Have Windows updates and changes in the past 5 years made older PCs weaker/struggle more?

[Iggy Wolf]

By that, I mean that it seems like PCs with older CPUs like i5 6400, or any 6th generation CPU, be it AMD or Intel, become weaker and more of a "bottleneck" even for regular average everyday use, and not just in gaming? Case in point, my old PC which has an i5 6400 seems to have gotten more sluggish over the years, and not just in gaming.

It could be cause the OS is still running of an HDD but also because the C drive with the boot files only has 35 GB of space left. But even then, I notice while simply moving the cursor or doing things on desktop, that the CPU utilization will get as high as 85%. Now, I have a new PC with an i5 10400 and a 3060 Ti on an NVMe SSD. So it flies and is superfast.

On my old PC, I had recently bought a 3070 Ti for cheap from a coworker and stuck in the old PC as a "backup". Of course I expected a CPU bottleneck in some of the games on that PC, but could it also affect general performance as well? I know EVERY PC configuration will always have a bottleneck SOMEWHERE.

My old PCs 16 GB of RAM are also only 1600 Mhz, so I'm sure that's a factor as well. But does an old RAM and CPU also affect general everyday "office use"? That opening my folders, using the browser, and watching Youtube (which uses hardware acceleration) would all also be slower? Or is that more dependent on the harddrive as well (an HDD will simply be slower, especially with a weak or old CPU)?

[Illusion of Progress]

To a point, yes, this happens. Hardware doesn't actually get slower absolutely (wear and tear are a thing, but well below margin of error here) but it does get slower relatively; relative to the software getting more demanding. And software gets more demanding since the average hardware capability people have continually gets faster.

An old Pentium III might be pretty responsive with Windows 9x and older software from that time, but put a modern operating system on it or take it on the modern web and it won't be as performant anymore.

It's a case of "built it and they will come". Hardware gets faster, so software can do more and gets more demanding. Some of that is more possibilities from faster hardware, some of it is less optimization since faster hardware affords more laziness.

Software vulnerabilities and the patches to mitigate them on a firmware/micro code level also impact performance, although it's not always to a large extent or in all situations.

It all adds up.

I can't tell you your Core i5 6400 is absolutely aged by whatever it's seen in the last five years, but on average, the answer is yes and that is the likely answer to some degree.

Also, hard drives are going to be awfully slow for a lot of tasks and that's almost certainly a factor here.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

In my honest opinion Win10 22H2 runs way better on older systems now then it did back in 2015/2016

It will be a must to have the OS on an SSD though

[Overseer]

Always worth testing it with a clean install with only drivers installed and in Safe Mode.
It's important to keep your system clean and throw out all the trash. Especially virus scanners can have a massive impact on the desktop experience.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Test it in Safe Mode?
What do you mean?
That's not what that is for and the OS doesn't load any drivers or have hardware acceleration in safe mode.

[MonkehMaster]

if your pc is becoming sluggish over time, then its likely you arent maintaining your pc, hardware aside.

an ssd for the OS in general, would speed that pc up quite easily, along with some maintenance, updating, ect.. (well speed it back up to what the hardware can produce).

also to mention, not only is the OS being slowed by the HDD itself, but it being filled also slows it down and its likely using the paging file on said HDD, which all combine into making it run bad and if the OS is running bad with a slow HDD, just imagine what the game(s) has to deal with on left overs for performance/running.

[Bing Chilling]

technically yes
the very first versions of windows 10
used less ram and CPU usage, then the current one
security and feature updates
will have increased the usage overtime

by how much? probably not enough to realistically notice
if your pc is feeling slower then when you bought it
it's most likely down to how bloated the OS can get overtime.
especially if you aren't actively cleaning the OS every now and again

pretty much no matter how hard you try, the OS will slow down abit
overtime, it's why i recommend resetting windows atleast once a year (i usually reset my OS every 6 months)

lastly, having windows on a HDD will make it feel sluggish regardless of
if we are talking current patch or release.

[A&A]

Not sure about the last 5 years, maybe so. My desktop PC with Pentium J2900, 4GB RAM, GT240, 2X 1TB HHDs became less responsive when I upgraded to Windows 10.

Windows memory compression is an example of a feature that has advantages and disadvantages. You will have fewer disk accesses and higher virtual memory throughput, but this has an impact on the CPU.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Originally posted by Bing Chilling:

technically yes
the very first versions of windows 10
used less ram and CPU usage, then the current one
security and feature updates
will have increased the usage overtime

by how much? probably not enough to realistically notice
if your pc is feeling slower then when you bought it
it's most likely down to how bloated the OS can get overtime.
especially if you aren't actively cleaning the OS every now and again

pretty much no matter how hard you try, the OS will slow down abit
overtime, it's why i recommend resetting windows atleast once a year (i usually reset my OS every 6 months)

lastly, having windows on a HDD will make it feel sluggish regardless of
if we are talking current patch or release.

Compared to what? Win10 even on my 10 year old PCs don't use anymore CPU or RAM really then Win7/8 did.

Even on my modern PC, CPU sits around all day long at 1% and so what if it goes higher, you do not notice it when it does. It's not something you feel. If you can feel the CPU usage with your inputs, you are doing something wrong; slow drives + too little RAM is what that sounds like. Or just a poor CPU in general.

Even on my 10 year old PCs, as fast as I can click is how fast the OS surfs through the various windows and such. At most you might wait 3-5 secs as it's loading stuff from online connection; like when surfing through the Microsoft Store app or something. Steam Client and the other game clients there are basically no delays at all and very little RAM or CPU usage to speak of either.

Originally posted by A&A ✠:

Not sure about the last 5 years, maybe so. My desktop PC with Pentium J2900, 4GB RAM, GT240, 2X 1TB HHDs became less responsive when I upgraded to Windows 10.

Windows memory compression is an example of a feature that has advantages and disadvantages. You will have fewer disk accesses and higher virtual memory throughput, but this has an impact on the CPU.

Those PC specs are ancient and should have been retired a long time ago. What would even be the point of turning that on? Let alone put Win10 on it.

Even in 2016 there is very little excuse users have had to have not already been on 16GB of RAM and at least one SSD by then for whatever PC they use.

[Zefar]

Originally posted by Iggy Wolf:

It could be cause the OS is still running of an HDD but also because the C drive with the boot files only has 35 GB of space left.

There is the problem. You have it on a HDD. Move it to a SSD and you need at most 256 GB SSD for the job.

It's time to upgrade to a SSD. You'll never want to go back to an old harddrive.

You will notice a big difference.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Simply saying "35GB free space on OS SSD" does not mean much by itself. There is not some magic free space # you must keep or abide by. However if your SSD does not have built-in over-provisioning, then around 30GB free space for OS SSD is a good idea. However, the OS or Steam shouldn't lock up or chug hard just because you do dip below 30GB free space on C drive every once in a while. If you are dipping this low though its quite obvious you need to free up space; starting with Disk Cleanup (Run As Admin) and wiping out all the system restore points.

If you are still using a HDD for OS, Steam or any games that are remotely demanding; you really need to just stop doing that. You're just hurting your own user experience in the end. OS + Steam at the very least needs to be on an SSD.

[Phénomènes Mystiques]

I have no issues with running games on the 7200RPM HDD. Online, competitive, Co-op games will go on the M.2

[Iggy Wolf]

Originally posted by Zefar:

Originally posted by Iggy Wolf:

It could be cause the OS is still running of an HDD but also because the C drive with the boot files only has 35 GB of space left.

There is the problem. You have it on a HDD. Move it to a SSD and you need at most 256 GB SSD for the job.

It's time to upgrade to a SSD. You'll never want to go back to an old harddrive.

You will notice a big difference.

I feel like I should clarify for people. The one that's slow and still on an HDD is an old PC that I don't intend to upgrade as I already have a newer one on which the OS is on an NVMe SSD and all my new games are now on a SATA SSD.

The old is still an i5 6th gen, and has very little upgrade potential, not even being Windows 11 ready. I just wondered if maybe cloning it to a new HDD but repartitioning the C drive to have more space from D might improve the speeds a little.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Originally posted by Iggy Wolf:

Originally posted by Zefar:

There is the problem. You have it on a HDD. Move it to a SSD and you need at most 256 GB SSD for the job.

It's time to upgrade to a SSD. You'll never want to go back to an old harddrive.

You will notice a big difference.

I feel like I should clarify for people. The one that's slow and still on an HDD is an old PC that I don't intend to upgrade as I already have a newer one on which the OS is on an NVMe SSD and all my new games are now on a SATA SSD.

The old is still an i5 6th gen, and has very little upgrade potential, not even being Windows 11 ready. I just wondered if maybe cloning it to a new HDD but repartitioning the C drive to have more space from D might improve the speeds a little.

6th Gen? It should have had an SSD when it was built.

Why would it need Win11? It's not like Win10 is dying anytime soon. Is 2028 not long enough?

I don't see why you can't get a 250-500GB SSD and put in that system and do a clean install of Win10 64bit 22H2

[Zefar]

Originally posted by Iggy Wolf:

I feel like I should clarify for people. The one that's slow and still on an HDD is an old PC that I don't intend to upgrade as I already have a newer one on which the OS is on an NVMe SSD and all my new games are now on a SATA SSD.

The old is still an i5 6th gen, and has very little upgrade potential, not even being Windows 11 ready. I just wondered if maybe cloning it to a new HDD but repartitioning the C drive to have more space from D might improve the speeds a little.

Then a format might be in order on the old PC.
Back in the days you had to format your harddrive every now and then because windows would get slower and slower the more you used it.

[MonkehMaster]

Originally posted by Iggy Wolf:

Originally posted by Zefar:

There is the problem. You have it on a HDD. Move it to a SSD and you need at most 256 GB SSD for the job.

It's time to upgrade to a SSD. You'll never want to go back to an old harddrive.

You will notice a big difference.

I feel like I should clarify for people. The one that's slow and still on an HDD is an old PC that I don't intend to upgrade as I already have a newer one on which the OS is on an NVMe SSD and all my new games are now on a SATA SSD.

The old is still an i5 6th gen, and has very little upgrade potential, not even being Windows 11 ready. I just wondered if maybe cloning it to a new HDD but repartitioning the C drive to have more space from D might improve the speeds a little.

well im sure even a dirt cheap sata ssd would help much more than a new HDD and you can just move the games to the old HDD after you clone and format the HDD, with the OS being on the ssd, or 2 cheap sata ssd's for each.

HDD's also need to be maintained, with defragmenting and cleaning of old temp folders, ect..

HDD's imo are more useful as storage drives, but to each their own.

also, you could easily install win 11 on that, by bypassing the requirements, if you wanted.

got win 11 installed on my x99 platform and 2 old laptops from 2007 and 2011.