Laptop manufacturers typically try to balance power, battery life, and thermal issues with a device’s default settings. However, because everyone uses their laptops differently, the power settings that came with your device could potentially affect its performance when gaming or editing media.
Fortunately, you can review and change your laptop’s settings for a small but noticeable increase in performance that doesn’t require expensive upgrades or potentially dangerous overclocking. All you need to do is activate your computer’s performance mode.
PCWorld was recently tested The performance modes for a handful of laptops, and most found between 10 and 30 percent increases in speed. That won’t magically turn your potato rig into a powerhouse, but it could increase a game’s frame rate without changing in-game settings, or make editing and exporting media less of a breeze.
As editor-in-chief, Gordon Mah Ung writes:
Take an older MSI Prestige 14 aimed at content creators. The 10th Generation Core i7-10710U is a low-power chip, so it will never be a barn burner. However, changing the default “Balanced” to “High Performance” increases overall PCMark 10 usage by 10 percent. When creating digital content from PCMark 10, the High Performance setting gives you an improvement of about 15.5 percent.
The performance benefits vary depending on the task. Give the same MSI Prestige 14 CPU intensive HandBrake video encoding and switch to high performance. It takes 30 percent less time to run. That’s a nice upward trend.
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How to enable your laptop’s performance mode
Finding and changing a laptop’s performance settings differs between manufacturers and models, but most are accessible through a desktop app. The apps are usually referred to as “Power Settings” or “Performance Monitoring”. Some laptops have hardware toggles or keyboard shortcuts for performance preferences, such as: B. the “Turbo” button on some ASUS ROG models. A quick internet search can help you find where the performance settings are on your system if you’re not sure where yours are.
Note that the specific power settings and preferences available to you also depend on the make and model of the laptop. Just make sure you choose the options that favor speed and performance over battery saving. You should notice the increase in performance from your laptop right away – but again, this is where you should keep your expectations in check.
Changing power settings is not the same as overclocking your CPU or GPU. While overclocking can boost a desktop beyond normal hardware limitations, it’s a dangerous process that can damage your computer or even cause injury from the increased heat dissipation – especially with laptops.
However, changing your laptop’s performance settings is completely safe, and each mode is tested by the manufacturer. That said, you may notice increased fan noise when using performance mode, and your laptop will likely run hotter (and potentially drain your battery faster). Some laptops also dynamically change performance settings when they are not connected or when the battery life drops below a certain level. These options can be customized on some devices. However, it is best to leave the laptop connected to avoid interruptions.
If you continue to have problems even with Performance Mode turned on, make sure your laptop’s drivers are updated. This is especially important for GPUs when you are playing games. Outdated drivers can cause compatibility problems and slow down your GPU. Similarly, the controller apps from Nvidia and AMD can help take the guesswork out of the best in-game settings your computer can handle.
These tweaks have less of an impact compared to the performance settings, but every little bit helps as you are trying to tweak your laptop’s speed.
