CPU Tweaks: What They Change and Who They Suit
The CPU page under Hardware is the one worth visiting first, because processor tuning benefits almost every system regardless of what graphics card you have.
Intel and AMD are treated separately
The app detects which you have and offers the right set. They are genuinely different, so applying the wrong one does nothing useful.
What the main optimizations do
- Stop cores being parked and left idle when work arrives
- Prevent power throttling that quietly slows programs down
- Keep the processor in a higher performance state instead of dropping into deep power saving
- Adjust scheduling and priority so foreground work comes first
The deeper ones
Disabling C-States and power throttling are Premium and more aggressive. They keep the processor ready at all times, at the cost of more heat and more power. On a desktop with decent cooling that is a fair trade. On a thin laptop it often is not.
Core unparking
Windows parks cores it thinks are unneeded, then has to wake them when load arrives. Unparking removes that delay. It is one of the more reliably noticeable changes on systems with many cores.
Restart afterwards
Several of these take effect only after a restart. If you measure before restarting you will conclude nothing happened.
If your PC gets hotter
That is expected with the aggressive options, because the processor spends less time idling down. If temperatures concern you, use the standard optimization and leave the extreme items alone.
Related: Hardware tweaks, Power plans.