In the upcoming Sun Valley 2 feature update, Microsoft will introduce a new feature for the Task Manager to suspend applications that use too many system resources. This feature, called Efficiency Mode or Eco Mode, can extend the battery life of the notebook.
When the mode is enabled, it will also improve overall performance by pausing the resource usage of user-selected processes. This can be done by highlighting a specific process in Task Manager and then selecting Productivity Mode.
If an application or process is slowing down the system, you may right-click the entry and select End Task to close the process. As part of efforts to simplify resource management, Microsoft is introducing support for efficiency mode/ecological mode to limit the consumption of one process, allowing the system to prioritize other applications.
Unlike the End Task option that kills the process immediately, Windows 11’s new “Efficiency Mode” lowers the priority of the process to “Low”, but it doesn’t kill the process. When the priority is set to low, the rest of the applications will get system resources, and Microsoft’s new technology ensures that processes execute in the most efficient manner.
Microsoft has been testing Efficiency Mode for a year, and it has observed up to 4x performance improvements (76% reduction in resource usage) on CPU-intensive systems. This results in better UI responsiveness, and it also improves the speed of the task manager itself.
When used properly, efficiency mode can benefit all types of applications. In one case where Eco Mode was applied to CPU-intensive processes, apps like Microsoft Word launched 2x faster, and other apps like Edge saw the considerable benefit.