So I got a Transcend 512gb card from Memoryc in the mail today. Ran in through the tests. The initial results:
- 126 shots before buffer coughs in mechanical shutter (tied with the record from the review done last week, but behind another new card we got in, which busted the record.)
- In the how-many-shots-in-30-seconds test, it did 220 in mechanical shutter, which isn't great. It's a card that sprints quite impressively, and then heaves a bit in the long distance.
- In electronic shutter it averaged 212 shots in :30, which was poor. The average across all cards was 298.
- The computer tests showed it was slowish on the write (655 mb/s) and speedy on the read (874 mb/s). I'm finding, however, that these computer tests aren't reflective of actual camera performance. I include it because you might find yourselves just having this as the data you can use to compare.
Upshot: It's a fantastic card for $330 USD. It lists on B&H for $449, making it $0.88 per MB at list price. The $330 deal at memoryc puts it at $0.64 per MB. Put that along with the fact that the damn thing shoots for 10.5 seconds at 12 fps without a hitch, and most people will find they have better uses for the extra $200-$300 they'd spend on one of the top performing cards. Those cards will give you no better performance for the first 10 seconds, but they'll do better for the next 20 seconds. The cache is cleared by the Transcend card in 7.9 seconds (2.5 seconds longer than the average card tested). Shooting it in electronic shutter at 20 fps, it shot 212 frames (30 percent fewer than the average).
Best Options: You can get a cheaper $/MB deal, but you have to buy the 2TB Delkin card, which would give you $0.50/MB. That's a lot of card, with a $1,000 outlay. More than most will need. Alternately, you can buy the Lexar 512 card, which is priced at $0.94/MB, and that'll get you about as good performance as you can find (tops in buffer clearing; shots in :30; and shots before buffer fills in mechanical first curtain shutter). So your best choices today are:
1) $1,000 for the most storage for the buck with the Delkin 2TB
2) $330 for the Transcend 512 GB for an almost-as-good price per MB, without the big outlay, but worse buffer clearing performance
3) $480 for the Lexar 512 GB, which will give you top performance at an oddly low price <$1/MB
Future Options: I know from talking to manufacturers that there is a lot of movement in this category. I expect prices to come down for some (ProGrade, Sony and SanDisk will likely use high prices as a distinguishing factor, as they do), but also for some new products to show up. Some are held up right now only by firmware development and testing. All of this is to say that you should buy one of those three cards above, but not necessarily buy everything you'll think you'll need for the next year or two. If you can buy a card or two 6-9 months from now, I bet you'll pay less and the performance will be even better. Any of the three options above might be just the ticket to hold you over till that time.
One thing that is a bit unusual about the Transcend CFexpress cards, is that they actually claim faster write speeds for the 256 GB card (1300 MB/s) than for the 512 GB card (1000 MB/s). The Transcend website seems to suggest that these sequential write speed numbers are from CrystalDiskMark performance testing, so they may represent an actual difference in card speed rather than just a marketing or labeling difference: https://us.transcend-info.com/Products/No-1161
Note that for people that shoot video, the Transcend cards are not currently recommended for 8K RAW or 4K 120fps capture according to this Transcend support note: https://us.transcend-info.com/Support/FAQ-1262
tiggy wrote:
So I got a Transcend 512gb card from Memoryc in the mail today. Ran in through the tests. The initial results:
- 126 shots before buffer coughs in mechanical shutter (tied with the record from the review done last week, but behind another new card we got in, which busted the record.)
- In the how-many-shots-in-30-seconds test, it did 220 in mechanical shutter, which isn't great. It's a card that sprints quite impressively, and then heaves a bit in the long distance.
- In electronic shutter it averaged 212 shots in :30, which was poor. The average across all cards was 298.
- The computer tests showed it was slowish on the write (655 mb/s) and speedy on the read (874 mb/s). I'm finding, however, that these computer tests aren't reflective of actual camera performance. I include it because you might find yourselves just having this as the data you can use to compare.
Upshot: It's a fantastic card for $330 USD. It lists on B&H for $449, making it $0.88 per MB at list price. The $330 deal at memoryc puts it at $0.64 per MB. Put that along with the fact that the damn thing shoots for 10.5 seconds at 12 fps without a hitch, and most people will find they have better uses for the extra $200-$300 they'd spend on one of the top performing cards. Those cards will give you no better performance for the first 10 seconds, but they'll do better for the next 20 seconds. The cache is cleared by the Transcend card in 7.9 seconds (2.5 seconds longer than the average card tested). Shooting it in electronic shutter at 20 fps, it shot 212 frames (30 percent fewer than the average).
Best Options: You can get a cheaper $/MB deal, but you have to buy the 2TB Delkin card, which would give you $0.50/MB. That's a lot of card, with a $1,000 outlay. More than most will need. Alternately, you can buy the Lexar 512 card, which is priced at $0.94/MB, and that'll get you about as good performance as you can find (tops in buffer clearing; shots in :30; and shots before buffer fills in mechanical first curtain shutter). So your best choices today are:
1) $1,000 for the most storage for the buck with the Delkin 2TB
2) $330 for the Transcend 512 GB for an almost-as-good price per MB, without the big outlay, but worse buffer clearing performance
3) $480 for the Lexar 512 GB, which will give you top performance at an oddly low price <$1/MB
Future Options: I know from talking to manufacturers that there is a lot of movement in this category. I expect prices to come down for some (ProGrade, Sony and SanDisk will likely use high prices as a distinguishing factor, as they do), but also for some new products to show up. Some are held up right now only by firmware development and testing. All of this is to say that you should buy one of those three cards above, but not necessarily buy everything you'll think you'll need for the next year or two. If you can buy a card or two 6-9 months from now, I bet you'll pay less and the performance will be even better. Any of the three options above might be just the ticket to hold you over till that time.
My Transcend 512 arrived, my 256 arrives tomorrow. My R5 is nowhere to be seen so I won't be able to test anything until it arrives. Well I could run Crystal Disk Mark I guess.
The card is not initialized yet. Obviously the easiest way is to have the R5 format it. But if I want to format it in my Mac what file table setting should I use to format in order to test the read/write?
I was mistaken on that Lexar price. Adding the Lexar card to my spreadsheet made my pricing table transpose over one column. The Lexar card is a $600 card, not a $480 card. This makes it roughly on par in price with the other top performers, and not quite the special deal I'd concluded.
I'd modify my conclusion to replace the Lexar option as the good budget-but-top-performer with the Delkin 512, which IS priced at just under $1 per MB. The Delkin isn't as fast eating up the cache as the Lexar, but it is much faster than the Transcend.
So the best options are
1) the Delkin 2TB for sheer price per MB. ($1,000)
2) The Transcend card which is almost as good on price and decent performance, just being relatively slow on clearing cache. ($330)
3) The Delkin 512 GB, which is 25 percent more expensive (when taking into account the MemoryC deal on the Transcend card), but 25 percent faster in swallowing the cache. ($500)
tiggy wrote:
After formatting the card in camera, I got information about the volume on a Mac's Disk Utility program, and it listed it as ExFAT format.
Thanks. I'll format into ExFAT and try Crystal Disk Mark. But I don't have USB-C/TB3 ports so not sure if that will handicap my benchmarks as everything is going in and out via USB-3 from my Prograde reader.
BTW... the Amazon.ca price of the 512GB Transcend is now at $656....whereas I paid $390....deal of the year?
The 256GB is $325 where as I paid $258.
But I don't really need both cards so not sure which I will hold onto. I guess I can just sell one of them and make a profit...living up to my screen name
davedv wrote:
One thing that is a bit unusual about the Transcend CFexpress cards, is that they actually claim faster write speeds for the 256 GB card (1300 MB/s) than for the 512 GB card (1000 MB/s). The Transcend website seems to suggest that these sequential write speed numbers are from CrystalDiskMark performance testing, so they may represent an actual difference in card speed rather than just a marketing or labeling difference: https://us.transcend-info.com/Products/No-1161
Note that for people that shoot video, the Transcend cards are not currently recommended for 8K RAW or 4K 120fps capture according to this Transcend support note: https://us.transcend-info.com/Support/FAQ-1262
Great point. So it looks like the Transcend might even be slower than the ProGrade Cobalt. Some reports are that the Cobalt won't do 8k. The two cards I had that wouldn't do 8k also refused to shoot 4k 120 which is what I really want. Both of my Sony Tough cards do 4k 120. The 128gb size go on sale at amazon for $190. I got both as store returns for under $180 each.
Even for those that don't care for video. In an emergency I have one button when pushed starts shooting 8k 30fps (not RAW). JPG stills can be pulled out of this 35MP each.
From my limited research, it seems the Sony tough card is the better CFexpress card, although more expensive. According to a user's test, all of the Sony cards 128, 256 and 512 has the best speeds and can handle 8k raw, while the Prograde's 128gb version is hit or miss, meaning folks have been getting the "not fast enough" error message (based on users reviews). The tester stated that you have to step up to the Prograde 512gb version to be able to consistently record 8k raw. I am only interested in the 128gb card and from my limited research, the Sony's version can handle 8k raw for those rare times I may want to experiment with it, but in all honesty, I'd probably not go any higher than 4k, which it can handle with no problem. So, pound for pound, the Sony cards gives the end users more purchasing flexibility...meaning no matter which card size you buy, it can handle the highest video resolution.
I'm going with the Sony cards because it gives me more for the money because all of their cards support the highest video resolution, no matter what size I go with.
Note: I am not a videographer, but I sometimes, rarely, pop on the video when there's something very interesting when a photo can't tell the whole store...for instance when I found a snapping turtle laying her eggs.
The Gold version comes in 128, 256, 512 and 1Tb. The Cobalt comes in 325 and 650. So, when referencing 128, 256, 512 or 1Tb always means the Gold version, but I understand some may not know this.
Another good value may the the Angelfire AV Pro (not the AV Pro XT), that has the 512G version for $429 ($0.84/GB) or the 1TB for $749 ($0.75/GB). Both have a minimum sustained speed of 1000 MB/s and support 8k.
Lesson to be learned from that video...NEVER WATCH T&C FOR VALID INFORMATION...maybe for a good laugh...
Did you not notice that even though he said "this Prograde Cobalt Card" he was showing a Prograde Gold card that we all know doesn't support 8K at the 256GB size Tony was using. They don't even make 256GB Cobalt cards and they certainly don't have a "Gold" label on them.
Details people, details...so much FUD spread on here...
ranchorunner wrote:
Another good value may the the Angelfire AV Pro (not the AV Pro XT), that has the 512G version for $429 ($0.84/GB) or the 1TB for $749 ($0.75/GB). Both have a minimum sustained speed of 1000 MB/s and support 8k.
I have 2 of their 512 GB AV Pro cards (assuming Angelfire -> Angelbird typo) and while they look like wonderful cards for a good price, the 5 sec. startup time they cause in the Canon R5 (reported here in FM) is real and can be nerve-wracking for wildlife photography. Angelbird is aware of the issue and I and others are waiting to hear back from them. They seem like a great company and I am hoping for a solution.
I would like to ultimately buy the Angelbirds, so am closely watching to see if they resolve!
steveatfm wrote:
I have 2 of their 512 GB AV Pro cards (assuming Angelfire -> Angelbird typo) and while they look like wonderful cards for a good price, the 5 sec. startup time they cause in the Canon R5 (reported here in FM) is real and can be nerve-wracking for wildlife photography. Angelbird is aware of the issue and I and others are waiting to hear back from them. They seem like a great company and I am hoping for a solution.
