Teams buy capacity hoping “Everything will be faster.” Separate outcomes capacity can change from problems that need modeling or gateway work.
Often improves after upgrade
- Concurrent refresh throughput (less time in Queued).
- Large Import model feasibility and incremental refresh policies.
- Interactive DAX headroom when the model was purely memory/CPU bound on capacity.
Does not improve with SKU alone
Credential failures, personal gateways, missing query folding (View Native Query gray), and DirectQuery hitting unindexed SQL. Those still Fail or spin after an upgrade. Likewise, measures like unbounded SUMX over facts remain slow — Performance Analyzer will still show VertiPaq SE / Formula engine hotspots independent of SKU.
Publish a before/after: metrics app CU charts + three refresh history durations + one interactive page timing. If only CU charts move but user timings do not, keep investigating DAX/SQL — do not buy the next tier on autopilot.