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Windows defender steals 6 to 7% performance from Intel CPUs

Grim5

Grim5

Grim5

Soldato
Joined
6 Feb 2019
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As published by TPU, an investigation has found that multithreaded performance on Intel CPUs can be cut by 6-7% when windows defender is enabled in Windows.

Luckily, TPU also has a fix

www.techpowerup.com

Windows Defender can Significantly Impact Intel CPU Performance, We have the Fix

Kevin Glynn, aka "Uncle Webb," our associate software author behind popular utilities such as ThrottleStop and RealTemp, developed a new utility named Counter Control, which lets you monitor and log the performance counters of Intel Core processors since 2008 (Core "Nehalem"). During development...
www.techpowerup.com www.techpowerup.com

The tool you need to use is here https://www.techpowerup.com/download/counter-control/

The alternative to not using the tool is to disable Windows Defender or wait for Microsoft to fix it


AMD CPUs are not affected
 
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This looks like it only affects up to 11th gen CPUs, so the P/E cores config of 12th gen seems to not suffer the same issue?

Edit*
Running Counter Control tool for a full day of usage to see if it registers Defender running in mode 2. I suspect 12th gen as above, is not affected by this though.
 
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Windows Defender is garbage on my old i5, the real time scanning uses was too many resources. Bit defender is much better in that regard. This is what i dont get when people say oooh windows defender is good enough. Well, yeah. It is, but there's much more resource efficiant alternatives available. Av comparatives have been testing resource usage for years and win defender has always been one of the worst.
 
mrk said:
This looks like it only affects up to 11th gen CPUs, so the P/E cores config of 12th gen seems to not suffer the same issue?

Edit*
Running Counter Control tool for a full day of usage to see if it registers Defender running in mode 2. I suspect 12th gen as above, is not affected by this though.
Click to expand...
Not read the article but is this specific to either windows 10 or 11 with 12th gen?

Thinking whether i need this or not with 12th gen, can't test as im at work.
 
The e cores setup is optimised for Windows 11 but would still work on Windows 10 - Don't recall if MS ever released a scheduler update for 10 to support this architecture though.

You can just run and minimise the control counter tool linked above and see if it shows everything as normal in the log file after closing the tool a few hours of normal use of the PC for whatever you do and if it shows all normal then you are not affected.
 
Windows 10/11 are garbage for background processes and maintenance tasks, etc. the Windows anti-malware service will frequently kick in when it thinks the machine is idle (and sometimes when it is not) sometimes using like 35% CPU constantly for 30-40 minutes.......

I was experimenting recently with a light weight system used for basic file sharing/syncing and with almost any other OS it idles around 3 watt average, with Windows 10 pro on there around 7 watt average...

Honestly the MS developers need a good slap around the head and that is putting it mildly.
 
If my Windows machines starts going ape, first culprit is often MS Teams or Defender or an update in the background without any advance nonfiction or warning.
 
mrk said:
The e cores setup is optimised for Windows 11 but would still work on Windows 10 - Don't recall if MS ever released a scheduler update for 10 to support this architecture though.

You can just run and minimise the control counter tool linked above and see if it shows everything as normal in the log file after closing the tool a few hours of normal use of the PC for whatever you do and if it shows all normal then you are not affected.
Click to expand...
Cool will give that a try tonight then, hopefully don't have to do anything!

Got a random pop up last night when i restarted my computer to say upgrade to Windows 11, its free and only 4GB! Was like a sign :cry:, maybe its destiny lol.
 
At this point might as well update, the big update is coming before October too so that should add hopefully teh final touches to what has been missing (dark task manager, new tabbed UI, start menu improvements for those not using Start11 etc).
 
mrk said:
At this point might as well update, the big update is coming before October too so that should add hopefully teh final touches to what has been missing (dark task manager, new tabbed UI, start menu improvements for those not using Start11 etc).
Click to expand...
I think the only thing that's ever deterred me from upgrading is gaming performance. I think i'm a little hesitant since W11 is still fairly new and not quite matured yet and im worried about losing performance? Think it might just be a psychological thing though.
 
It's been out a qhile now and all drivers etc have mtured - Gaming performance is a non issue really. it is either the same, or a few fps higher on 11:

 
mrk said:
It's been out a qhile now and all drivers etc have mtured - Gaming performance is a non issue really. it is either the same, or a few fps higher on 11:

Click to expand...
Okay i'll give it a bash tonight then, since its a fresh install it should be relatively painless lol.
 
Can confirm it makes no difference to Zen 3.

Ran 3 runs with it on and 3 with it off, an avrage of +0.3% with it off. About 40 points
 
james.miller said:
Windows Defender is garbage on my old i5, the real time scanning uses was too many resources. Bit defender is much better in that regard. This is what i dont get when people say oooh windows defender is good enough. Well, yeah. It is, but there's much more resource efficiant alternatives available. Av comparatives have been testing resource usage for years and win defender has always been one of the worst.
Click to expand...

Is Bit Defender recommended then ? Just wondering what to put on my new Laptop. (11th Gen CPU) I use Kaspersky IS myself on my PC.
 
It is weird, why would it be using so much of the CPU? are Comet Lake and older missing extensions newer CPU's have?
 
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