delayedclay

Hey HWZone community, I've recently upgraded to a PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD (a Samsung 990 Pro 2TB), and while the sequential read/write speeds are impressive, I'm noticing that real-world performance isn't quite what I expected. I'm wondering if my CPU might be bottlenecking the drive. My current system specs are: CPU: Intel Core i7-12700K Motherboard: ASUS ROG Strix Z690-A Gaming WiFi D4 (Supports PCIe 5.0) RAM: 32GB DDR5-6000 SSD: Samsung 990 Pro 2TB (PCIe 5.0 NVMe) Operating System: Windows 11 I've run several benchmark tests (CrystalDiskMark, AS SSD Benchmark), and while the sequential read/write scores are close to the advertised speeds of the SSD, the random read/write performance seems lower than what I'd anticipated for a PCIe 5.0 drive. I've also noticed some stuttering in large file transfers and when loading games from the drive. My question is: Could my 12700K be a limiting factor, even with a PCIe 5.0 capable motherboard? Is there a way to accurately test if my CPU is indeed the bottleneck? Should I expect significant performance improvements by upgrading to a newer, higher-end CPU like a 13th or 14th generation Intel processor, or an AMD Ryzen 7000 series CPU? I'm open to suggestions and any insights into potential bottlenecks would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for your help! ragdoll hit