SPEED UP YOUR PC’s PROCESSOR
Stop programs hogging your processor
Your PC’s processor has multiple cores – for example, a quad-core CPU has four – and Windows decides which processes are assigned to each one. Resource-hungry software such as video editors and web browsers often uses multiple cores, which leaves other tools competing for processing power and slows down the overall speed of your PC. Rather than upgrade your CPU, you can try to fix this by adjusting your processor’s ‘affinity’. This allows you to assign specific cores to demanding programs so they run as efficiently as possible without hogging system resources.
First, you should check which cores are currently underutilised. Open Task Manager in Windows 10 or 11 by pressing Ctrl-Shift-Esc and click the Performance tab. In the CPU section, right-click the graph and choose ‘Change graph to’ then ‘Logical processes’. This will display separate graphs for each of your processor cores – hover your mouse over one to see its core number. Cores that currently have little activity – such as CPU 7 in our screenshot below left – are ideal for devoting to resource-hungry programs.
Next, click the Details tab in Task Manager, right-click a greedy process and choose ‘Set affinity’. Untick the All Processors box and select one or two cores (see screenshot below) to assign the program to. Click ‘OK’ to confirm and the program will now only run on the selected CPU core(s), which should free up processing power for other tools.
Disable unnecessary effects
Many features enabled by default in Windows 10 and 11 are supposed to enhance your user experience, but also require processing power that would be better dedicated to more important tasks, especially on older PCs. For example, are you really bothered about your desktop icons having shadows or whether window menus slide into view? If not, you can turn off unnecessary visual effects to improve system performance.
Press the Windows key-R to open the Run box, type sysdm.cpl then press Enter. When the System Properties box opens, click the Advanced tab then the Settings button under Performance. On the Visual Effects tab, select ‘Adjust for best performance’ (see screenshot below)
to disable all visual effects, then click Apply or OK. You can always re-enable specific effects if you miss them.
It’s also worth turning off the transparency effects Windows applies to your Start menu, taskbar and Action Centre – as well as folder and program windows in Windows 11 – as these use a small but significant amount of CPU power. Right-click your desktop, choose Personalise then Colours, and disable the ‘Transparency effects’ option.
Check if you can overclock your processor
The most drastic way to boost your processor’s speed without upgrading is to ‘overclock’ it, which means to increase its clock rate and/or voltage to exceed that set by the manufacturer. The benefit is that you get a faster CPU that can perform more operations per second, but overclocking can also cause your processor to overheat and damage your hardware, as well as void your warranty. You may not even be able to overclock, if your motherboard or CPU has been locked by the manufacturer. But if you’re determined to try, there are precautions you can take to ensure your PC doesn’t malfunction.
First, you should check your processor’s current temperature to make sure it isn’t already too hot. Download HWiNFO from www. snipca.com/42747, launch the tool and click ‘Sensors only’. Click ‘Start’ then scroll down the table of results to the Core Temperatures entry.
Ideally your CPU cores should be between 40 and 65 degrees Celsius – if they’re hotter than 75°C, you shouldn’t risk overclocking.
Next, perform a ‘stress test’ to check that your processor is stable and not prone to overheating at its default clock speed. Download the free tool Prime95 from www.snipca. com/43272, extract the contents of the ZIP file and double-click the ‘prime95.exe’ file – click ‘More info’ then ‘Run anyway’ if you see a Microsoft Defender SmartScreen warning. When Prime95 opens, click Just Stress Testing then OK to run a ‘torture test’.
This pushes your processor to its limit by performing an intensive stream of complex mathematical computations until an error occurs, at which point the tool will stop. Leave Prime95 running for a few hours to perform a thorough test, but be warned that your PC may get noisy as its fans spin faster to keep it cool – click Test then Stop to end the test. If Prime95 fails to detect any errors, then your processor should be stable enough for overclocking.
It’s also useful to benchmark test your CPU before and after you overclock it, to see if the tweaks you make improve or impair its performance. Download Cinebench from www.snipca.com/43274 and run its CPU (Multi-Core) test ( 1 in our screenshot above). This evaluates how well your processor copes with rendering a detailed 3D image, then gives it an overall score. Look at the chart in the bottom-left corner to find out how your CPU compares with processors in similar systems – ours scored 2,079 points, which ranked last in the comparison 2 , so we have plenty of room for improvement.
Once you’ve performed these checks, you can try overclocking your processor. Although you can overclock manually by tweaking settings in your PC’s BIOS or UEFI – press F2 or F10 while booting to access this – the safest method is to use a tool from your CPU’s manufacturer.
For AMD processors, download Ryzen Master (www.snipca. com/43277), which offers both Auto Overclocking ( 3 in our screenshot left) and Manual options 4.
For Intel processors, install the manufacturer’s Extreme Tuning Utility (www.snipca.com/43276) and change settings in the Advanced Tuning section.
Our sister title PC Gamer provides a detailed guide to overclocking an AMD Ryzen processor, both manually and automatically (www.snipca. com/43278) as well as one for Intel CPUs (www.snipca.com/43279). Note that if your processor doesn’t support overclocking, you won’t be able to install the official manufacturer’s tool.