is unlikely to send many Windows 10 holdouts running to Windows 11.

Microsoft offers some valid reasons why moving to Windows 11 could be a good thing, and many games often run faster on the latest OS, but misleading claims like this one aren't doing its upgrade push any favors.

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Microsoft says Windows 11 is 2x faster, except they used ancient PCs to benchmark Windows 10

 

[candle86]

This actually makes sense the majority upgrade windows via buying a new computer.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

This actually makes sense the majority upgrade windows via buying a new computer.

It's disingenuous, to claim windows 11 is faster while running it on far more powerful hardware.

Because the truth is it isnt. Put 11 on the same machine and it is SLOWER than 10. It's the hardware thats faster, and MS doesnt make or sell that.

 

[candle86]

It's disingenuous, to claim windows 11 is faster while running it on far more powerful hardware.

Because the truth is it isnt. Put 11 on the same machine and it is SLOWER than 10. It's the hardware thats faster, and MS doesnt make or sell that.

It's not though, the average consumer will buy a new Windows 11 computer but only if they think it's faster. No windows 11 computers came new with the 8700k nor 10 computers with 12700k, for the layman this is standard marketing and acceptable behavior.

 

[Hassanabi]

You can't disable VBS on W11 as easily as you would need to change a registry key setting related to Device Guard /Windows Hello OR disable Virtualization in bios, but in unfortunate cases where you didn't set-up a password login or local account you may be locking yourself out of your machine completely. You can tick off Memory Integrity but it still shows VBS is running in System Information, so there might be no or little gains from ticking that off currently without VBS being completely disabled in 24H2.

In all likelihood after the October 2025, when W10 reaches EOL, online games that have anti-cheat will require you to update to W11, have VBS(Virtualization), Secure boot, TPM etc turned on to be able to play in the first place. So any performance gains you might get from going back to W10 will be worthless if the online games you play block you out completely within 3 months.

This will only get worse when hardware vendors stop supporting W10 on newer hardware and things start happening like how the Intel E-cores didn't work (properly) on W10 before they fixed it, but after October similar issues might never be fixed, at least not officially by Microsoft or the hardware vendor.

While antivirus definitions will be updated upwards to 2028, by the time that hits most people that are currently on W10 would likely have replaced their computer at least once by that time. Given how fast things can change in the computer landscape having new hardware that isn't working properly on W10 will practically force you to upgrade to W11/W12 if you want to get everything out of the hardware you purchased.

Or you can stick to W10 after 2028 and have this happen:

 

[GeoffreyA]

The public could force MS to change their tune by boycotting W11, but unfortunately, people will upgrade and MS will win.

 

[kinetix]

Still running Win10LTSC on all my machines, even on my oldest, a Thinkpad x201 (14 years old!) that I use when I travel.. no reason to move to W11. In fact, I've only touched it two or three times on other people's PCs, and I confirm that there was no reason for me to move to 11. But at least here the reason is 0, I only jumped from W7 to W10 because the reason with W8/8.1 was less than zero, negative.

 

[Jarenien]

Windows 11 is faster, it's just the average user that is slower and doesn't have a clue how to properly maintain a rig. It is on the manufacturer's of the parts in computers to probably keep them updated for the user without slowing them down with so much crap/bloat-ware. People that think Win11 is slower than 10 probably should go the Apple route, as they need to be hand-held to properly maintain their electronics. It's nothing to be ashamed about, it is what it is, why fight it?

 

[candle86]

The public could force MS to change their tune by boycotting W11, but unfortunately, people will upgrade and MS will win.

Oh you mean like boycott 7, boycott 10, boycott XP when users didn't want to upgrade, guess what they did

 

[winjer]

Microsoft has no respect for it's users, considering they are trying to fool people with such a blatant lie.

 

[yRaz]

Oh you mean like boycott 7, boycott 10, boycott XP when users didn't want to upgrade, guess what they did

I moved to Linux 2 years ago with my 11700HS. Not to mention everything in my rack is running either ubuntu or promox anyway. I have more Windows VMs than I have actual machines running windows. W11 is junk and W10 has turned into junk over the last few years. My only native windows machine is my work laptop and they're issuing us MacBook Air's at the end of this quarter.

 

[seeprime]

These days Microsoft acts like a scammer company. As a 35 year MS Partner, everything they do to push Windows 11 seems so slimy. Their actions are damaging their rep more than they realize.

 

[WhiteLeaff]

Fake news, MS lol

 

[penn919]

It's not though, the average consumer will buy a new Windows 11 computer but only if they think it's faster. No windows 11 computers came new with the 8700k nor 10 computers with 12700k, for the layman this is standard marketing and acceptable behavior.

In this case, we are judging Microsoft based on it's claim. Are they claiming Windows 11 is faster or Windows 11 computers? There's a difference. If Windows 11 is faster, then that implies the OS is faster with identical hardware (The tests controlled for hardware specifications). If the claim is that Windows 11 PCs are faster than Windows PCs, then that would need to be clarified.

 

[unoficialoficial]

Just some screen captions from a YouTube video that made a benchmark of the different versions of the OS(on the same hardware).