Task Manager does not use a low enough polling period to measure SSD activity accurately, so we used HWInfo with the polling period set to 20 milliseconds. We tested SSD activity across all of the game’s graphics presets at 4K using DLSS Quality.
In our previous tests of games that relied heavily on the SSD, none came close to sustaining 1 GB/s of average bandwidth. The highest we recorded was 366 MB/s in Forspoken at 4K with maximum settings, while many titles stayed well under 100 MB/s. Some games did show higher peak bandwidths, but these spikes lasted only a few milliseconds. For our purposes, it’s the sustained throughput – reflected in the average bandwidth – that truly matters.
In Gears of War: E-Day at higher settings, we essentially have a steady stream of a little over 1 GB/s at all times, indicating that the disk is indeed being utilized as an extension of system memory. As you can see, peaks hit up to 3.7 GB/s of throughput.
We measured RAM usage on our high-end system to see how much the game will use across each generation of SSD tested.
The game uses a significant amount of system memory, but having the game installed on an NVMe SSD – regardless of generation – saves about 2GB of RAM. The storage technology seems to be working as expected.
Since the game’s average read bandwidth far exceeds the limits of a SATA SSD, we expect that installing the game on one would lead to visual issues – and that is exactly what we observe.
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware) (Image credit: Tom's Hardware) Image 1 of 2 View Original
In the first comparison, textures are slow to load, which noticeably reduces image quality. In the second comparison, lighting and shadows take some time to appear. While everything eventually loads correctly, running the game on a SATA SSD does hurt immersion.
We tested the game across four generations of SSDs to evaluate any impact on performance. Using a high-end system with ample memory, we aim to determine the behavior of the storage technology on a system that is not resource-constrained. We will then compare the performance of our laptop’s internal PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD with that of a SATA SSD.
On a system with sufficient memory, installing the game on a SATA SSD has no measurable performance impact. The only drawback is the aforementioned visual degradation.
Now, we focused on our lower-end system with only 16GB of DDR5.
Key considerations
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Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/ssds/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/ssds/we-tested-the-ram-saving-storage-tech-in-gears-of-war-e-day-up-to-3-7-gb-s-of-ssd-streaming-speed-saves-several-gigabytes-of-system-ram-usage#main
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