I recently built a new PC featuring a 5070ti graphics card and a Ryzen 7 7800x3d processor, complemented by 16GB of RAM and a 5600Hz refresh rate. I installed a Crucial 500GB BX500 Series 3D NAND SATA 3.0 SSD with read speeds of 550MB and write speeds of 500MB. However, while gaming, particularly in CS2, the system freezes unexpectedly. In Rust, I see 'GC' in the bottom left corner during these freezes, and I experience similar stutters in Battlefield 6. Should I consider switching to an M.2 SSD, or could my current SSD be causing a performance bottleneck? Note that I didn't recently purchase the graphics card; I upgraded from a lower-end setup that had a 1050 two or three years ago.
2 Answers
That 'GC' notification stands for Garbage Collection, which is related to memory allocation rather than your SSD. The temporary freezes could result from shader compilation or your RAM being maxed out. I wouldn’t pin the blame on the SSD; it’s probably the least likely culprit. Have you tried updating your graphics drivers or checked your RAM usage?
M.2 drives are definitely faster than traditional SATA SSDs, which can lead to quicker load times and a smoother gaming experience. That said, your SATA SSD should still perform well enough for gaming. It's likely not the reason for your crashes or freezes—there could be something else at play here.
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