Benchmarking software developer PassMark publishes the average results of all Windows PC tests across the globe every two weeks in a line graph. In line with what many enthusiasts might expect, the PassMark graph has always shown a consistent increase in processor performance year-on-year. However, for the first time since the company started keeping track in 2004, the average CPU mark score for desktop and laptop processors has dropped, with laptops dropping 3.4% year-over-year.
We see the biggest drop in laptop CPU performance results. PassMark recorded an average result of 14,632 across 101,316 samples last year. But, in 2025, the average score sat at an average of 14,130 points between 25,541 samples, decreasing the average score by 3.4%.
The average desktop PC result in 2024 netted 26,436 points for 186,053 samples. But for 2025, the average score currently sits at 26,311 points for over 47,810 samples — a 0.5% drop from last year. While that drop is small, we should only see a continued progression of faster performance.
We’ve also seen results for the top-performing CPUs, and it seems that we’ve basically reached a performance plateau, will little to no uplift in PassMark scores for the past three years for desktop chips and laptop CPUs. This happened after we received a massive uplift of 58.6% in the Top Desktop CPU benchmark scores in 2023, with the introduction of the AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7995WX. The arrival of the AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX3D laptop CPU in the same year also delivered a 69.9% jump in average performance for laptops. However, a new desktop chip that will dethrone the Threadripper Pro 7995WX is yet to arrive, while Intel’s new Core Ultra 275HX has provided a measly 6.8% increase in performance points on mobile.
What’s quite baffling, though, is that AMD, Intel, and even Qualcomm have just released new desktop and laptop CPUs that should have increased performance levels, according to their marketing. While it’s true that the AMD Ryzen 9000 series (except for the new X3D chips) and Intel Arrow Lake Core Ultra 200S processors were a disappointment for many enthusiasts, these should have at least delivered a modest increase in performance, particularly in productivity applications.
Passmark itself mused on X (formerly Twitter) that it could be that people are switching to more affordable machines that deliver lower power and performance. Or maybe Windows 11 is depressing performance scores versus Windows 10, especially as people transition to it with the upcoming demise of the latter. We've certainly seen plenty of examples of reduced performance in gaming with some of the newer versions of Windows 11, particularly as Intel and AMD struggled to upstream needed updates into the OS.
At the moment, we don’t know the cause of this drop, but it could also be that we’re just in the first quarter of 2025. As more people get newer gear and run tests for the remainder of the year, this number could climb and reflect the performance of newer chips that arrived recently, or will arrive in the coming months.
PassMark also muses that bloatware could contribute to the sudden decline in performance, but that seems like a longshot. In the end, the decline could simply be due to an odd interaction between the benchmark itself and the latest versions of Windows 11.
