As the adoption of Windows 11 becomes more widespread, the question of which version of the OS to choose arises.
Windows 11 is both the future and the past of Windows. The past, because the operating system isn't all that recent after all, having been launched in 2021. The future, because it finally marks its difference from Windows 10, which it now supplants for many users, as Microsoft prepares to cut the cord: next October, the Redmond firm will definitively end its follow-up to Windows 10. But Windows 11 is not in fact a "single package". Several versions of the system linger on the Net, depending on whether you've stayed on 22H2, 23H2 or upgraded to the latest update deployed, 24H2.
© Neowin
While there's no question of going all the way back to 22H2, or even to the launch version of Windows 11, the Neowin site has looked into the question of the performance you can expect depending on whether you've stayed at 23H2 or upgraded to 24H2. Interesting differences were reported by various parties, and rather than rely on hearsay, Neowin decided to put the two systems to the test, on several different test programs. First of all, 3DMark was used, and while there was a considerable difference on the oldest scene - Fire Strike Ultra was clearly in favor of 23H2 - the results were virtually identical on a more recent scene such as Time Spy Extreme. The same applies to the even more demanding Speedway stage, while 3DMark's most recent stage - Steel Nomad - gives a slight advantage to 24H2.
© Neowin
Next, Neowin's editors took a closer look at various games. We won't repeat all their examples here - the easiest way is still to consult their very interesting dossier - but we'll keep the Black Myth: Wukong game, one of the most recently used. This is where things get very interesting, because while performance is virtually identical when NVIDIA's image generation technology is not activated, the results change dramatically when it is. It's as if Windows 11 24H2 were more at ease with the latest technologies than 23H2, at least in video games. Subsequently, Neowin also used software such as Cinebench 2024 or PCMark, with no noticeable differences. In other words, there's every reason to believe that, despite the criticisms of some users at the launch of 24H2, the latest Windows 11 update is now completely up to scratch, and that there's no longer any real question of losing out on performance compared with Windows 11 23H2... although, of course, some very specific software may be affected.
