Is Windows 11 Slower Than Windows 10 on the Same PC?
Short answer
On recent hardware, Windows 11 performs within a few percent of Windows 10. On an older CPU the gap is real and the main cause is Virtualisation-Based Security, which is enabled by default and costs roughly 5–15% on CPU-bound work. Check its status by running msinfo32 and looking for Virtualisation-based security in the System Summary before assuming the OS itself is the problem.
On this page
The short version is that it depends almost entirely on the age of the CPU, and that people asking this question are usually on the half of the split where the answer is yes.
On a machine from the last few years, the difference between the two versions is small enough to be invisible outside a benchmark. On a machine that ran Windows 10 happily for five years and was upgraded, Windows 11 is often measurably slower — and the reason is specific, identifiable and partly reversible.
Where the difference actually comes from
| Change in Windows 11 | Typical cost | Reversible? |
|---|---|---|
| Virtualisation-Based Security on by default | 5–15% CPU-bound work | Yes, with a security trade-off |
| Higher baseline memory use | 1–2GB more at idle | Not meaningfully |
| Thread scheduler changes | Varies; can be negative on older CPUs | Partly, via chipset drivers |
| Heavier shell animations and transparency | Latency, not throughput | Yes, fully |
| Start menu web search | 1–2 seconds per search | Yes, fully |
Only the first two are genuine throughput costs. The rest affect how the machine feels, which matters more to most people than a benchmark number does.
The big one: Virtualisation-Based Security
Windows 11 uses the CPU’s hardware virtualisation to run parts of the operating system in an isolated container, so that a compromised driver cannot reach the kernel. It is a real defence against a real class of attack, and it costs real performance.
The size of the cost depends on the CPU generation. Processors with current virtualisation extensions handle it with little impact. Older ones — the machines most likely to have been upgraded rather than bought with 11 — pay noticeably more.
Check whether it is running:
- Press Win+R, type
msinfo32, press Enter. - In System Summary, find Virtualisation-based security.
- Running means it is active.
The detail that explains a lot of confusing forum threads: on a clean install of Windows 11, it is usually on. On a machine upgraded in place from Windows 10, it varies. Two identical PCs can therefore behave differently, and a machine that felt fine before an upgrade can feel worse afterwards for this one reason.
To turn it off: Settings → Privacy & security → Windows Security → Device security → Core isolation → turn off Memory integrity, then restart.
Weigh this properly. You are removing a protection, not enabling a hidden performance mode. On an older machine used for gaming and browsing, disabling it is defensible. On a laptop holding work data, it is not.
The memory floor moved
Windows 11 uses more RAM at idle than Windows 10 did on the same hardware, mostly because of the virtualisation layer and the newer shell components.
The practical consequence: 8GB machines that coped on Windows 10 now start paging to disk during ordinary use, and paging presents as a disk bottleneck rather than a memory one. People then spend a week chasing disk usage.
Open Task Manager → Performance → Memory and use the machine normally. If In use sits above 85%, or Committed exceeds your installed RAM, memory is your limit and no setting fixes that. The browser is almost always the largest consumer, and reducing Chrome’s memory use is usually the cheapest improvement available before buying anything.
The scheduler and why drivers matter more now
Windows 11 changed how work is assigned to CPU cores, specifically to handle Intel’s performance and efficiency core designs. When it works, it is better than Windows 10’s approach. When the chipset driver is wrong or missing, work lands on efficiency cores that should be on performance cores, and the result is a machine that is slow in bursts for no visible reason.
Windows Update ships conservative generic drivers. The ones that matter here come from the vendor:
- Chipset driver from Intel or AMD. This is the one that affects scheduling.
- Graphics driver from Intel, NVIDIA or AMD directly.
- Storage controller driver from your PC manufacturer.
On a laptop, the manufacturer’s support page for the exact model number is the correct source rather than the chip vendor’s generic package.
The parts that are only perception
A fair share of “Windows 11 is slower” is latency rather than speed, and all of it is adjustable.
Animations and transparency are heavier than Windows 10’s and cost more than they look like they should on integrated graphics. Settings → Accessibility → Visual effects → turn off Animation effects and Transparency effects. The interface feels immediately quicker.
Start menu search queries Bing while searching locally, so local results wait for the network. Settings → Privacy & security → Search permissions → turn off the cloud content search options. Typing an app name then produces it instantly.
The right-click context menu in Windows 11 hides older entries behind Show more options, which adds a click and a short delay for anything installed by a third-party application. There is no supported setting to revert it; the keyboard shortcut Shift+F10 opens the full classic menu directly.
Widgets keep a process fetching news and weather. Settings → Personalisation → Taskbar → turn off Widgets.
What the honest comparison looks like
Take two identical machines, one on each OS, with drivers current and virtualisation-based security disabled on the Windows 11 side. The performance difference is within noise on almost every workload.
Leave virtualisation-based security on, as it is by default, and Windows 11 is behind on CPU-bound work by a margin that grows as the CPU gets older.
That is the whole story. Windows 11 is not inherently bloated relative to its predecessor in the way the discussion suggests; it has one security feature with a measurable cost that Windows 10 did not enable by default, plus a shell that prioritises appearance over latency.
Should you go back?
Almost certainly not, and the practical constraints matter as much as the performance argument:
- Windows 10 support ended in October 2025. No security updates outside the paid Extended Security Updates programme. An unpatched machine on the internet gets worse every month in a way that is not visible until it matters.
- The rollback window is ten days. After that, the
Windows.oldfolder holding your previous installation is removed automatically, and going back means a clean install from media. What that folder is and when it disappears is covered in whether you can safely delete Windows.old. - Most of the gap is closeable. Drivers, visual effects, web search and the virtualisation-based security decision together recover the bulk of it.
The genuine exception is a machine that is below the practical hardware floor — 8GB of RAM, or a mechanical hard drive. Neither version runs well on those, and Windows 11 runs worse. An SSD upgrade changes more than the OS version does.
Realistic expectations
On supported hardware with current drivers, there is nothing to recover and the perceived difference is the shell. Turning off animations and web search closes most of it in five minutes.
On an older upgraded machine, disabling Memory integrity and installing the vendor chipset and graphics drivers produces a clear improvement, and that is where the measurable gap lives. The remaining difference after that is small enough that chasing it is not worth the time.
If the machine is slow in a way that predates the version question entirely, diagnosing a slow Windows PC finds the actual bottleneck faster than comparing operating systems does.