The SN850's Gaming Mode worked by disabling lower power states, ensuring the drive would be more responsive. Game Mode 2.0 works differently with a three-pronged approach: predictive loading, adaptive thermal management, and overhead balancing. Predictive loading is an algorithm designed to detect upcoming low queue depth, sequential workloads - particularly the read workloads prevalent in many games. Adaptive thermal management works to improve average and sustained throughput via smoother throttling. Finally, overhead balancing seeks to improve read latency while gaming through I/O prioritization. The SN850X is competitive with other high-end PCIe 4.0 drives in sequential workloads, but it can’t quite match the SK hynix Platinum P41 in random IOPS. Pricing is a bit stiff, particularly at 4TB. The SN850X will have to impress to justify its MSRP. Game Mode 2.0, Software and Accessories SN850 with heatsink is intended for Desktop PCs and PlayStation™ 5 (PS5 system software version 21.02-04.00.00 or higher required).

I bought a 2TB SN850 for my new build, and I opted for the heatsink model, thinking that for the little extra money, it's worth it. The mobo I ended up buying has three M.2 slots with a one-piece cover that includes heatsinks and an active fan. I thought, great! The heatsink will be a spare, but alas... Store and play more titles on a drive that’s officially tested and certified for your PS5™ console 4, so you can keep gaming without worrying about compatibility issues. Designed with an M.2 2280 slim, light, and compact form factor to easily slide into your gaming rig. WD improved performance in sequential read workloads, with a maximum of 7.3GBps from 7.0GBps, and sequential writes improved from up to 5.3GBps to 6.6GBps. Performance in random workloads has also improved significantly, up from a maximum of 1M / 720,000 read and write, respectively, to 1.2M / 1.1M. The PCIe 4 drives do get even hotter than 3.0 drives, and these controllers really do throttle hard if you do not keep them under around 75c durint those longer storage workloads, but I know for a fact, that sinked properly, the Asus C8H Included M.2 Heat "sink" is enough to keep the temperature below throttle territory, assuming you have a room ambient that does not exceed 30c, a Case Temperature that does not exceed 45c, and decent airflow in the case that travels over the anemic "heatsinks", provided you sink just the contoller to the Heatsink on top, and the entire bottom sinked to the mobo, which is how I do my testing on this very topic. (My company provides the systems/maintenance for specialized fields so its my job to test our build outs for the clients use case, and a big part of that is making sure that the hardware can operate withing spec in their operating environments, so storage cooling is a component in this, which how I became to learn so much on this topic, although there is obviously still so much more to learn!)They all include some form of PCIE "cooling", that I agree is not ideal. Particularly on the VI, that tiny little slab of Aluminium they give you that is not finned in any way, barely does anything. But on all 3 of those ASUS boards they do at least all come ready with Thermal Pads.

Of particular note is the Game Mode 2.0 feature that's new with the SN850X. The original Gaming Mode could be turned on or off within the Dashboard, but Game Mode 2.0 has an additional Auto setting to detect game launches. You can also manually enter game folder locations so the software knows where to watch. The SN850’s peak performance matches the specs at 7.1 / 5.3 GBps of read/write throughput, and the drive serves up stellar performance in random workloads, too. At a queue depth (QD) of 1, the SN850 is almost as fast as the 980 Pro during the random read workload, and it even outperforms the 980 Pro by a large margin as the workload intensifies. Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery Engineered and built with Western Digital 3D NAND to give you the reliability and endurance needed to sustain pro-level performance. Take advantage of irrational PCIe® Gen4 NVMe™ speeds up to 7000MB/s 2 read and 5300MB/s 2 write (1TB model) for a responsive and seamless gaming experience.

The WD Black SN850X is one of the fastest drives around for gaming.

To test thermal management, we set the room to 23C and left the SSD without airflow in an open-air test bench. With ASPM disabled and the Windows power profile set to High Performance, the controller’s idle temperature was warm at roughly 55C on the surface (44C via S.M.A.R.T data), while the NAND was 10C-12C cooler when measured with an IR thermometer. The performance offered by this solid state drive is of absolute importance and translates into extremely fast loading times even when starting the heaviest games or applications. 3D TLC NAND memories and hybrid SLC cache also ensure high reliability. Performing even under stress