Hoodman RAW 675x, Delkin 625x, Delkin 420x
Delkin’s “CombatFlash” UDMA card and Hoddman’s RAW UDMA 6 cards join the ranks of the elite, while Delkin’s “420x” disappoints as surely as its likely re-badged sibling from Calumet.
Three new CompactFlash card models – a pair from Delkin Devices and one from Hoodman – arrived recently, and I had a chance to run them through my JPG and RAW shooting tests.
Two of the cards – Delkin’s CombatFlash 625x and Hoodman’s RAW 675x in 4GB size – fared extremely well in both measures. Delkin’s 420x card, however, which bears close similarities in appearance and serial numbers to Calumet’s 420x card, performed about as poorly.
Delkin 625x (4GB)
Delkin 625x (8GB)
Delkin 625x (16GB)
Delkin 625x (32GB)
Buy the Hoodman 675x from Adorama: 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, 32GB
Both of the top performers rated an ‘A’ grade in the JPG test, the Delkin with a 96 and the Hoodman with a 98. In RAW shooting, the two cards turned in an identical 5.5 fps effective shooting rate, putting them just outside the ‘highly recommended’ group but at the top of the ‘recommended’ cards with throughput of 31 MB/sec for the Delkin and 30 MB/sec for the Hoodman.
The Delkin 420x, 8GB card limped in with a D- (60) in JPG shooting and a paltry 2.9 effective fps and 13 MB/sec throughput.
Delkin's "CombatFlash" case
At less than $60 for a 4GB card, the Delkin “CombatFlash” card compares very favorably in terms of price/performance. (Through 4/30/2010, B&H has instant discounts of $5-$15 on these cards as well.) In addition, the company claims the series are “ruggedized” with all sorts of gobbledy-gook technobabble (this should win an award). I can’t verify those claims, but the card did come with a water-resistant looking, nifty plastic case that holds two cards. For their part, Hoodman asserts a “100,000 cycle” card life, which I also cannot verify, and they continue to boast of “no failures in the field” (that they know of). I have always attributed the latter claim to the fact that almost no one uses their pricey, slow cards, but perhaps with this new 675x model, that will begin to change – although at $90 for a 4GB card, perhaps not after all.
3 responses so far ↓
1 AP // Apr 24, 2010 at 6:29 pm
If only you tested the read speeds with the fastest card reader available (that is prolly firewire 800 atm)
Thanks for the test!
2 The Sports Photo Guy // Apr 26, 2010 at 7:21 pm
Planning to look at read speeds again soon. One limitation is that as a strictly PC user, I can’t really give the FireWire 800 a real workout; I’ve yet to find a FireWire 800 card that really delivers significantly better than FieWire 400 speed.
3 Micah // Aug 4, 2010 at 5:01 pm
I use the Lexar Extreme FX800 reader, and it’s faster than anything I’ve tried.
One caveat: I noticed over a 30% jump in download speeds when I upgraded my 7200rpm hard drive to a pair of 10000rpm raptors in Raid 0.
Also, my board didn’t come with a FW800 hole, so I’m using a PCIE one. I’m not sure if on board controllers are at the same level as my add on.
Cheers!
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