Windows has a hidden Ultimate Performance power plan — here's how to enable it

Windows has plenty of features hidden away in old dialogs and registry keys. One of them is the fabled Ultimate Performance power plan, which, as the name implies, is intended to maximize performance on your PC. It's mostly designed for workstation PCs, but you can enable it on any Windows computer with some tinkering. Here's how.

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What is the Ultimate Performance power plan?

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The Ultimate Performance plan was added to Windows in 2018, and it builds off of the High Performance plan that ships with many PCs. It's worth noting that a lot of PCs now include power modes in the Settings app, but those are different from the power plans in the Control Panel (we're not sure why these are separate, either).

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This power plan basically removes restrictions on power usage by certain components. For example, your CPU will always run at its maximum speed, reducing the tiny bit of latency that might occur when the processor boosts from a lower clock to a higher one. Similarly, a hard disk drive may not be allowed to stop spinning, ensuring that it's always going full throttle and reducing latency when accessing files, since the drive no longer has to spin up. USB devices may also be blocked from entering a low-power state.

Overall, these measures should reduce the tiny bits of latency that can occur when the system needs to speed up for certain operations, but it shouldn't affect overall performance for the vast majority of people. After all, your PC already runs as fast as it needs to when it needs to. By running full throttle at all times, you're also using a lot more energy, which can kill the battery on a laptop, and result in higher energy costs for a desktop.

The Ultimate Performance plan is available in Windows 10, but it seems to no longer be available in Windows 11. In that case, your best bet is creating a custom power plan with similar settings.

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Should you use the Ultimate Performance power plan?

Probably not

While we provide guidance to enable the Ultimate Performance power plan below, we should mention that there's really no reason for almost anyone to enable this feature. This hidden power plan is hidden for a reason, and the performance gains you might get from it are extremely minimal for the vast majority of use cases. There's very little to be gained.

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What's more, you actually sacrifice a lot. By forcing your PC to run at maximum speed all the time, you're going to use a lot more energy and generate more heat. Not only will yo be spending a lot more on electricity, but you could risk shortening the lifespan of your PC. It's not worth it unless you're absolutely sure you need this for whatever reason.

How to enable the Ultimate Performance power plan

The Ultimate Performance power plan can be enabled in the Control Panel, despite being a relatively recent feature. In order to enable it, follow these steps:

1. Open the Start menu and search for Control Panel. It should be the first search result.
   

   Screenshot of Windows 11 Search with results for Control Panel
2. In the View menu near the top right corner, change from Category to Small icons.
3. Click Power options.
   

   Screenshot of Control panel in Windows 10 with the Power options button highlighted
4. You'll see all your power plans, but you may need to expand the Show additional plans section.
5. Select Ultimate Performance.
   

   Screenshot of power options in the Windows 10 Control Panel with the Ultimate Performance plan selected

That's all you need to do to enable this plan... Or it would be, if the plan was actually available. Unfortunately, on most PCs, and especially on laptops, the Ultimate Performance power plan is hidden away so you can't see it in this dialog. In that case, follow the steps below.

How to show the Ultimate Performance plan

If you don't see the Ultimate Performance power plan, you can enable it using Windows Terminal or Command Prompt. Here's how:

1. Press Windows + X and choose Terminal (Admin). This option may be labeled Windows Terminal (Admin) or Windows PowerShell (Admin) in older versions of Windows.
2. Type in (or paste) the following command and press Enter: powercfg -duplicatescheme e9a42b02-d5df-448d-aa00-03f14749eb61
   

   Screenshot of Windows PowerShell in Windows 10 running a command to enable Ultimate Performance mode

Now, you can navigate to the power plan page as described in the section above and enable the Ultimate Performance plan. If the page was already open, you may need to close it and open it again for the new plan to appear. However, even if you do everything right, this option no longer seems to work in Windows 11. Windows Terminal will show a success message, but the power plan won't actually be added to your list.

If you can't use the Ultimate Performance plan

If you're running Windows 11 and you still don't see the Ultimate Performance plan, you'll have to settle for using a custom power plan. While you can't mimic every setting this plan enables, you can match some of them. Here's how:

1. Open the Control Panel and navigate to the Power Options page.
2. Choose Create a new power plan in the side menu.
   

   Screenshot of Control Panel in Windows 11 with the button to create a new power plan highlighted
3. Name the plan anything you like.
4. Choose the display and sleep settings to your liking and click Create.
   

   Screenshot of power plan settings after creating a new plan
5. Select the power plan you just created and then click Change plan settings.
   

   Screenshot of Windows 11 power plan settings with the Change plan settings button highlighted
6. Click Change advanced power settings.
7. In the dialog that appears, you'll want to set the following options to be closer to the Ultimate Performance plan:
   

   Screenshot of Windows 11 advanced power plan settings
   1. PCI Express -> Link State Power Management
      1. On battery: Maximum power savings
      2. Plugged in: Off
   2. Processor power management -> Minimum power state
      1. On battery: 5%
      2. Plugged in: 100%
   3. Processor power management -> Maximum power state
      1. On battery: 100%
      2. Plugged in: 100%
   4. Hard Disk (if available) -> Turn off hard disk after:
      1. On battery: Never
      2. Plugged in: Never
8. Click OK.

This should allow you to get an experience similar to what the Ultimate Performance plan would, though there are fewer options available to change in Windows 11 compared to Windows 10, so it may not be perfect.

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Getting every last bit of performance

While it's not meant for everyone, the Ultimate Performance power plan is a useful option to have if you need your system to performance at the absolute best of its ability at all times without ever slowing down. You'll need to have adequate cooling to make the most of it, but if your workload requires it, it's worth enabling.

However, you shouldn't do this just for fun. It uses a lot more power and could wear down your computer faster, especially a laptop's battery.