CPU Power Plans

CPU-aware power plans

GamerGuardian detects your CPU and helps you run the right gaming power plan for it — either by switching to the best-matching prebuilt Windows plan, or by building a GamerGuardian-authored optimized plan tuned for your chip.

Your built-in Windows plans are never touched. The app only creates or re-tunes its own plan and switches the active plan. Balanced, High Performance, Power Saver, and any custom plan you made are left exactly as they are.

What is detected

A single cached registry read of your processor name at startup (no WMI, no hardware probing). From it the app extracts vendor, model, and family. CCD topology and parking strategy come from the tune catalog, not core counts.

How a tune is chosen

Exact model → CPU family → safe generic. The optimized option is always available; only its precision changes. The prebuilt suggestion is always offered alongside.

The core principle: cache asymmetry, not CCD count

CPU class	Examples	Parking
Single-CCD X3D	9850X3D, 9800X3D, 7800X3D	Off (min cores 100)
Asymmetric dual-CCD X3D	9950X3D, 9900X3D, 7950X3D, 7900X3D	Park frequency CCD (min cores 50)
Dual-V-cache X3D	9950X3D2	Off (both CCDs have cache)
Non-X3D Ryzen	7700X, 9700X, 7950X, 9950X	Off
Intel hybrid	12th–14th gen, Core Ultra	Leave Thread Director's default
Unknown	anything else	Default (generic tune)

The "park one CCD" rule applies only to asymmetric dual-CCD X3D (one V-cache CCD among two). Everything else wants parking off.

Prebuilt vs optimized

• Suggest best prebuilt — switches to the best installed Windows plan (Balanced for modern CPUs). Creates nothing.
• Build optimized — clones Balanced into a GamerGuardian Gaming [<model>] plan with aggressive boost and the correct parking. Idempotent (re-tunes its own plan instead of stacking duplicates) and machine-bound.

Every action is logged and verified (active scheme and each setting value).

Dual-CCD: necessary but not sufficient

For asymmetric dual-CCD X3D the power plan depends on a stack the app can't set: BIOS CPPC Dynamic Preferred Cores = Driver, the AMD 3D V-Cache Optimizer service, and Xbox Game Bar. The CPU / Power tab surfaces these; the app never claims a bare "optimized ✓", and the Recommended preset won't disable Game Bar or the AMD service on these chips.

Why not High Performance?

It's outdated advice for modern CPUs. High Performance pins clocks to 100% and disables core parking, which steals single-core boost headroom, runs hotter, and breaks Thread Director / X3D cache-CCD routing. GamerGuardian's Balanced-clone tune gets the benefit without the cost — so it builds Balanced-based plans and recommends Balanced, never High Performance.

See also: Verification, Logging.