REVIEW: WD Black SN850X 2 TB SSD performs fantastically

The amount of storage in a PC is not the only thing that most computer users are looking for nowadays – more and more power and whether or not the hard drive is SSD is also becoming an important issue among users. 

Combining both the abundant storage space and the power of the SSD, we have the WD Black SN850X, Western Digital. O showmetech had the opportunity to test it and we comment more about the piece below. Check out:

Design and general information

We started the review talking about a part that, in a way, is a very common place among SSD parts: the design. Being an NVMe SSD, the piece escapes the brick that SATA equipment is, resembling a RAM memory – an advantage to even have more space in the cases.

It connects to the motherboard via PCI Express 4.0 connectors, but uses the NVMe 1.4 protocol instead of PCIe 4.0 – which, in practice, for users, means greater utilization of its read speed – on the box advertised as 7.300 MB /s.

The version we received for analysis is the one without the heatsink, making the piece a little more visually sober and without RGB. In general, in computer tests, we did not see a large increase in the temperature of the part, but I did not risk testing it on my PS5 since it has recently been showing some heating problems, even though it is recent hardware.

Tests

Going to the tests, it is important to point out that first of all it was extremely important to install on the computer used for this review a WD Dashboard, an application developed by Western Digital that serves as a general controller that allows you to check information such as the current status of the SSD, activate performance modes and, on models with RGB, control the light scheme.

The use of the tool in general is simple, with the main data being displayed right away – but the most important point, without a doubt, is the possibility of activating the 2 Gaming Mode, which allows greater control over the heating of the part.

In general, testing with titles like Call of Duty Warzone (the previous version, not the recently released 2.0) and Devil May Cry 5, the device's temperature didn't go beyond 45 degrees, a satisfactory result, but I confess that such improvements in loading caused by the Gaming Mode functions were not noticed by me.

Moving on to more general tests, we use the Crystal Disk Mark, a well-known application for this type of investigation into the behavior of a part. The results of the SN850X were as expected in the 8 GB file test, reaching 7.293 MB/s of reading (very close to what was promised on the device box) and 6.296 MB/s of writing – satisfactory results, but which put it below of popular parts in the world of PCs like the Acer Predator GM7000, which reaches around 7.498 MB/s of reading in tests on the solution used.

In the random access test, however, the results were extremely satisfactory: considering that it is in the use of small blocks of data that the highlight of SSDs in relation to common HDs is, the SN850X reaching 85,19 MB/s of reading is a number great, staying well above most similar hardware with the same storage capacity available on the market. 

These numbers, it should be noted, are higher than other storage hardware tested in recent years, mainly due to the use of the PCIe 4.0 connection, which even without the use of its protocol for data movement, still has a bandwidth of up to 16 GB/ S per connection lane – while past hardware mostly used PCIe 3.0, which could handle at most half that.

Conclusion

In general terms, the WD Black SN850X 2TB is an excellent SSD, especially considering that it is a product aimed at an audience that wants greater performance than what is found in more common SSDs on the market. Although its gaming resources were not exactly noticeable in the games I used for testing, all the rest of the part's resources proved to be extremely interesting and with fantastic performance for no PC user to defect.

With easy installation and abundant storage space, the piece is a sure decision for enthusiasts or just for those who need more space on their computer – although its price may not be very inviting, leaving for BRL 2.459,99 at Kabum!.

Technical specifications

WD Black SN850X 2TB

See also:

Review: WD Blue SN570 NVMe 500GB SSD