How to Enable Ultimate Performance Plan in Windows 11

If you’ve ever paid attention to power plans in Windows, and if you’re here, you must have, you know that Windows generally has three power plans (for most systems). Between Balanced, Power Saver, and High Performance power plans, the needs of most users are met.

But some users need every ounce of performance their system can deliver, and they feel even the High Performance plan falls short. Windows has a fourth power plan for such users: the Ultimate Performance Power plan.

What is Ultimate Performance Power Plan in Windows?

The Ultimate Performance power plan is a preset power plan engineered for high-power systems to give an extra boost in performance. For systems like workstations and servers, where every little bit of boost in performance matters, it’s the perfect solution.

The Ultimate Performance power plan works by eliminating the micro-latencies that are associated with fine-grained power management techniques. To put it simply, micro-latency is the slight time that OS takes between when it first recognizes that a certain piece of hardware needs power and when it delivers that power.

Windows has a collection of settings that allows the OS to tune the behavior based on various factors such as user preference, policy, underlying hardware, or workload. This, in turn, allows the OS to make efficiency and performance tradeoffs when needed. The Ultimate Performance plan eliminates these tradeoffs.

It builds upon the High-Performance power plan, taking it one step further.

How Does Ultimate Performance Plan Work

To get an insight into how it works, let’s compare it with the Balanced power plan. In the Balanced power scheme, the minimum processor state is set to 10% and the maximum at 90%. Whereas the Ultimate Performance plan sets the minimum as well as maximum processor state to 100%.

It essentially means that your CPU will always be running at 100% power even if some of its cores are idle or have nothing to do. And that’s just one look at the figures.

The Ultimate Performance plan is awfully similar to the High Performance plan with one difference. The hard disk is set to never stop spinning in the Ultimate Performance plan. Your hard disk will always be spinning even if your system is idle.

It can improve speed on systems where hardware goes in and out of the idle state continually. Instead of polling the hardware to see when a piece of hardware needs the power, it lets the hardware consumes power at all times.

It can boost performance for users who run video editing or 3D software that put an occasional heavy load on hardware. But if you’re hoping to boost performance for a gaming system, it might not make much of a difference as the hardware is not in an ideal state while you’re playing.

But Ultimate performance plan also consumes ultimate power. Along with consuming more power, it may also directly impact the hardware. That’s why it’s not even available, let alone recommended, for all systems.

Windows intended it for high-end systems and as such, the option is automatically available in Windows for Workstations. But all other systems running Windows 11 can get the feature manually.

Note: If you’re thinking of using the plan on a laptop, you should keep it plugged in at all times.

Enabling Ultimate Performance Plan in Windows 11

For systems that have the Ultimate Performance plan officially enabled, turning it on is a piece of cake in Windows 11. Open the Control Panel on your system. You can find it from the search option on the taskbar.

Then, go to ‘Hardware and Sound’.

Select ‘Power Options’ from the list of options available.

The available power plans for your PC will appear. If the Ultimate Performance plan is available, it’ll also appear.

It’s possible that the Ultimate Performance isn’t listed directly with the other plans. If you see the option for ‘Show additional plans’, click it. It should appear in the expanded options. If it doesn’t (which will be the case for most laptops and also some desktops), you have to enable it manually which is explained in the next section.

To use it, click the radio button next to it.

Just like with any other power plan, you can customize the plan. Click ‘Change plan settings’ to tweak any settings. But it isn’t really advisable as that would mess with the “Ultimate Performance” it’s supposed to deliver.

Adding Ultimate Performance Plan to Windows 11

Now, if you don’t have the option for Ultimate Performance plan in your Power options, you can manually add it.

Open either Command Prompt or Windows PowerShell in the admin mode. The command we want to execute is the same for both, so you can open either. Go to the search option and type ‘Command Prompt’ or ‘Windows PowerShell’. Then, click the ‘Run as administrator’ option to run the app in admin mode.

A User Account Control prompt will appear. Click ‘Yes’ to proceed.

Now, type or copy/ paste the following command and press Enter.

powercfg -duplicatescheme e9a42b02-d5df-448d-aa00-03f14749eb61

When the command executes, you’ll be able to see Ultimate Performance on the console.

Now, open Power Options in Control Panel again. If the app was open while you run the command, hit the ‘Refresh’ button.

Click the ‘Show additional plans’ option.

The Ultimate Performance plan should appear among your power plans. Click the radio button next to it to select it.

Deleting the Ultimate Performance Plan from your System

Users who manually add the power plan to their Windows 11 system can also delete it. But before you try to delete it, it’s paramount to switch to another power plan. Trying to delete a plan you’re currently using can mess your entire system.

From the Power Options, switch to another plan. Then, click the ‘Change plan settings’ option next to the ‘Ultimate Performance’ plan.

The options for changing the settings will open. Click the ‘Delete this plan’ option.

A confirmation dialog box will appear. Click ‘Yes’ to proceed.

If you need the extra boost of power for certain activities, the Ultimate Performance plan can deliver it to you. But be wary in its usage as it can extract a toll on your hardware and battery, which is why Microsoft doesn’t recommend it for battery-powered systems, i.e., laptops.