If it is the CPU bottlenecking then changing that will just shift the bottleneck onto the drive. So I’d try changing the drive first just because it’s the cheapest option and it’ll need changing anyway regardless.
As for which drive that’s going to depend on what capacity you want and how much you want to spend. Pick a drive then look up the specs to check the sustained writes. You may need to read reviews because the specs don’t always list it.
Well then. Maybe I was wrong and it is the processor bottlenecking in steam as it might be decompressing the content at the same time.
Try running some internet speed test to test if this gives you better download performance.
I disagree with Octo, because the drive is more than sufficient according to the specs and the task manager screenshot proves that it has a lot of spare performance left.
as per my previous post.
1 Gigabit is not 1 GigaByte. ISPs use Gigabits maybe for marketing reasons so on paper it looks very fast.
1 Byte = 8 bits
“2.5Gbps (this value is in bits) is around 280 MB/s (this value is in bytes)
His current hard drive write speed is 1,600MB/s (value in Bytes)”
The specs are the headline speed not the sustained speed.
Yeah that drive is a bottleneck, the question is is it a bottleneck now or after the CPU is changed.
I’d be very supprised if a modern CPU can’t keep up with steam. Zen 4 isn’t that old.
Just seen your edit. The listed write speed on the drive is just the max burst speed. After you write a bit this drops to 140 MB/s. See the quote from the linked review in my post above.
This is common practice for SSDs especially NVME drives.
@Octo
How would you explain these results from the screenshot then?
What’s to explain. The speeds are up to and sustained speed can and will drop to 140 MB/s. Just because it ran at that speed during the screenshot doesn’t mean it didn’t drop the second after. You need to read up on SSDs mate.
Yeah it’ll fill up the DRAM first
That’s incorrect. it’s doesn’t store data in DRAM. It assignes a portion of the NAND to run in SLC mode, once that is filled it writes in TLC mode, or QLC if it’s a QLC drive, and that’s when the speed drops. The drive then needs some time, usually at idle, to replenish the SLC cache. Drive size and free space has an effect on the size of the SLC cache and how long it takes to recover.
Drive makers should make it clearer about the performance but higher equals better for the marketing department.
I will tell you what guys you are all talking to technical for me I only know the basics😂
Sorry I’m trying to explain it as best I can. There are probably article out there that do a better job.
Basicly if you write constantly to your drive it will slow down and become slower than your internet. Other drives have higher sustained speed than your current one so it might be worth switching. It might not make a difference but if the bottleneck is your CPU it will categorically rule it out and won’t then be a limitation going forward.
Okay Thanks I will order a NVME then and then obviously rule this out
@supershaun , Out of curiosity, can you run CrystalDiskMark hard disk speed test to see what your hard drive speed really is. I think Lee might be more to the point as I didn’t see that you processor is really maxing out on Steam app whereas your hard drive wasn’t
Yes I will give this a try shortly and update
Ops, we’ve got some small results (it doesn’t say if it’s in Mega Bytes or Bits), but you’ve downloaded some retro version.
I have updated image above
To me it doesn’t look like your hard drive might be or become an issue and rather it corresponds to your workload in task manager.
Your hard drive results are in Mega Bytes/s
Your internet speed is 2.3Gbps, which according to Bandwidth Calculator is around 287.5 Megabytes/s (MB)
Your computer would have to work constantly on the smallest possible files 4KiloBytes and write to random locations to get the performance down to 385MB/S, which is still more than your internet can get you (287MB/S).
In sequential write test of 1 Mega Byte file, you get 1337MB/S !
I would rather focus on CPU which may lead to also changing the motherboard + RAM from DDR4 to DDR5. However if you are changing already so many devices, why not changing more if you’ve got the funds. Then you could focus on secondary priorities like HDD, power supply, video card, etc.
Thanks for fast reply. I will have to put this on back burner for now until my son has got some pocket money saved up😂
He usually is spoilt off grandparents etc for his birthday/christmas😂
