Z9 users: Backup Battery and CF Express Card Options

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Chad Huff

Chad Huff

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I'm curious about what CF Express cards people are using besides Delkin Black ? I have a 356gb, love it, but the Welkin cards are quite expensive compared to some of the other options I see available. I am specifically interested in any experiences you all have with:

SABRENT Rocket CFX PRO​

Exascend Essential​

Both have high sustained write speeds, and a couple reviews I saw on YouTube mentioned they were running cool(ish) temps compared to other cards, but YouTube reviews are kind of "take it with a grain of salt" to me. Not everyone has Steve's policy of not taking the items for free or payment for the review, so first hand experiences here would help me.

Also, when I had my gripped D850 I used the Wasabi Power EN-EL batteries as my backup power if the OEM battery was drained. They worked just fine for that. Has anyone tried their version of the EN-EL18D?

Thanks all!
 
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I'm using angelbird SE 512 gig cards (and would have gotten the 1tb versions, had they been available sooner). Sustained write is enough for 8k60 video, and consistent 15fps after a little over 3 seconds of sustained 20fps raw (not he/he*). I was able to force them to get warm after 5 minutes of shooting 120 fps jpgs straight, but even then, it was 'warm', and not 'hot'.
 
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I'm really interested in the temps of these CF Express Cards. I too have seen these charts showing the Delkin cards generally much cooler than the other cards and the Sandisk and the Lexar cards running hotter. But....I've used the Delkin Black 325 GB card in my Z8 and got hot card warnings, shooting pictures with 2 or 3 (30) second video clips and a few Pre-Capture sequences. So.....

My theory is that there is nothing absolute. I saw tests where the Delkin Black 128 card was 100 degrees after 113 gb transfer, but the 325 GB version of the same card was 114 degrees. The 114 degrees was the hottest card of all the cards tested, which is consistent with my findings that the card got hot from essentially just shooting pictures. This from a card that has a reputation as being the coolest card on the market. Maybe that is true of one particular version of this card, but I suspect that the 325 GB version may be among the hottest.

This same test had the Angelbird AV PRo SX 160 GB card at 79 Degrees. Having said that I wouldn't assume that he 330GB version of the same card would be just as cool because they are cramming twice the amount of memory on the card, so it probably can't dissapate heat the same.

I just ordered two of the Angelbird Cards and I'm going to test them against my other Angel bird card along with my Delkin Black 128 GB and 325 GB Cards.

I'm hoping the hoping this 35 degree difference from this test will make a difference in my Z8 and elimate HOT CARD warnings from just shooting pictures (which is kinda crazy).
 
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Cameron T said:
I'm using angelbird SE 512 gig cards (and would have gotten the 1tb versions, had they been available sooner). Sustained write is enough for 8k60 video, and consistent 15fps after a little over 3 seconds of sustained 20fps raw (not he/he*). I was able to force them to get warm after 5 minutes of shooting 120 fps jpgs straight, but even then, it was 'warm', and not 'hot'.
Click to expand...
I haven't used the Angelbird cards. The one TB has a much higher sustained write speed than the 512, which seems odd. I dont see anything on how hot that card runs, what have you experienced?
 
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Chris Weller said:
I'm really interested in the temps of these CF Express Cards. I too have seen these charts showing the Delkin cards generally much cooler than the other cards and the Sandisk and the Lexar cards running hotter. But....I've used the Delkin Black 325 GB card in my Z8 and got hot card warnings, shooting pictures with 2 or 3 (30) second video clips and a few Pre-Capture sequences. So.....

My theory is that there is nothing absolute. I saw tests where the Delkin Black 128 card was 100 degrees after 113 gb transfer, but the 325 GB version of the same card was 114 degrees. The 114 degrees was the hottest card of all the cards tested, which is consistent with my findings that the card got hot from essentially just shooting pictures. This from a card that has a reputation as being the coolest card on the market. Maybe that is true of one particular version of this card, but I suspect that the 325 GB version may be among the hottest.

This same test had the Angelbird AV PRo SX 160 GB card at 79 Degrees. Having said that I wouldn't assume that he 330GB version of the same card would be just as cool because they are cramming twice the amount of memory on the card, so it probably can't dissapate heat the same.

I just ordered two of the Angelbird Cards and I'm going to test them against my other Angel bird card along with my Delkin Black 128 GB and 325 GB Cards.

I'm hoping the hoping this 35 degree difference from this test will make a difference in my Z8 and elimate HOT CARD warnings from just shooting pictures (which is kinda crazy).
Click to expand...
Any idea what the sustained write speed is on the PRo SX 160 GB card? It sounds interesting for photos, its pretty small for video though.
 
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Chad Huff said:
I haven't used the Angelbird cards. The one TB has a much higher sustained write speed than the 512, which seems odd. I dont see anything on how hot that card runs, what have you experienced?
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I haven't used the 1tb card at all. But it's probably the second Gen parts, which are faster than gen1.

I haven't had a hot card issue on my z9. The real test will be this weekend at the airshow, in 100 degree temps, so we'll see how that goes, but I expect it to be fine.
 
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Chad Huff said:
I'm curious about what CF Express cards people are using besides Delkin Black ? I have a 356gb, love it, but the Welkin cards are quite expensive compared to some of the other options I see available. I am specifically interested in any experiences you all have with:

SABRENT Rocket CFX PRO​

Exascend Essential​

Both have high sustained write speeds, and a couple reviews I saw on YouTube mentioned they were running cool(ish) temps compared to other cards, but YouTube reviews are kind of "take it with a grain of salt" to me. Not everyone has Steve's policy of not taking the items for free or payment for the review, so first hand experiences here would help me.

Also, when I had my gripped D850 I used the Wasabi Power EN-EL batteries as my backup power if the OEM battery was drained. They worked just fine for that. Has anyone tried their version of the EN-EL18D?

Thanks all!
Click to expand...

I have a 2TB Delkin Power card and used it in the Patanal (95 degrees plus very strong sun) in my Z9 to shoot 20fps and 120 fps video without any problems. Never got the hot card warning.
 
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The only cards I have used in my Z9 have been either the Delkin Power or Black cards. I started with the Delkin Power based on cost, and then picked up a few Delkin Black cards when on sale. The Black are now my primary with the Power cards as backup.

The only batteries I have used are the Nikon 18ds. I have several and cycle them through use. I didn’t see the benefit of the non-OEM batteries in my first flagship camera. YMMV.
 
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Chad Huff said:
I haven't used the Angelbird cards. The one TB has a much higher sustained write speed than the 512, which seems odd. I dont see anything on how hot that card runs, what have you experienced?
Click to expand...
Yeah the sustained write spead is 850 vs 1550 same model just 512 vs 1TB. You see this in NVME SSD's a lot. I think it might have something to do with how it can write to more memory chips at once. Kinda like Raid drives. You get more speed from a 6 drive raid then you do a 2 or 3 drive raid. Or like #Carmeron T said above 1 TB cards are using a newer generation of parts.
 
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Chad Huff said:
Any idea what the sustained write speed is on the PRo SX 160 GB card? It sounds interesting for photos, its pretty small for video though.
Click to expand...
Yeah. Agreed. It's not ideal for Video. I'm going to experiment with these and see if they make any difference. They were on sale for $129. I can use them in other cameras or send them back if they aren't what any good.

Pro SX 160 GB provides maximum read speeds of 1785 MB/s and maximum write speeds of 1600 MB/s, as well as sustained read speeds of 1785 MB/s and sustained write speeds of 1480 MB/s.

Not top of the line, but very near it. Should be within 10-15 frames or so of the max buffer of best cards on Z9 and Z8 on uncompressed Raw. I think I've seen the best cards around 1680 or 1700 sustained. Probably get 80-85 frames from those cards before buffer. I think I'll get 65-70 from this one. I also tend to shot HE* mostly anyway and I think it will be bottomless or close enough.
 
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This guy did test on a bunch of cards, first in a Z9 then a Z8 - the heat tests were done using a transfer of a 113 GB file transfer from card in reader to his Mac, then he took it out and measured heat using Flir heat thermometer attechment to Iphone.

The temps themselves won't tell us much about the actual operating temps inside of the camera's but they should give us a basis of Temps RELATIVE to one another.


He also did buffer tests.

Matt Granger did some good buffer tests here....

learn.mattgranger.com

CFe & XQD Card - Speed Test Results (Updated April 2023)

Full test results
learn.mattgranger.com learn.mattgranger.com

This should help..
 
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Chad Huff said:
Also, when I had my gripped D850 I used the Wasabi Power EN-EL batteries as my backup power if the OEM battery was drained. They worked just fine for that. Has anyone tried their version of the EN-EL18D?
Click to expand...
I bought a Wasabi Power version of the EN-EL18D when there were no Nikon EN-EL18D available. I have used it interchangeably with the Nikon one's and seen no major difference.
 
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ricardo00 said:
I bought a Wasabi Power version of the EN-EL18D when there were no Nikon EN-EL18D available. I have used it interchangeably with the Nikon one's and seen no major difference.
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Thank you! That was my experience with the D850 batteries as well, but I wanted to make sure nothing had changed. Two batteries and a charger from Wasabi are almost $40 cheaper than one Nikon battery, so it seems like a good choice for backup power. I appreciate your feedback!
 
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Fishboy1952 said:
The only cards I have used in my Z9 have been either the Delkin Power or Black cards. I started with the Delkin Power based on cost, and then picked up a few Delkin Black cards when on sale. The Black are now my primary with the Power cards as backup.

The only batteries I have used are the Nikon 18ds. I have several and cycle them through use. I didn’t see the benefit of the non-OEM batteries in my first flagship camera. YMMV.
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I can understand that. I just dont really burn through batteries that fast, and the Wasabi batteries come 2 in a pack with a dual charger for $180 which is $40 cheaper than a single OEM battery... and I really only use them as backups.
 
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Chris Weller said:
Yeah the sustained write spead is 850 vs 1550 same model just 512 vs 1TB. You see this in NVME SSD's a lot. I think it might have something to do with how it can write to more memory chips at once. Kinda like Raid drives. You get more speed from a 6 drive raid then you do a 2 or 3 drive raid. Or like #Carmeron T said above 1 TB cards are using a newer generation of parts.
Click to expand...
Sounds reasonable. For the price of the 1TB, its a good deal!
 
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go to the most recent review, then go to the last page of that review and they'll have a heat and a speed test chart. it's not complete, but it's the best, most reliable info we have on cards, esp. heat.

www.thessdreview.com

The SSD Review

The Worlds Dedicated SSD Education and Review Resource |
www.thessdreview.com www.thessdreview.com

like Dan, if i wanted something less than the Delkin Black, I'd probably just go with the Delkin Power G4 (new version)
 
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Chris Weller said:
Yeah. Agreed. It's not ideal for Video. I'm going to experiment with these and see if they make any difference. They were on sale for $129. I can use them in other cameras or send them back if they aren't what any good.

Pro SX 160 GB provides maximum read speeds of 1785 MB/s and maximum write speeds of 1600 MB/s, as well as sustained read speeds of 1785 MB/s and sustained write speeds of 1480 MB/s.

Not top of the line, but very near it. Should be within 10-15 frames or so of the max buffer of best cards on Z9 and Z8 on uncompressed Raw. I think I've seen the best cards around 1680 or 1700 sustained. Probably get 80-85 frames from those cards before buffer. I think I'll get 65-70 from this one. I also tend to shot HE* mostly anyway and I think it will be bottomless or close enough.
Click to expand...
I had watched that video link you shared with the test on the Sabrent Pro 1TB... I've used Sabrent drives a lot in the past, so it was interesting to me. He was shooting Raw+jpeg, and I only shoot RAW, so the sustained write speed for that card was crazy, and the heat was reasonable too. The Angelbird Pro 1TB looks good too.
 
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John Navitsky said:
go to the most recent review, then go to the last page of that review and they'll have a heat and a speed test chart. it's not complete, but it's the best, most reliable info we have on cards, esp. heat.

www.thessdreview.com

The SSD Review

The Worlds Dedicated SSD Education and Review Resource |
www.thessdreview.com www.thessdreview.com

like Dan, if i wanted something less than the Delkin Black, I'd probably just go with the Delkin Power G4 (new version)
Click to expand...
This is a good chart, I've seen it before and it illustrates the variability in heat just between the card sizes on the same exact card type. Delkin Power 128 is 45 degrees and the power 256 is 56 degrees. The Lexar Pro Diamond 512 GB is 56 degrees and the 128 GB is 68 degrees. This is 11 and 12 degree differences. Anyway, I would really like to see the Delkin Power 325 GB in this test to validate my suspicion that this card run far hotter than their other Black cards at other sizes.

Personally, I view anything over 70 degrees is unacceptable, and I would only choose a card that stays under 60 degrees. From what I remember somewhere in the low to mid 60's is where SSD's begin throttling performance.

Actually here are some quotes from some tests...

We learned through this test that the SanDisk Extreme Pro CFexpress B 512GB Card starts to thermal throttle at 65C. We wanted to see how this affected other benchmarks so threw in a Crystal DiskMark score where the most notable drop was write performance at 485MB/s.

In testing the Lexar Professional CFexpress, we determined that their thermal throttling doesn’t kick in until just after 80C and only brought write speeds down to about 800MB/s. We found this interesting, especially with respect to the SanDisk thermal throttling at 459MB/s,

I think cards that are running in the 80's are probably prone to some level of error and corruption.
 
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***I just ran this test on three cards using CrystDiskInfo - ***

Very informative.

I didn't know how to set-up the cards to show in crystalmarkdiskinfo before, but it's easy

Function-Advanced Features-Advanced Disk Search - And they will appear just like any other drive!


Transfered a 91 GB folder with Movie files from NVME drive to card in Card Reader - Average Speed was 700 MB/s on the Delkin Black Cards and 675 MB/s on the Angle Bird

Delkin Black 325 GB Card - 56 Degrees
Delkin Black 128 GB Card - 56 Degreres
Angel Bird AV Pro SE 512 GB - 75 Degrees - Yikes! - Wow - And 5 minutes later the card was still at 60 degrees. - Wow this card is NOT good for video or high shot volume -

I felt all the cards afterwards and the Angelbird card was much hotter than the other cards. You could still hold it, but it was uncomfortable. Probably 10 degrees Celcius away from being too hot to hold.

I'm getting the Pro SX Cards tomorrow, so I'll test those the same way. If they are not better than the Delkin's I'll send them back - I only bought them because they are supposed to be cooler than the 325 GB cards, per the test above. But my theory about the 325 being hotter than the 128 appears to be incorrect. However, there COULD be a difference in camera when write speeds are at 1300 or 1400 MB/s instead of 700 MB/s.

I'm going to start a new thread on this so people can see this fresh and can test their cards on their own.
 
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Chad Huff said:
I'm curious about what CF Express cards people are using besides Delkin Black ? I have a 356gb, love it, but the Welkin cards are quite expensive compared to some of the other options I see available. I am specifically interested in any experiences you all have with:

SABRENT Rocket CFX PRO​

Exascend Essential​

Both have high sustained write speeds, and a couple reviews I saw on YouTube mentioned they were running cool(ish) temps compared to other cards, but YouTube reviews are kind of "take it with a grain of salt" to me. Not everyone has Steve's policy of not taking the items for free or payment for the review, so first hand experiences here would help me.

Also, when I had my gripped D850 I used the Wasabi Power EN-EL batteries as my backup power if the OEM battery was drained. They worked just fine for that. Has anyone tried their version of the EN-EL18D?

Thanks all!
Click to expand...
I just use my old D4 batteries as backup for my Z9 in case I need it - haven't yet so far. Sure they don't last as long as the Z9 battery, but they're 'free'
 
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Chad Huff said:
I'm curious about what CF Express cards people are using besides Delkin Black ? I have a 356gb, love it, but the Welkin cards are quite expensive compared to some of the other options I see available. I am specifically interested in any experiences you all have with:

SABRENT Rocket CFX PRO​

Exascend Essential​

Both have high sustained write speeds, and a couple reviews I saw on YouTube mentioned they were running cool(ish) temps compared to other cards, but YouTube reviews are kind of "take it with a grain of salt" to me. Not everyone has Steve's policy of not taking the items for free or payment for the review, so first hand experiences here would help me.

Also, when I had my gripped D850 I used the Wasabi Power EN-EL batteries as my backup power if the OEM battery was drained. They worked just fine for that. Has anyone tried their version of the EN-EL18D?

Thanks all!
Click to expand...
I have a DotFoto battery as spare. It can not be recharged inside the Z9 but, due to the higher electrical characteristic, it has a longer duration in confront of the original one. moreover, it is also cheaper.

As CFexpress cards, I use the Prograde Gold 2.0 512gb, a Cobalt of 325gb and one Angelbird of 512 glb.
All works grate.
 
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