Benchmarking Insights on Windows 11 25H2
Despite the absence of an official release, the anticipation surrounding Windows 11 25H2 has prompted media outlets to conduct early benchmarking tests. Phoronix recently undertook a comparative analysis, pitting the forthcoming Windows version against Canonical’s Ubuntu 25.10, Ubuntu 24.0.3 LTS, and its immediate predecessor, Windows 11 24H2. The goal was to ascertain whether 25H2 brings any notable performance enhancements to the table.
The findings from Phoronix’s rigorous testing were somewhat disappointing for Microsoft enthusiasts. The benchmarks indicated that Windows 11 25H2 did not surpass the performance metrics of 24H2. In fact, in several tests, it fell short, showcasing a lack of significant improvement. The testing environment featured a robust setup, utilizing a Ryzen 9 9950X processor alongside 32GB of DDR5 memory, and encompassed a comprehensive suite of 41 benchmarks. These included demanding applications such as LuxCoreRender, Embree, Intel Open Image Denoise, OSPRay, and IndigoBench.
For those familiar with Phoronix’s previous evaluations of Windows versus Linux, the results were predictable. Both versions of Ubuntu emerged victorious, outperforming Windows 11 25H2 by approximately 15% on average across the benchmark geomean. When focusing solely on the Windows operating systems, 25H2 demonstrated a lackluster performance, yielding a 0% increase compared to 24H2 throughout the entire benchmarking suite.
It is noteworthy that Windows 11 25H2 is built on the same servicing branch as 24H2, which accounts for the similarities observed between the two versions. Essentially, 25H2 activates features that are already present in 24H2 but remain disabled. Users of 24H2 will have to wait for these features to be gradually enabled over time. This incremental approach contrasts sharply with the substantial overhaul seen in 24H2, which involved significant rewrites of the operating system in Rust.
Consequently, Windows 11 25H2 stands out as one of the smallest “major” updates Microsoft has rolled out for Windows 11 to date. The update introduces only a handful of new features while also removing certain existing ones, such as PowerShell 2.0 and the Windows Management Instrumentation command-line. Furthermore, the transition from 24H2 to 25H2 will be streamlined, delivered as an enablement package that necessitates just a single restart, akin to a standard cumulative update.
