Technology

Microsoft: Windows 11 BitLocker can slow fast NVMe PCs in gaming/video editing. Historically single-digit overhead

Source

Windows Latest

Published

Dec 24, 2025

TL;DR

AI Generated

Microsoft has acknowledged that enabling BitLocker on PCs with NVMe SSDs can impact performance, especially with newer, powerful SSDs, leading to increased CPU usage for decryption during heavy I/O tasks like gaming or video editing. With Windows 11, BitLocker is now turned on by default, but Microsoft has introduced hardware-accelerated BitLocker in newer updates to offload crypto work from the CPU, resulting in improved performance and reduced CPU usage. Performance tests show that hardware-accelerated BitLocker significantly enhances random 4K performance compared to software encryption, doubling speeds in most scenarios. Users can verify if their PC supports hardware-accelerated BitLocker through a command-line tool.

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