Possible Windows Bug Found, Hurts Ryzen Gaming Performance

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Video Index
00:00 - Welcome to Hardware Unboxed
00:48 - AMD vs Hardware Unboxed Testing
02:19 - Hidden Windows Admin Account
03:54 - How To Access The Hidden Account
04:21 - Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty
05:20 - The Last of Us Part I
05:48 - Hogwarts Legacy
06:09 - A Plague Tale Requiem
06:24 - Horizon Forbidden West
06:36 - Hitman 3
06:44 - Homeworld 3
06:57 - Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered
07:10 - Starfield
07:23 - Watch Dogs Legion
07:34 - Assetto Corsa Competizione
07:45 - Baldur’s Gate 3
07:51 - Counter Strike 2
07:54 - 13 Game Average
08:38 - Final Thoughts

Possible Windows Bug Found, Hurts Ryzen Gaming Performance

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Outro music by David Vonk/DaJaVo

[ACanadianDude]

I cannot stress this enough, you don't want to use the system administrator account as your daily driver. You become significantly more vulnerable to malware for even having that account enabled, and if you do somehow get infected with malware, it becomes easier for said malware to affect protected system files. If you do anything important on your PC, it's not worth the performance gains.

[pnrz]

Steve has sit down, everything IS fine now

[rustyclark]

So a ton of gamers are suddenly using the disabled built-in admin to run everything, that's just lovely for security. They should hurry and fix this before it starts getting added to tweak guides.

[Cadambank]

I can get the frustration Steve would feel after retesting again and finding out 1 percent increase in gap between Zen 4 and Zen 5.

[soulsbourne]

Most dangerous Steve's
1. Standing Steve with dark circles
2. Standing Grumpy Steve
3. Standing Steve
4. Standing happy steve
5. Monitor Steve

[PowellCat]

Wendell also mentioned running games with administrators permission increased performance

[Varil]

Between Windows and terrible gaming optimization, we're losing so much performance in these days

[YusufYusufBinks]

I think this might be caused by Windows' LUA (Limited User Account) feature. From Windows 8 onwards, even if you disable UAC from Control Panel, it won't actually disable it. It instead will suppress UAC prompts. But the underlying LUA system will remain enabled. However, the "Administrator" account has LUA completely disabled, meaning that every single software in the Administrator account will run with elevated privileges.

It is possible to disable LUA system wide. If you set the value to 0 (zero) and then reboot, the LUA feature will be completely disabled. Esentially every single admin account on the system will behave exactly like "Administrator" account. If possible, I think it's worth testing the Ryzen gaming performance with and without LUA feature enabled.

[GreatYamatanoOrochi]

That's mental. This also means that the 7700X is a significantly* better CPU than we thought, but it was plagued by a bug for a long time now. Which asks a few questions, are Intel affected by this? Are Zen 1, 2, 3 affected by this?

[Kaleopan]

So you are telling me that the 7800X3D could be even faster?

[Dhruv-qwjf]

The built-in administrator is hidden in Windows by default for a reason. It used to be the default account for local users in Windows XP and earlier, and that meant that any program you run had elevated privileges to not just all of the critical system files, but also, with a restart they could also access the boot sector.

[terrasai]

Let’s not forget that for Windows 11, Microsoft overhauled their CPU scheduler just for Intel’s p and e cores to work better 😑

[Cinetyk]

Hiding the 7700X bar for a few seconds is such a tease... Steve found a new way to make the blue bar graphs more enticing :) And also I wonder how many viewers just skip around the video and jump to conclusions... :)

[Piotsze]

AMD: Steve! Are you Admin or just admin?
Steve: I will test them all.
AMD to themselfs: Yes! He will test both accounts!
Steve: Now lets test both CPUs on those accounts...

[MeCrazy]

people testing on linux are saying they work a lot better on linux

[weirdodude]

I appreciate all the hard work reviewers have been doing, trying to get this messy situation straightened out. Thumbs up!

[gaav]

STEVE IS BRUTAL with the hidden 7700x bar. I could not stop laughing xD

[myieb]

A couple months ago I build a new PC with a Ryzen 5 7600x, and the cpu benchmarks were always around 10-20% lower than what they should be, along with than expected lower fps in games. I spent weeks trying to find the issue, along with trying to compensate with overclocking, but the only thing I found was every time I reinstalled windows 11, the cpu benchmarks would be fixed, even higher than usual because of my overclocks. But after a few days, the benchmarks randomly switch back to 10-20% lower, for no reason. I eventually gave up because I couldn’t find any solution, until this video. Everything you described was exactly what I was experiencing, and after switching to a local administrator, my performance is great again. I’m honestly just really relieved that my system wasn’t just cooked, so thankyou 🙏🏻. I hope windows releases that bug fix for regular user accounts soon :)

[PaulRoneClarke]

"The car you bought from us can go faster if you remove the ABS system and ignore warning signs on the road"
Unless you know what you are doing DO NOT use the Windows administrator account. It opens your computer up to a MUCH greater risk of malware.
To AMD's credit however, if this does get fixed ALL their latest CPU's will pull further ahead on value and performance. So it's a win for everyone using the platform. Not just ZEN 5

[madduckuk]

Oh now Win10 and an 5800X3D needs adding to this testing!