Well then, if you're sure it's not ESET then it's back to my original draft.
You've got this issue with drive access. It's either the spec's just not up to it, there's a hardware problem, or there's a software problem.
They're old games on SSD so if the spec is fine it looks like a hardware or software problem.
The CrystalDiskMark scores look spot-on across the board, temps and health are fine, so it looks like it must be a software problem.
If it's across all games, it's something more fundamental than an issue with that one game.
If you're saying that the obvious ones like drivers and settings can be discounted, and it's not any of the other processes you've got running, then there's not a lot left to try. Reinstalling Windows is about all you've got left, but if you don't want to do it without a guarantee that it's going to fix your issue then you're stuck because I can't see how anybody can genuinely give you that.
I will say on this bit:
So maybe you have indeed disabled some important process or service and a fresh Windows install is necessary. To be honest, the days of keeping the system tray to a minimum for 'maximum performance' are long gone now that multicore processors and OSs that can use them are standard. I haven't bothered doing it since WinXP. You're running an 8-thread processor with 16 GB RAM. Unless you absolutely know that a background process is causing you problems you're better off just ignoring it, rather than deleting it because you're not sure you need it. Chesterton's Fence.
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