The synthetic benchmark tool PassMark has detected an unusual trend: for the first time, average CPU performance is declining.
Since the proclamation of Moore’s law, the world of PC components has only known one direction: it has to go faster and faster. The performance leaps can be observed in various benchmarks.
You can choose from demanding PC games or synthetic tools such as “PassMark”. The software from the Australian company of the same name is particularly well known for the reliable options for comparing processors that can be found in its in-house database.
On the X platform (formerly Twitter), the official PassMark account is now reporting a surprising trend in this context: for the first time since PassMark started recording it in 2004, average CPU performance is declining.
So this is unexpected.
Average CPU performance in 2025 is going down.
Maybe first time in history?
Why, we don’t know….
Maybe people buying cheaper hardware or low (electrical) power machines?
Maybe crap bloatware? Maybe Win11 vs Win10?https://t.co/WLhmTtHV81 pic.twitter.com/AkaoJ1zB9j— PassMark Software (@PassMarkInc) February 10, 2025
The PassMark graph indicates the submitted “baselines” – i.e. a fixed interim result set – of the CPUs. Since participation is not limited to one region, PassMark considers the data, which is updated every two weeks, to be “globally representative”.
- For desktop CPUs, an average performance decline of around 0.5 percent can be observed in the annual comparison with 2024. While this is not a major crash, it is the first time that there has been a decline in this context.
- The decline in laptop CPUs is much more significant: according to PassMark, a year-on-year decline of 3.4 percent can be observed.
Of course, we are still in the middle of February, so the numbers for 2025 don’t necessarily have to stay that way.
However, AMD is only planning to release the Ryzen 9 9900X3D and Ryzen 9 9950X3D in the coming weeks, which, at least in terms of volume, are not likely to be big sellers. At Intel, the future prospects look even less rosy in view of the failed Arrow Lake launch.
Nothing has happened in the absolute top segment for some time either: last year, not a single new processor was released that could knock the PassMark-Krösus Threadripper Pro 7995WX, released in 2023, off its throne. In view of this, PassMark also speculates about possible reasons for the stagnation:
It is conceivable, for example, that potential buyers are fundamentally frugal and simply see no reason to upgrade. With regard to processors like the three-year-old Ryzen 7 5800X3D, which is still easily powerful enough for current games, there is probably no reason to buy a new one.
PassMark also brings up considerations regarding Windows 10 and Windows 11, which have basically prompted buyers to make more price-conscious purchases and thus pulled the average down.
