Are there any signs that your older SSD or power supply unit is affecting your computer's performance?
Are there any signs that your older SSD or power supply unit is affecting your computer's performance?
Hey there! I’ve noticed my computer isn’t quite as quick or smooth as my friends’ setups. After upgrading from 60 to 165Hz, I saw the improvement right away, but my screen and gameplay still felt a bit less fluid compared to theirs. My machine has a 1660 6GB, Ryzen 5 5600X, 16GB RAM at 2133MHz. I swapped the GPU with a friend who has an 2060 8GB model to check for differences, but he didn’t notice any changes. On his system everything ran smoothly—Windows desktop and games alike. Back on my end, the new GPU gave me more FPS without any noticeable lag. I thought maybe my monitor was the issue while gaming or browsing, but after testing, it wasn’t the case. I’ve been trying to tweak things but don’t know what else to change. Recently, I realized my power supply and SSD are around 8 years old. I’m curious if moving Windows to a smaller M.2 drive or upgrading the PSU would help. Anyone have any tips? Thanks!
The remaining space on the drive is limited, and as it fills up, performance drops significantly. When something feels "smooth" it means the system runs without lag or delays, while issues like slow loading indicate problems with data access or resource availability.
It would be wise to increase your RAM to 3200 or 3600MHz. DDR4 is already near its peak, making it easier to replace older components while saving costs. Ryzen performs well with faster RAM, and storage speed doesn’t significantly impact gaming performance. A 120 SSD should not become a bottleneck compared to M.2. Keeping your operating system and game files on the same drive is beneficial, as modern games demand more resources. Upgrading to a 500GB M.2 drive would be a worthwhile investment after waiting so long.
You may also want to verify if your RAM is delivering full performance. The standard setting for DDR4 is 2133. If your installed RAM supports higher speeds like 2666, 3200, or 3600, you might need to enable XMP or recall the AMD equivalent in the computer's BIOS.
What are the complete details of your setup? Which power source are you connecting? Have you tracked CPU and GPU activity along with clock speeds while playing? In my view, installing Windows on a M.2 slot won't fix the problem. Unless it does, it's probably not linked to using that specific drive. It’s more likely connected to how you installed Windows (like a fresh install). This is particularly relevant if your M.2 is standard SATA rather than NVMe.
I have concerns mainly about streaming textures. When you use games that depend a lot on streaming textures—like Ratchet and Clank—the storage will struggle in certain areas, leading to lag and choppy performance. I also encountered this with Shadow of the Tomb Raider; saving it to my hard drive caused noticeable delays. Switching to an SSD eliminated the lag since the drive loaded objects much faster.
It's not about how fast the writes or reads are, but rather the I/O performance of the I/O operations. Most consumer SSDs do have limited I/O speeds.
The change was mainly due to switching from a traditional hard drive to an SSD. Storage speed can really affect how quickly a game loads and runs, especially with different games. I didn’t go into technical details. The SSD offers more IOPS, which speeds things up even further by reducing wait times compared to a hard drive.
The issue isn't about switching from SATA SSDs to NVMe drives. You're focusing on the right topic.
He clarified the issue: The statement is too broad since it doesn’t define which drives are being discussed. He referenced only switching between SSDs, not other types.