SanDisk’s new Extreme Pro and Extreme lines of CompactFlash cards promise transfer rates of 90 MB/sec and 60 MB/sec respectively, compared to the 45 MB/sec claimed for their Extreme Ducati cards. Talk about night and day…one of the new cards turns in blistering performance, especially in RAW shooting, while the other makes it on the Crap List.
Get the scoop on these two very different cards below.
Let’s start with the good news: the SanDisk Extreme Pro card will be a boon to RAW shooters. It smashed all previous records with an effective 6.7 fps, 34 MB/sec throughput in my D300 RAW test. This portends well for future cameras that can take advantage of its high speed; the D300 itself really seems to be the limiting factor here, as the JPG score of 106 puts it right in the pack with other top cards. Other sites have reported eye-popping results with some of Canon’s new DSLRs, while the D300 is getting pretty long in the tooth as digital cameras go.
Buy Extreme Pro Cards from Adorama: 16GB, 32GB, 64GB
The Extreme card was pretty unimpressive. Its JPG score of 70 and RAW results of 4.3 effective fps and 18 MB/sec throughput are considerably slower than the Extreme III 30 MB/sec edition which it supposedly replaces (and is supposedly twice as fast as). And it’s not the camera; other sites show equally lackluster performance with those new Canons. SanDisk, you’ve really come up with a lemon here, and I have no choice but to put this card on the Crap List.
One interesting note: I tested several cards with my new D300s, hoping perhaps Nikon had tweaked the internals. Not so. If anything, the D300s records files a little slower than the D300 with identical settings.
7 responses so far ↓
1 Elmobong // Jun 9, 2010 at 5:52 am
Thank you for the feedback, I was just about to head out to get a new Extreme card and I needed a clear comparison between Extreme and Extreme Pro. You have made my choice very clear!
2 Thomas // Jun 10, 2010 at 5:15 pm
Hi,
you may have had a defective or outdated sample of the Extreme 60. Just got one. In my cardreader, my new 16GB card gives me 58MB/s write and 79 read, and in my D300s I get 21 – 22 Shots in RAW – does not sound too bad to me (The old Extreme IV gave you 17, according to the manual).
3 The Sports Photo Guy // Jun 10, 2010 at 5:32 pm
That’s always possible. However, two things lead me to believe otherwise: one, Rob Galbraith reported similarly poor results for the D300s and 1Ds Mk III (though not for the 5D Mk II). Secondly, “21-22 shots in RAW” could mean many things, since RAW buffer size depends on a wide variety of factors. I have not conducted card reader tests of this new generation of cards yet, although Galbraith’s results are quite good. That, combined with his better observed performance in the 5D Mk II, lead me to believe that there’s an obvious issue with this card and some UDMA-enabled cameras – something that shouldn’t be there when cards above and below in the same product line have no problem.
4 Overfocused // Mar 1, 2011 at 3:53 am
Card readers on computers are a completely different story. I use a Lexar 600x that gets 70-90 read/write in my reader but 45 in-camera. PCs perform completely different than cameras.
5 The Sports Photo Guy // Mar 1, 2011 at 8:00 am
Amen. Sometimes I feel like I’m on a crusade against sites that test cards in readers, or worse, in some sort of industrial gadget like manufacturers do. Card-to-PC speeds are important, but they’re only part of the story.
6 Mirek // Oct 3, 2011 at 4:18 pm
Chuck, further to your test of Extreme card. I tested that card in my D700 and found it noticeably faster than Extreme III. See my review at http://fullframestories.com/sandisk-extreme/
Either you card was bad or there is a significant performance difference between D300 and D700. They might also redesign the card since you tested it.
I think you should give a second chance to the card. According to my results it is twice as fast as Extreme III and much lower cost than Extreme Pro.
7 The Sports Photo Guy // Oct 4, 2011 at 7:56 pm
As you point out, Galbraith’s results supported my own. There are also a large number of other factors that influence buffer depth and write speed – such as noise reduction and ADL. I also don’t see how you confirm that the card is “twice as fast” in your tests. But thanks for the comments, the more people share their experiences, the better.
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