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What if I told you you could speed up your PC just by moving a slider towards go faster?

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Well, something similar to that is actually built into modern versions of Windows.

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The performance power slider was introduced in Windows 10,

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and the point is to give laptop and tablet users an easy way to trade off between

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performance and power savings, which is important for stretching out your battery life.

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In the past, the only real option Microsoft gave you to do that was switching between the

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various power plans that you had to dig down into the control panel to find.

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The power slider was developed as a simpler, easy-to-understand way to tweak your system's

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energy consumption right from the notification area, without having to hunt around or think too much

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about how individual programs or settings are affecting the overall power drive,

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is this connecting to that or what's- it's all over that place?

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Of course, this isn't a super granular, analog-like slider that you see on those

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old-school stereo equalizers. There are only four settings you can have the slider set at,

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battery saver, which you won't see if the PC is plugged in, better battery, which is sometimes

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called recommended, better performance, which is the Windows default, and best performance.

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Now, if you don't see the power slider, it's probably because those confusingly similar,

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but definitely different, power plans still exist in the control panel, and you don't have

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yours set to balanced. You see, the legacy power plans actually control more things than the

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performance slider, so if you have a plan other than balanced enabled, that will essentially act

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as an override for all your power settings, and you won't see the slider show up. Aw.

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But if you pick balanced, the slider will use the balanced plan as a starting point

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and tweak performance according to what you select. The settings on the slider only affect

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factors that directly impact performance, so it won't control, for example, how long it'll be

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until your display turns off. So in reality, each slider setting is like a mini power plan.

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Instead, you'll notice more or less responsiveness in your programs depending on where you have

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the slider set. One major difference between each of the settings is the behavior of background

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programs that you're not directly interacting with at a given moment. By default, Windows

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throttles the CPU frequency for these programs to save energy, but if you're noticing sluggish

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performance, you can change the slider to a higher setting or just set it to best performance,

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which disables background throttling completely. But is there a best setting to use most of the time?

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Unfortunately, we can't answer that question due to the near infinite number of use cases and

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hardware configurations out there, and on top of that, computer manufacturers can actually

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customize what exactly each setting on the slider does before your PC ever makes its way to you.

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This is to better adapt each setting to that PC's specific needs. For example, some Lenovo

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laptops tie in fan speeds to the performance slider. And speaking of laptops, the slider only

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shows up by default on laptops and other devices that run off a battery. A manufacturer can enable

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it for desktops, but if your desktop doesn't have it, you can change the same settings under

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power mode in the new settings app. Ultimately, you'll have to play around and see which setting

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gives you the best balance of power savings and performance in whichever situations you use your

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computer for. Or just set it to max, plug it in, burn some extra money on your power bill if that

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makes you feel like a big man. And I'd say it's pretty big of you to watch all the way to the end

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of this video. Thanks for that. Hey, if you liked the video, like it. Dislike it if you disliked it.

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Check out our other videos, comment below with video suggestions, and don't forget to subscribe

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and follow. But you already know all that. You're the best.