Well this was a bit unexpected… It looks like some of the not-so-great performance issues with the new Bulldozer CPUs is Microsoft’s fault! Luckily, Microsoft has caught on and have released a patch for you! Merry Christmas I guess.
Here’s a quick look at the patch details:
This article introduces an update that optimizes the performance of AMD Bulldozer CPUs that are used by Windows 7-based or Windows Server 2008 R2-based computers. Currently, the performance of AMD Bulldozer CPUs is slower than expected. This behavior occurs because the threading logic in Windows 7 and in Windows Server 2008 R2 is not optimized to use the Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT) scheduling feature. This feature was introduced in the Bulldozer family of AMD CPUs.
Unfortunately, benchmarks have not yet been released on the amount of performance gained by applying the patch, but every bit helps right?
Go download the patch now!
Update: Patch pulled. Benchmarks have been released showing the not so hot performance increase.
