Using UserBenchmark to identify potential performance issues

UserBenchmark is free tool for PC benchmarking. One of the best feature is it will compare the results of your CPU/GPU/SSD/RAM with other PC owners with the same hardware. You can the compare your PC components with others and is a way to identify poor performing components.

I recently ran it and found out one of my SSD drives was "performing way below expectations" compared to others with the same drive. My drive was in the 15th percentile which is terrible.

I then began to try to determine the issue. I checked if it was overheating, if "Encable write caching on the device" is enabled, if the drive was full which could all impact performance but none of those were the case.

Then I remember an issue I had when I first build my system and it was that the M.2_2 bandwidth was set to 2X by default and changing it to 4X resulted in faster performance. I googled the issue and found this reddit which describes the problem.

https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/a6t6af/samsung_970_evo_nvme_performing_way_below/

I have a Asus Z370-A mother board. To make this change, boot into the Bios and click F7 for "Advanced Mode". Then under the "Advanced" menu click "Onboard Devices Configuration". M.2_1 Configuration is set to Auto by default but M.2_2 PCIe Bandwidth Configuration is X2 Mode by default. Select X4 from the pull down and save. Note according to the Reddit thread, enabled 4X may disable some SATA ports so check your manual.

After making this change I ran the benchmark again and now it is "performing as expected" and I have moved up to the 58th percentile.