Explain the price difference - CFe Type B cards

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Photographylife just published a test of which cards are faster in the Z8/Z9. Within the top 10, the top speed was from the Nikon card and 10th place was the Prograde Gold 512 gb 4.0. The Delkin Black were faster than the Gold 4.0 but all of the top 10 were deemed good with 8k video. The range of speed was 854.9 to 762.6 MB/s. It does seem like the camera is the limiting factor and with the G4 cards, they are likely limited because the cameras are not optimized to that new format.

I just purchased 2 of the Prograde Gold 4.0 cards (762.6 MB/s is fast enough for me) with their 4.0 card reader for just over $360 directly from Prograde. If you sign up with them and join their newsletter they send you a discount offer, at least that is my experience. So I put my order in my cart and then waited for the discount email.
 
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I just looked at that "test" and there are some problems in the methodology and analysis. For example, some have claimed that the Delkin blacks offer unlimited buffer and yet, his testing suggests not and that the actual FPS is substantially less. He uses a card reader as a surrogate for in camera write performance which may or may not be accurate. The testing methodology doesn't look at temperature, sustained write time for video, or other key factors. While I appreciate the analysis, what I take is that amongst the top cards including ProGrade and Delkin, the differences are slight and probably insignificant. Better testing and characterization is needed before drawing any conclusions.
 
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I have been curious about these cards ratings as well. So I decided to take the leap of faith and bought one to test the card against my faithful Lexar Pro which is a V2 card. In tests using the PC reader (USB4 Prograde) the card is blazing fast reading and reaches the listed specs which would be great for post processing and culling. However the write performance was terrible on the PC (around 370MB/s) unless you turned on write caching which then delivered around 2.4GB/s. So I then decided to test the card in my Z9 and it turns out the prograde v4 gold card was almost as fast and in practical terms I would probably not notice the difference. In all it was only 7% slower writing than the Lexar Pro Diamond I have been using. So for the price its a heck of a good deal. I did not notice any issues either with recording at 8K unless I did not let the card cool down before starting a new video then at about 3-4mins in it would get a high temp warning but it did not stop. I have a case open with the tech support folks at Prograde to try and find out why this V4 card acts this way vs V2 cards. You would think the sustained rating would use the same standards but it seems like that might not be the case. From a construction standpoint the card looks identical to the Lexar line where the only difference is the writing on it. So Lexar may be the actual manufacturer.
 
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The two issues are temperature and sustained write speed in the camera.

The second is easy to test, just put the card in the camera, set it to RAW lossless and see how long it takes until the camera slows down.

It is my understanding that with the sustained write speeds of the Delkin Black and Prograde cobalt you can actually get continuous operation by changing the image size to one of the compressed RAW formats.

My experience with these cards is also that they do not overheat in the Z9. I have never seen an overheat warning and I have filled a 165gb card in one day before.
 
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MartyD said:
I have both cards. The Delkin 325GB with the reader is often on sale and I purchased the card and reader for about $199 this past year. I just purchased the Prograde Gold 4.0 directly for ProGrade for about $145. I was interested to see how well it would perform in my Z9. I purchased the ProGrade Gold because I wanted a larger card for video in my Z9. I have yet to do any type of heat testing.

The Delkin Black is the faster of the two in my Z9. In somewhat simple testing I can get about 82 images before the buffer fills and the FPS slows below 20FPS with the Delkin Black. The ProGrade Gold 4.0 provides about 72 images before the buffer fills and the 20 FPS slows. I shoot a lot of sports and shoot High Efficiency Raw, when using the Delkin Black I cannot get the buffer to fill, with the ProGrade Gold 4.0 it will fill in about 650 images. In general I would say the Black is about 10% faster than the Gold in my Z9.

The gold is the new CFE 4.0 standard which should provide faster speeds in the future but current cameras cannot take advantage of CFE 4.0. ProGrade also makes a Cobalt 4.0 but the capacity starts as 1.3TB at $1000.

I purchased the ProGrade Gold on ProGrade's site when it was on sale for 15% off. I also have been using the little trick of creating an account, putting the card in my cart, then waited a few days. ProGrade offered me an additional 10% off the item in my cart so I purchased it.

In practice it works really well for shooting sports, shooting HE RAW I would never shoot 650 images in a single burst so it is plenty fast enough.

I am going to try to do some heat testing when I have time and I will update.
Click to expand...
Does the ProGrade Gold cope with 8k/60 Raw?
 
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ajrmd said:
I just looked at that "test" and there are some problems in the methodology and analysis. For example, some have claimed that the Delkin blacks offer unlimited buffer and yet, his testing suggests not and that the actual FPS is substantially less. He uses a card reader as a surrogate for in camera write performance which may or may not be accurate. The testing methodology doesn't look at temperature, sustained write time for video, or other key factors. While I appreciate the analysis, what I take is that amongst the top cards including ProGrade and Delkin, the differences are slight and probably insignificant. Better testing and characterization is needed before drawing any conclusions.
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Are we reading the same test?? Here is the stated testing methodology for write performance:

"I performed the tests below using a Nikon Z9 or Nikon Z8 coupled with a 50mm f/1.8 lens. Both cameras have the same maximum frame rate, the same buffer capacity, and the same file sizes. The advantage of the Z8 is that it also allows you to test SD cards. I set lossless compressed RAW (average file size 54.8MB), 1/1000s, f/2.8, and continuous shooting at the highest rate of 20 FPS. I shot the test scene for 60 seconds. This was repeated for five different test scenes to minimize the measurement error and the effect of the scene on the file size."

The card reader was used to measure read performance, which seems reasonable given that is how many of us upload photos to our computers.
 
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I saw an article on the PetaPixel site with a chart comparing disk read and write speeds of various cards. The latest Delkin Black and ProGrade Cobalt cards were noticeably faster than less-recent ProGrade Gold cards, particularly for write speeds. The write speeds of all cards when used for bursts of still images in a Canon R5 were all very similar.

Here is the link to the article.
https://petapixel.com/best-cfexpress-memory-cards/

My take - unless you are doing high-end video, the ProGrade Gold cards are probably fine, and quite a bit less costly than the other cards. I currently use a ProGrade Gold card in my camera.
 
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It is important to compare the speed of these cards, It is also important to look at their quality plus the service associated with them. I only use Delkin Black and I know if something happens to one of my card, Delkin will replace it quickly, I believe in 48 hours ( I think). I have been using these cards since two years and no problem with any of them. Plus if we shoot a lot of videos, specially Raw 4 or 8 K, the card heat should also be considered. I prefer to pay more for a better quality and service.
 
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John Navitsky said:
the cfe-b cards and readers will interoperate.

however most cfe-b and xqd card/readers are not
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My Prograde Gold CFe Type B 4.0 512 gb cards work fine in my Delkin CFe card reader that I got a while back bundled with a Delkin Black CFe Type B 325 gb 2.0 card.

Of course, with a gen 2.0 reader, you don’t get the extra speed that the Prograde 4.0 reader will give on a compatible computer.
 
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MarkB said:
Are we reading the same test?? Here is the stated testing methodology for write performance:

"I performed the tests below using a Nikon Z9 or Nikon Z8 coupled with a 50mm f/1.8 lens. Both cameras have the same maximum frame rate, the same buffer capacity, and the same file sizes. The advantage of the Z8 is that it also allows you to test SD cards. I set lossless compressed RAW (average file size 54.8MB), 1/1000s, f/2.8, and continuous shooting at the highest rate of 20 FPS. I shot the test scene for 60 seconds. This was repeated for five different test scenes to minimize the measurement error and the effect of the scene on the file size."

The card reader was used to measure read performance, which seems reasonable given that is how many of us upload photos to our computers.
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Yes, we are looking at the same description and my comments stand. According to his test conditions, none of the cards offered limitless buffer, something which has been claimed with Delkin Blacks. So, either there is something wrong with his methodologies or those who claim that the Delkin Blacks support unlimited buffers. According to Delkin, minimum sustained write speeds are 1530 MB/sec whereas his calculated speeds were almost 1/2 that. Also, he didn’t test card temperatures, video performance, or how he calculated write speed. Based on his testing, the differences in performance between the high performing cards was small.
 
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note the PL tests do not measure temperature, neither does Petapixel

photographylife.com

The Fastest Memory Cards for Nikon: 31 Tested

I've updated my tests of the fastest memory cards for Nikon, now with 31 cards tested! This includes CFexpress, XQD, and SD cards. For the first time, I have also tested a card with support for the new CFexpress 4.0 standard (the ProGrade Digital 512GB CFexpress 4.0 Type B Gold).
photographylife.com photographylife.com
 
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ajrmd said:
Yes, we are looking at the same description and my comments stand. According to his test conditions, none of the cards offered limitless buffer, something which has been claimed with Delkin Blacks. So, either there is something wrong with his methodologies or those who claim that the Delkin Blacks support unlimited buffers. According to Delkin, minimum sustained write speeds are 1530 MB/sec whereas his calculated speeds were almost 1/2 that. Also, he didn’t test card temperatures, video performance, or how he calculated write speed. Based on his testing, the differences in performance between the high performing cards was small.
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Another tester of card speed disagrees with you as well.

alikgriffin.com

Best Memory Cards Nikon Z8 - With Real Benchmarks | Alik Griffin

To get the most out of your Nikon Z8, you need the right memory cards. This blog post will help you find the best memory cards for your Nikon Z8.
alikgriffin.com alikgriffin.com

These cards are sustaining only half of their max speed when used in the Z8/Z9, the cameras are not capable of using the max speed. And here is another one:

www.memorycard-lab.com

Ranking: Best Memory Cards for Nikon Z8 [CFexpress]

With the introduction of the Nikon Z 8, the Japanese camera manufacturer sent a small earthquake into the camera world: almost all the features of the flag...
www.memorycard-lab.com
 
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MarkB said:
Another tester of card speed disagrees with you as well.

alikgriffin.com

Best Memory Cards Nikon Z8 - With Real Benchmarks | Alik Griffin

To get the most out of your Nikon Z8, you need the right memory cards. This blog post will help you find the best memory cards for your Nikon Z8.
alikgriffin.com alikgriffin.com

These cards are sustaining only half of their max speed when used in the Z8/Z9, the cameras are not capable of using the max speed. And here is another one:

www.memorycard-lab.com

Ranking: Best Memory Cards for Nikon Z8 [CFexpress]

With the introduction of the Nikon Z 8, the Japanese camera manufacturer sent a small earthquake into the camera world: almost all the features of the flag...
www.memorycard-lab.com
Click to expand...
How to you explain the disparate results between the “studies” you provide? How do you explain the paradox between those who report that Delkin Blacks provide unlimited buffer shooting and the findings that FPS measured suggest buffer limitations? It really makes a difference when one tests the various RAW compression ratios (RAW, H*, H, etc.) Do any of these tests provide real information regarding temperature and video performance? Finally, my real world experience suggests that any of these high performance cards (read Delkin, Prograde) are more than adequate for shooting stills and video.
 
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MarkB said:
"It does seem like the camera is the limiting factor and with the G4 cards, they are likely limited because the cameras are not optimized to that new format."

If I am not mistaken, the Z8/Z9 utilize dual lane PCI-3.0 output which have theoretical maximum throughput of around 985 MB/sec. The tests that I've seen suggest that the practical speed is less than that and is somewhere in the 800-900 MB/sec range. According to what I've read, "On the Nikon ... the maximum write speed required when shooting 8K60p in N-RAW is 578MB/s." Shooting full, uncompressed RAW stills requires greater bandwidth that the camera can deliver, and a variety of sources suggest that the Z8/Z9's buffer is around 79 shots before the buffer is filled and the camera slows down, irrespective of the card used. As I said before users report that with certain cards, the buffer is never reached using HE* and HE RAW at 20 FPS. The tests you linked to do not confirm or refute that and fail to provide that measure for consideration. Another key attribute when assessing CFE cards, particularly applicable to hot climates or when shooting video are card temperatures which may affect camera operation and performance. Again, this information is missing from any of the assessments provided and it may or may not be relevant.
 
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ajrmd said:
MarkB said:
"It does seem like the camera is the limiting factor and with the G4 cards, they are likely limited because the cameras are not optimized to that new format."

If I am not mistaken, the Z8/Z9 utilize dual lane PCI-3.0 output which have theoretical maximum throughput of around 985 MB/sec.
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per lane. the max number you mention is per lane. so it’s double that for two lanes.. assuming it really has two lanes

but as you observe, regardless, the z8/z9 appears to have internal limits that don’t let it take full advantage of cfe-b v2
 
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ajrmd said:
How to you explain the disparate results between the “studies” you provide? How do you explain the paradox between those who report that Delkin Blacks provide unlimited buffer shooting and the findings that FPS measured suggest buffer limitations? It really makes a difference when one tests the various RAW compression ratios (RAW, H*, H, etc.) Do any of these tests provide real information regarding temperature and video performance? Finally, my real world experience suggests that any of these high performance cards (read Delkin, Prograde) are more than adequate for shooting stills and video.
Click to expand...
These are obviously manual tests by people firing off shots in their cameras, so I do expect some variability. The Photographylife test even mentioned that they did the tests five times in an attempt to minimize the variability. What it does show is that multiple tests tend to have similar rankings of the cards and it also shows that neither the Z8 or Z9 are anywhere close to capable of using the max speed of the cards. Also, cards of different sizes tend to operate faster as the size increases, this may be due to the fact that cards tend to slow down once they fill up.

Bythom mentions that Delkin Black is the coolest card and that Prograde is in the same league and Angelbird not far behind.

Do you know of any tests that gauge temperature performance? Frankly, it's not an issue for me, I don't shoot that many bursts or much video.
 
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