The Age of Progress in Question: CPUs Get Slower for the First Time in 20 Years
Analysts at PassMark, a leading performance benchmarking platform, have published unprecedented data: for the first time in 20 years, the average CPU performance for both laptops and desktops has shown a downward trend.
According to the report, mobile processors saw a 3.4% year-over-year decline. In 2024, the average score of 101,000 tested devices stood at 14,632 points, but by early 2025, 25,500 newly benchmarked laptops averaged just 14,130 points. Desktops fared slightly better, with only a 0.5% drop (from 26,436 to 26,311 points), yet even this minor decrease disrupted decades of consistent progress.
Experts highlight the stagnation of high-end chips. The reigning champion from 2023, the AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7995WX, remains unbeaten, while the mobile Ryzen 9 7945HX3D, which achieved an impressive 69.9% performance leap, has been overtaken by Intel’s Core Ultra 275HX, offering a modest 6.8% gain. Meanwhile, AMD’s Ryzen 9000 series and Intel’s Arrow Lake Core Ultra 200S, despite ambitious marketing promises, have failed to reverse the trend.
PassMark suggests several possible explanations. First, users are increasingly opting for budget-friendly, energy-efficient devices rather than performance-driven ones. Second, Windows 11 may be slowing systems down due to poor optimization — especially in gaming, where AMD and Intel drivers struggle to keep up with OS updates.
The analysts emphasize that these findings are preliminary. So far, four times fewer laptops and 3.8 times fewer desktops have been tested compared to all of 2024. It remains possible that new chip releases and additional data will shift the trend upward. However, if this decline continues, it could signal a turning point for the industry — an end to the era of "automatic" performance gains, where future progress will require true innovation.
