SSD VS SSHD performance. Will i notice a diffrence going from SSHD to SSD?

[famaffe]

Hello!


Im writing this post as im about to buy an SSD right after christmas to put windows 10 and Arma 3 on. Now as im currently using a Seagate Desktop 1TB 3.5" SSHD for everything on my pc.
And on Arma 3 while playing (mostly on modded servers like exile) but also on king of the hill etc i get some serious FPS drops. Like we are talking from 50 to like 2 in worst case. But usually just a stutter or a mini freeze while theres alot to load in for example.

So my question is: Will an SSD significantly reduce the stuttering if i replace my SSHD with an SSD? Or is the performance of an SSHD just as good as an SSD?

Will i or will i not notice a difference in upgrading to a SSD from an SSHD in arma 3 (stuttering and mini freezes)

Worth noting that the SSD i would buy is an Samsung 850 PRO 256 GB

Also here are my pc specs:

Corsair VS550, 550W PSU

I5 4690K (pretty sure it runs at 4,5Ghz)

ASUS B85-PRO GAMER, ATX

Ballistix Sport DDR3 1600MHz 8GB (2x4GB)

TURBO-GTX970-OC-4GD5

Seagate Desktop 1TB 3.5" SSHD

Win 10 Home

Im really hoping you guys can help me and hopefully an SSD will be there right thing for me as im 99% sure that my pc should be able to run arma 3 well on all other aspects atm expect the harddrive maybe?

My issue in short: When the game is trying to load alot of stuff i get fps drops and mini freezes until its settled down. Will me getting a SSD instead of an SSHD reduce this effect as its faster? I understand it wont boost my fps but i want more stable fps.

 

[famaffe]

Your cpu and gpu are certainly not rendering too fast for your hdd. I'm on a 1080ti which is a lot more powerful than your gpu and a 6600k at 4.5ghz which is also more powerful and my 7200rpm drive is doing just fine. An ssd will improve your general system performance and it is definitely worth getting but it will not effect frame rates unless you run into a (very rare) game that is coded so poorly that it fails to utilize ram and streams off the hard drive. GTA V is not one of those games. What an ssd would be good for is improving load times and speeding up applications and windows start time.
Make sure your settings aren't too high. No more than high/very high mixed settings recommended at a resolution no higher than 1080p. If you want higher settings you would need a better gpu. Grass also eats up a lot of fps on that game, set it no higher than high.

I have terrain on low and grass diabled since yes it does kill fps.

But i tabbed out when the lags happened and i see that when it starts lagging my hdd rises fast to 100% usage, typically when its loading alot of things in or when i zoom in on something. Could this be a direct indication that the hard drive is throttling my fps during these times?

 

[Neur0nauT]

I don't think SSHD > SSD will improve the FPS dips you're getting. ARMA3 is a PITA to run relatively smoothly. Your processor is still good, but along with the 970, you'll be getting some CPU bound bottlenecks in ARMA3 at least, because it's heavily CPU bound.

A large amount of the relative performance is down to the host server, and also dependant on the amount of players on that server. Have you ever noticed on one server you would get amazing performance, then on the next one...it's all over the show? This is because some servers are obviously quicker/stronger ,and also run a lot of optimisations on the hosted session, such as maximum server bandwidth, draw distances, lower trees etc. This all helps everybody run smoother.

That is not to say that your upgrade will not help a little....it could well do, but I just wouldn't want you to be disappointed if the performance difference wasn't to your expectations. Which I expect would be minimal. I've ran ARMA3 on both SSHD and SSD and I didn't notice a vast improvement.

 

[Tensai30]

Your cpu and gpu are certainly not rendering too fast for your hdd. I'm on a 1080ti which is a lot more powerful than your gpu and a 6600k at 4.5ghz which is also more powerful and my 7200rpm drive is doing just fine. An ssd will improve your general system performance and it is definitely worth getting but it will not effect frame rates unless you run into a (very rare) game that is coded so poorly that it fails to utilize ram and streams off the hard drive. GTA V is not one of those games. What an ssd would be good for is improving load times and speeding up applications and windows start time.
Make sure your settings aren't too high. No more than high/very high mixed settings recommended at a resolution no higher than 1080p. If you want higher settings you would need a better gpu. Grass also eats up a lot of fps on that game, set it no higher than high.

I have terrain on low and grass diabled since yes it does kill fps.

But i tabbed out when the lags happened and i see that when it starts lagging my hdd rises fast to 100% usage, typically when its loading alot of things in or when i zoom in on something. Could this be a direct indication that the hard drive is throttling my fps during these times?

What's your memory usage at those times? Are you hitting a full 8gb?

 

[famaffe]

I don't think SSHD > SSD will improve the FPS dips you're getting. ARMA3 is a PITA to run relatively smoothly. Your processor is still good, but along with the 970, you'll be getting some CPU bound bottlenecks in ARMA3 at least, because it's heavily CPU bound.

A large amount of the relative performance is down to the host server, and also dependant on the amount of players on that server. Have you ever noticed on one server you would get amazing performance, then on the next one...it's all over the show? This is because some servers are obviously quicker/stronger ,and also run a lot of optimisations on the hosted session, such as maximum server bandwidth, draw distances, lower trees etc. This all helps everybody run smoother.

That is not to say that your upgrade will not help a little....it could well do, but I just wouldn't want you to be disappointed if the performance difference wasn't to your expectations. Which I expect would be minimal. I've ran ARMA3 on both SSHD and SSD and I didn't notice a vast improvement.

How much ram do you have? IM basically running my game in the high 90 % when playing arma. I have 8gb

 

[Neur0nauT]

How much ram do you have? IM basically running my game in the high 90 % when playing arma. I have 8gb

I have used 8GB for the last 6 years, recently upgraded from an i5 2500K @ 4.5Ghz, now on a Ryzen 7 1700 and now 8GB DDR4. I'll be honest, my i5 ran ARMA3 fine mostly, although the CPU usually was maxed out. It was different servers and bandwidth that messed with my FPS and Lag. The 1700 I've yet to test properly on it. Just check out a bunch of different servers and you may notice what I mean.

My 2500K would have been slightly weaker than your current 4670K and I was using an 280X before, now a 390X which is similar to your 970. The game definitely runs better on solid state rather than standard HDDs. All I can suggest is to try and lower some of your view distances and details, which will stress your CPU less. Also just make sure your CPU is actually overclocked by using MSI Afterburner's on screen display. If it's not actually overclocked, then your missing out there too.

 

[famaffe]

How much ram do you have? IM basically running my game in the high 90 % when playing arma. I have 8gb

I have used 8GB for the last 6 years, recently upgraded from an i5 2500K @ 4.5Ghz, now on a Ryzen 7 1700 and now 8GB DDR4. I'll be honest, my i5 ran ARMA3 fine mostly, although the CPU usually was maxed out. It was different servers and bandwidth that messed with my FPS and Lag. The 1700 I've yet to test properly on it. Just check out a bunch of different servers and you may notice what I mean.

My 2500K would have been slightly weaker than your current 4670K and I was using an 280X before, now a 390X which is similar to your 970. The game definitely runs better on solid state rather than standard HDDs. All I can suggest is to try and lower some of your view distances and details, which will stress your CPU less. Also just make sure your CPU is actually overclocked by using MSI Afterburner's on screen display. If it's not actually overclocked, then your missing out there too.

I’m actually using a 4690K

But yes what I’ve gathered from the resource monitor basically what seems to happen is I run out of ram and then it loads from HDD which on turn makes me lag like fock.

So what would you suggest. Buying another 8gb of ram to get 16 or trying an ssd first?

I’ve tried with view distance low and textures etc but when things go down and a lot of things is being loaded it lags.

 

[R_1]

mixing RAM is problematic at best. it may work or it may not. if you want to ensure no issues replace the current RAM with a larger matched set.

more RAM will allow more loads that the HDD can keep filled.
RAM or SSD? Always RAM first. no exceptions.

 

[famaffe]

mixing RAM is problematic at best. it may work or it may not. if you want to ensure no issues replace the current RAM with a larger matched set.

more RAM will allow more loads that the HDD can keep filled.
RAM or SSD? Always RAM first. no exceptions.

I wont mix ram. Currently I have
2x4gb sticks and I’m gonna insert another pair of 2x4 to get 16 gb. Same ram. Same brand, same speed.
Which is fine right?

 

[Karadjgne]

That's mixing ram.
Ram is punched out of a sheet of silicon like a cookie cutter, each sheet not being pure 100% silicon it does have some impurities in it. If you look at the 2x4 kit you bought, the serial numbers should be consecutive or very close to it. That says that they were cut from the same sheet, so are as perfect a match as possible. The factory then tests the pair to guarantee they are compatible. Even if you buy exactly the same ram, same speed, vendor, model, color, everything, the serial numbers will be quite different. The ram pairs being cut from different sheets. Different sheets means different levels or even types of impurities. Now when you initially look at ram, you'll see the primary timings, like 9-9-9-24 etc. Unless you go onto bios, what you won't see is the @12 secondary timings and @28 tertiary timings. It's in the secondary and tertiary timings where you'll find 95% of all incompatibility, basically the 1st pair of ram has high copper and the second pair of ram has high nickel impurities which changes the 2nd/3rd timings and the ram doesn't play well together. This is the sole reason why 4x ram sticks in a single kit cost more than 2x pairs sold separately, it's harder to get 4 sticks that play nice.

So yes, that's mixing ram, and yes I've had 2x identical sticks with slightly different serial numbers not work together, but yrs I've also had vastly different sticks work great.

It's pot-luck. Totally. There's absolutely no guarantee that any mixed kit/s will play nice, work after some tinkering or just plain not work at all.

 

[famaffe]

That's mixing ram.
Ram is punched out of a sheet of silicon like a cookie cutter, each sheet not being pure 100% silicon it does have some impurities in it. If you look at the 2x4 kit you bought, the serial numbers should be consecutive or very close to it. That says that they were cut from the same sheet, so are as perfect a match as possible. The factory then tests the pair to guarantee they are compatible. Even if you buy exactly the same ram, same speed, vendor, model, color, everything, the serial numbers will be quite different. The ram pairs being cut from different sheets. Different sheets means different levels or even types of impurities. Now when you initially look at ram, you'll see the primary timings, like 9-9-9-24 etc. Unless you go onto bios, what you won't see is the @12 secondary timings and @28 tertiary timings. It's in the secondary and tertiary timings where you'll find 95% of all incompatibility, basically the 1st pair of ram has high copper and the second pair of ram has high nickel impurities which changes the 2nd/3rd timings and the ram doesn't play well together. This is the sole reason why 4x ram sticks in a single kit cost more than 2x pairs sold separately, it's harder to get 4 sticks that play nice.

So yes, that's mixing ram, and yes I've had 2x identical sticks with slightly different serial numbers not work together, but yrs I've also had vastly different sticks work great.

It's pot-luck. Totally. There's absolutely no guarantee that any mixed kit/s will play nice, work after some tinkering or just plain not work at all.

So if I were to go to just add on 8 gigs of ram on top of the pre existing ones. What would the issues be to just name a few?

 

[Tensai30]

That's mixing ram.
Ram is punched out of a sheet of silicon like a cookie cutter, each sheet not being pure 100% silicon it does have some impurities in it. If you look at the 2x4 kit you bought, the serial numbers should be consecutive or very close to it. That says that they were cut from the same sheet, so are as perfect a match as possible. The factory then tests the pair to guarantee they are compatible. Even if you buy exactly the same ram, same speed, vendor, model, color, everything, the serial numbers will be quite different. The ram pairs being cut from different sheets. Different sheets means different levels or even types of impurities. Now when you initially look at ram, you'll see the primary timings, like 9-9-9-24 etc. Unless you go onto bios, what you won't see is the @12 secondary timings and @28 tertiary timings. It's in the secondary and tertiary timings where you'll find 95% of all incompatibility, basically the 1st pair of ram has high copper and the second pair of ram has high nickel impurities which changes the 2nd/3rd timings and the ram doesn't play well together. This is the sole reason why 4x ram sticks in a single kit cost more than 2x pairs sold separately, it's harder to get 4 sticks that play nice.

So yes, that's mixing ram, and yes I've had 2x identical sticks with slightly different serial numbers not work together, but yrs I've also had vastly different sticks work great.

It's pot-luck. Totally. There's absolutely no guarantee that any mixed kit/s will play nice, work after some tinkering or just plain not work at all.

So if I were to go to just add on 8 gigs of ram on top of the pre existing ones. What would the issues be to just name a few?

It's not common to have issues. As long as it's the same model, brand, frequency, amount and timings, you should be fine. I'm running two kingston hyperx sticks that are identical but I purchased them separately.

 

[famaffe]

That's mixing ram.
Ram is punched out of a sheet of silicon like a cookie cutter, each sheet not being pure 100% silicon it does have some impurities in it. If you look at the 2x4 kit you bought, the serial numbers should be consecutive or very close to it. That says that they were cut from the same sheet, so are as perfect a match as possible. The factory then tests the pair to guarantee they are compatible. Even if you buy exactly the same ram, same speed, vendor, model, color, everything, the serial numbers will be quite different. The ram pairs being cut from different sheets. Different sheets means different levels or even types of impurities. Now when you initially look at ram, you'll see the primary timings, like 9-9-9-24 etc. Unless you go onto bios, what you won't see is the @12 secondary timings and @28 tertiary timings. It's in the secondary and tertiary timings where you'll find 95% of all incompatibility, basically the 1st pair of ram has high copper and the second pair of ram has high nickel impurities which changes the 2nd/3rd timings and the ram doesn't play well together. This is the sole reason why 4x ram sticks in a single kit cost more than 2x pairs sold separately, it's harder to get 4 sticks that play nice.

So yes, that's mixing ram, and yes I've had 2x identical sticks with slightly different serial numbers not work together, but yrs I've also had vastly different sticks work great.

It's pot-luck. Totally. There's absolutely no guarantee that any mixed kit/s will play nice, work after some tinkering or just plain not work at all.

So if I were to go to just add on 8 gigs of ram on top of the pre existing ones. What would the issues be to just name a few?

It's not common to have issues. As long as it's the same model, brand, frequency, amount and timings, you should be fine. I'm running two kingston hyperx sticks that are identical but I purchased them separately.

Yeah the ones I would buy are the exact same ram. Only thing that threw me off was that someone said if they made
At different time periods there could be issues

 

[Tensai30]

That's mixing ram.
Ram is punched out of a sheet of silicon like a cookie cutter, each sheet not being pure 100% silicon it does have some impurities in it. If you look at the 2x4 kit you bought, the serial numbers should be consecutive or very close to it. That says that they were cut from the same sheet, so are as perfect a match as possible. The factory then tests the pair to guarantee they are compatible. Even if you buy exactly the same ram, same speed, vendor, model, color, everything, the serial numbers will be quite different. The ram pairs being cut from different sheets. Different sheets means different levels or even types of impurities. Now when you initially look at ram, you'll see the primary timings, like 9-9-9-24 etc. Unless you go onto bios, what you won't see is the @12 secondary timings and @28 tertiary timings. It's in the secondary and tertiary timings where you'll find 95% of all incompatibility, basically the 1st pair of ram has high copper and the second pair of ram has high nickel impurities which changes the 2nd/3rd timings and the ram doesn't play well together. This is the sole reason why 4x ram sticks in a single kit cost more than 2x pairs sold separately, it's harder to get 4 sticks that play nice.

So yes, that's mixing ram, and yes I've had 2x identical sticks with slightly different serial numbers not work together, but yrs I've also had vastly different sticks work great.

It's pot-luck. Totally. There's absolutely no guarantee that any mixed kit/s will play nice, work after some tinkering or just plain not work at all.

So if I were to go to just add on 8 gigs of ram on top of the pre existing ones. What would the issues be to just name a few?

It's not common to have issues. As long as it's the same model, brand, frequency, amount and timings, you should be fine. I'm running two kingston hyperx sticks that are identical but I purchased them separately.

Yeah the ones I would buy are the exact same ram. Only thing that threw me off was that someone said if they made
At different time periods there could be issues

Some people are overcautious. It has happened with ram being unstable together in the past but like I said it's pretty unlikely if they are matching. You can always replace ram that is unstable too.

 

[Karadjgne]

As I said, there's no guarantee. It is the nature of the silicon lottery. It works exactly the same for OC of cpus, they are made of silicon too. Some will OC a lot, some don't. Most will OC a good amount. With ram from different kits its always possible to get some sort of incompatability. It might not show as anything more than OC ability, with your pair you might be perfectly stable at 1866MHz or even 2133MHz, but with the extra pair you may only be stable at default 1600MHz. You may need to adjust the timings, go from 9-9-9-27 to 9-10-9-28 to get stability. For sure when maxing out the ram slots you'll need to bump the dram voltage to @1.505v or so, just to give the memory controller in the cpu a break.
Crucial is a name, that's all. It's the consumer brand of Micron. Micron supplies several brands and is its own brand. So having identical ram doesn't raise the chances of compatability. You could just as easily mix Corsair ram supplied by SkHynix with the Crucial as using more Crucial ram. Even primary timings don't matter so much as all the ram will run at the slowest set, if voltages are different it'll run at the highest, if clocks are different it run at the slowest etc. That's all on the memory controller to setup.
Silicon is silicon. It's either going to function correctly within set parameters, function correctly within adjusted parameters or not going to work at all. The only time brand matters is with Kingston HyperX, because the ram uses a proprietary controller chip on the stick that really doesn't work well with any other design.