Windows Power Plans: High Performance vs Balanced vs Ultimate Performance

Windows comes with built in power plans which control the method by which your Processor, Video Card, and other hardware consumes energy. The default option of Balanced, for instance, will attempt to conserve as much power as possible, curbing everything when your PC isn't busy doing much. Sounds smart right? But during gaming it can have the problem of clipping back your Processor at precisely the worst time.

High Performance will restrict the majority of this throttling, and Ultimate Performance will lock it out completely. Of course, they come with a significant power tax as well, and thus worse battery life.

In this guide we are going to take a look at how the different power plans work, how they affect you while gaming, and which power plan is best for you based on your system — desktop or laptop? There's a different answer either way. No nonsense. Just answers and useful numbers.

Quick Answers

What are Windows power plans?

Power plans in Windows are profiles that determine the way in which your hardware consumes electricity. Balanced will throttle and downclock the Processor when idle to conserve power. High Performance will try to maintain your Processor flat out, at least most of the time. Ultimate Performance will try to eliminate throttling entirely and your hardware will run at its maximum capability every minute of the day. You trade power use for performance.

Should I use High Performance for gaming?

On a desktop, certainly not a problem. You are plugged into the wall so higher power drain is no cost to you. High Performance will mean less throttling on the Processor whilst you are gaming, and might also mean a more even frame pacing — less micro-stuttering. Be more careful on a laptop — it will have a much shorter life between charges (or run hotter eventually).

What is Ultimate Performance?

Ultimate Performance is a hidden power plan that powers up your PC by getting rid of all Processor throttling. It was originally intended for workstations where every ounce of processing power counts, but it works on any desktop PC. Your Processor never gets the chance to slow down — not while idle, not when executing light tasks, never.

Does power plan affect FPS?

Yes — but not directly. Your FPS counter when playing might look no different between plans. But power plans work through the Processor, a part completely responsible for your frame pacing, perceived smoothness, and input lag in games. On Balanced mode, your Processor gets the occasional pass to slow down for a split-second while it transitions — switching screens, loading up a new area, escaping from a massive explosion, or being in a battle royale with too many players on screen. These put you at greater risk of micro-stutters and inconsistent frame-times. While on High Performance, these slowdowns are prevented — Ultimate Performance takes it another level further.

How do I change my power plan?

The quickest and simplest way: press Windows + X together and select Power Options. You'll see where you can change your power plan to a more powerful one. Otherwise, you can open Control Panel, go to Hardware and Sound and then Power Options. You'll then see your plans and select High Performance for an immediate benefit. If you wish to use Ultimate Performance, you'll need to run a PowerShell command first — we'll be detailing how to do this for you in subsequent sections.

Power plans and gaming performance

To put it plainly, a power plan is a set of rules for Windows to follow that direct its behaviour in regard to how it manages the energy usage of your hardware. You can think of a power plan like the thermostat in your house. Set it to “eco mode” and you save energy, but the house is uncomfortable to live in — set it to “performance mode” and you'll burn a lot more energy and the house is very comfortable to live in.

Windows ships with two plans you can see, Balanced and High Performance. There's also a hidden plan called Ultimate Performance that you can unlock. Each one controls dozens of settings — Processor speed, hard drive sleep timers, USB power management, display brightness, and more.

Balanced (default). Balanced is the default plan on every Windows installation. It scales your Processor speed based on demand. When you're browsing the web your Processor runs slower to save energy. When you launch a game, it ramps up. The problem is “ramping up” isn't instant. There's a brief delay where your Processor is still running at a low speed while your game needs all the power it can muster. That delay causes micro-stutters. Balanced also aggressively sleeps your hard drives, dims your display, and reduces USB power. For everyday use that's fine. For gaming, it introduces small delays that add up.

High Performance. High Performance keeps your Processor running at or near full speed at all times. No ramping delay, no throttling during transitions. Your hard drives stay awake. Your display stays at full brightness. USB devices get full power. The trade-off is simple enough: more power consumption, more heat. On a desktop, that doesn't matter — you're plugged into the wall. On a laptop, your battery will drain faster and your fans will run harder.

Ultimate Performance. Ultimate Performance goes beyond High Performance. It turns off all power-saving features entirely. Your Processor never drops below maximum speed. Hard drives never sleep. There are no idle transitions, no scaling delays, no throttling. Microsoft developed this for workstations running time-critical tasks. But gamers can benefit too (especially in Processor-heavy game workloads where consistent performance matters). The downside is the biggest power draw.

Impact on gaming

The most affected aspect of gaming from power plans is Processor throttling. On Balanced your Processor is constantly shown the load and adjusts its speed accordingly. When the game suddenly needs more power (once loading a new area, or when spawning a bunch of enemies, or processing physics) a small delay happens while it ramps up.

This delay occurs in milliseconds. It won't be visible as a big FPS drop, instead you will feel it as inconsistent frame pacing, where one frame takes 8ms to render, the next maybe takes 14ms or something, then back to 8ms. The average FPS numbers seem okay, but the game feels jerky; every frame is not being given the same resources. Consistent frame pacing is where each frame takes roughly the same time to render, so a game running at 60 FPS with perfectly consistent frame pacing delivers a new frame every 16.7ms.

Processor throttling can also add input lag. When you press a key or move your mouse the game needs Processor time to process that input, and if the Processor is running on lower power draw a minuscule delay occurs. Users testing on Intel's community forums have confirmed measurable input latency differences between Balanced and High Performance plans, with High Performance consistently producing more responsive mouse tracking and lower interrupt-to-process latency. Hardcore gamers will want to stick with High Performance or Ultimate Performance so the Processor is always at full speed, throwing the same resources at every frame and processing input actions straightaway.

Selecting the right power plan

Desktop users. Great choice: High Performance, or Ultimate Performance if you're gaming competitively or running Processor-heavy applications. If you're plugged into the wall, the power vs heat trade-off is a non-issue for you, and the higher Processor speed will prevent it from down-throttling while providing smoother frame pacing. If you play competitively, you may as well enable Ultimate Performance. You're plugged into the wall, so the power/heat trade-off doesn't matter.

Laptop users (plugged in). Choose High Performance if you game while plugged in. While your laptop runs a bit hotter and your fans will be louder, your performance will be more consistent. Avoid Ultimate Performance on a laptop — light to moderate heat on your components isn't going to kill it, but sustained maximum heat can lead to decreased lifespan over time.

Laptop users (on battery). Stick with Balanced. Balanced will use the least amount of power for the greatest battery longevity. If you're gaming on battery your only concern is getting your charge to last.

Trade-offs. With increased power comes additional power consumption (albeit small on a desktop and rather large on a laptop battery), more heat from the components, which translates to fans running louder, and on laptops, the heat can lead to damaged components and reduced battery life. But it's reversible! Switching back to Balanced takes 10 seconds, and you can change power plans as often as you like — nothing is permanent.

Configuring your power plan

Control Panel method

1. Press Windows + R.

2. Type powercfg.cpl and hit Enter.

3. Select High Performance.

4. If it's not visible, click “Show additional plans.”

The change takes effect immediately; there is no need to restart.

Settings method (Windows 11)

1. Press Windows + I.

2. Go to System → Power & Battery → Power mode → Best performance.

Note: Windows 11 Settings does not display Ultimate Performance; you will need the PowerShell method described below.

Enabling Ultimate Performance

Ultimate Performance is hidden by default. Microsoft don't want random users enabling it on a laptop they need to last a full working day, then assuming the worst when the battery dies in 45 minutes. It really is best left to desktops.

If you want it enabled: right-click the Start button and select Terminal (Admin) or Windows PowerShell (Admin), then type (or copy + paste) the command below and hit Enter:

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

Open Power Options (powercfg.cpl) and select Ultimate Performance. This command creates the plan, so you only need to run it once.

To verify you have it: open Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Esc) and go to the Performance tab. As you monitor your Processor, if Ultimate Performance is in effect you should see it drawing closer to its maximum frequency rather than sitting idle.

Troubleshooting: If you receive “access denied,” make sure PowerShell is running as Administrator. If it says “Ultimate Performance” is included but it doesn't appear in your options, some laptop manufacturers strip it from their firmware. That's also why we consider these guides desktop-only recommended. High Performance keeps the throttling at bay nevertheless.

We started IQON because we saw the people who needed help get the worst advice. Search “best power plan for gaming” and you get articles that blatantly say “just use High Performance” without explaining what in the world a power plan actually even changes. Or guides that suggest using the Ultimate Performance plan on laptops and simply avoid saying anything whatsoever about the issue with heat and battery.

So we came up with our own guides, with a backbone to explain the “why,” and not just the “how.” No assumptions, we start you from zero in every article and assume you aren't going to read anything else. The knowledge in our guides should be free and accessible to everyone whether you use our app or not.