SSD - Necessary for streamlined gaming?

[MrWideFit]

Hello all,

I’ve currently decided that i want to start using my gaming pc i got 5 years or so ago and try out some new stuff, however i have found that game seem to be loading rather slowly and wondered if anyone would know how to help it

From what i have researched it seems like using my external HDD may be a large cause of this (never really used to use it so never invested in a good SSD) and that i should upgrade to a more efficient storage system,

Can anyone 1. suggest if this is most likely the case and 2. advise whether different SSD brands are better/worse than others etc.

Not very tech minded as may be obvious so all help is welcome

[Brainpox]

Yes you need an SSD for gaming. This has probably been the case for 10 years now. Unbelievable that they sold you a gaming PC with no SSD in it.

Any internal SSD will do really. You don't want to go external as the transfer speed will likely be a limiting factor. For gaming there isn't much advantage to be had going for the most expensive PCI gen 5 NVME drive vs a 2.5" conventional SSD format so anything in budget will do

[Mr E]

What’s the spec of the machine?
5 years is a long time…
(Granted, my desktop is ~13 years old)

[MrWideFit]

Thanks

It did come with an SSD, all 128gb worth which holds mostly my operating system and other bits like that

I will have to see what good deals there are for 2.5” SSDs and make an investment.

[MrWideFit]

Mr E said:

What s the spec of the machine?
5 years is a long time
(Granted, my desktop is ~13 years old)

Basic specs (let me know if i missed anything) are RTX 2060 which i know needs upgrading, Intel I7 10700F and 32gb 3200mhz of DDR4 ram. The current hard drive with everything loaded on is just a 5 or so year old seagate usb external drive which won’t help i’m sure of that

[Djtemeka]

Time for a sparkly new pc

[eeLee]

I'd replace the SSD. Reformatting clean would help but capacity is your enemy, games are large.

You want your games and your OS on SSD. Latency is not good.

I would not say you need a new PC at this time. Especially not a MacBook Air.....

[simon_harris]

Just buy a ps or an xbox

[dapprman]

I stuck a basic Samsung 1TB SSD in my old PC and it was a complete step up game performance wise.

Edited by dapprman on Thursday 25th September 00:08

[captain_cynic]

I wouldn't call them strictly necessary but are highly recommended because...

dapprman said:

I stuck a basic Samsung 1TB SSD in my old PC and it was a complate step up game performance wise.

Doubly so if the OP is using an external HDD where the USB interface is going to be adding even more slowness.

A decent SSD is cheap as chips these days. £100 ish for a 2TB. Why wouldn't you.

[Griffith4ever]

captain_cynic said:

Doubly so if the OP is using an external HDD where the USB interface is going to be adding even more slowness.

A decent SSD is cheap as chips these days. £100 ish for a 2TB. Why wouldn't you.

Yep - external HDD - shudder.... as a backup device? sure. As a "live" device - god no.

Just grab a SATA SSD (or NVME M2 if your Mobo has a slot). A very quick glance shows £40 will get you 1Tb on Amazon (SATA SSD)

[MrWideFit]

In order to prevent the thread from being unresolved i will update it with the fact i went and acquired a 1TB M.2 SSD, granted it’s nothing fancy/expenisve, and the improvement in loading times and performance is night and day

I found on beam.ng which i have used as a benchmark when i have added parts went from 60-75avg to 140avg which i believe was all down to the bottleneck of the USB HDD and the 32gb of RAM i fitted a few days prior to that,

Thanks to all who offered their advice, it was very much appreciated