After AMD’s recent unveiling of its Zen 5-based desktop processors from the Ryzen 9000 series, Steve Walton of Hardware Unboxed noticed that the gaming performance of these CPUs is curiously better if you use a Windows administrator account instead of a conventional user account. He’s chalking this up to a Windows bug.
He tested the whole thing with the help of 13 games and found that gaming performance was around 3.8 percent better when using an admin account with Zen 5 CPUs. He also found that performance was 2.8 percent better with Zen 4 CPUs under an admin account.
In application benchmarks, there’s no difference in performance no matter which user account type you use, so that just makes the whole situation that much stranger and more interesting.
AMD confirmed the YouTuber’s measurements and stated that users can currently achieve the best performance with an admin account. However, AMD doesn’t want this tip to be a permanent solution, especially given that admin accounts aren’t great for security.
Why Windows admin accounts are risky
When using an administrator account, Windows can freely create and delete local user accounts, change passwords, and execute actions that would otherwise be restricted.
This extra freedom is convenient but risky because malicious actors can hijack it, whether through viruses, malware, or even phishing scams.
You should only log into an admin account when you have a specific admin-restricted task you’re trying to do; otherwise, you should be using a regular user account for day-to-day activity.
Learn more about AMD’s new Zen 5 processors from our previous articles that explore what they are, why they’re interesting, and whether or not you should go out and get one yourself:
This article originally appeared on our sister publication PC-WELT and was translated and localized from German.