By
Delia
/ Last
update
February 21, 2022
In the upcoming Sun Valley 2 feature update, Microsoft will introduce a new feature for Task Manager to suspend applications that use too many system resources. The feature, called Efficiency Mode, can limit the consumption of a process so that the system prioritizes other applications and extends the laptop's endurance performance.
Microsoft has reportedly been testing Efficiency Mode for a year and it has observed up to 4x performance improvements (76% reduction in resource usage) on CPU-intensive systems. This resulted in a better UI response and also improved the speed of the task manager itself.
Previously, if an application or process was slowing down the system, you could right-click on the entry and select "End Task" to close the process. Windows 11's new "Efficiency Mode" ensures that processes perform in the most efficient way possible. It doesn't kill processes, but rather lowers their priority to "low" to allow other applications to access system resources.
To enable this feature, simply right-click on a specific process in Task Manager and select "Efficiency Mode". If the option is grayed out, this usually means that it is a core Windows process and throttling it may affect system performance.
If used properly, efficiency mode can benefit all types of applications. In one case where Eco Mode was applied to a CPU-intensive process, applications like Microsoft Word started up 2x faster, and other applications like Edge saw considerable benefits as well.