Is the WD Black SN850X worth paying extra for over the SN7100?

You might be able to measure a small loading-time difference in a few games with careful testing, but most people won’t notice anything in regular play. Gaming workloads generally don’t take much advantage of the extra cache or top-end sequential speeds.

If this will hold both the operating system and your game library, the SN850X is a nice upgrade and the price difference is fairly small. Still, the SN7100 should perform well and is the better value if gaming is the main use. Whichever you pick, check for firmware updates with the manufacturer’s management software.

Both drives are good choices for gaming, and either one should feel very similar in normal use. The SN850X has dedicated DRAM, while the SN7100 is a DRAM-less design that uses host memory, but that difference usually doesn’t matter much for game loading. I’d choose the SN7100 if saving £20 is important.