Power Mode

Isn’t That Powerful?

Unless you’re running SQL Server on a laptop, it probably should’t be in anything other than High Performance.

• Balanced: Balanced only increases your CPU’s speed when needed. The rest of the time, they’re spun down, and they may not spin up to full speed immediately. It ain’t easy being green, but your SQL Server isn’t the place to play Captain Planet.
• High Performance: High Performance mode keeps things spinning at full speed all the time. No messing with C-States!

Sometimes switching this has an immediate impact on performance. You may also need to verify this setting in you Hypervisor software if you’re running a VM, and sometimes even in BIOS.

One way to tell if you’re running at lower-than-clock speed is to use CPU-Z.

You can read more about this problem from a first-hand story of StackOverflow.com’s issues with it, too.