Kingston Launches New Line of "SD Ultimate" Cards with 133x Write Speeds

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.kingston.com/press/2005/digitalmedia/05a.asp' target='_blank'>http://www.kingston.com/press/2005/digitalmedia/05a.asp</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Kingston Technology Company, Inc. today announced the further expansion of its Secure Digital (SD) Card product line with the release of new ultra-performing 'Ultimate' SD cards, initially shipping in 512-MB and 1-GB capacities. The new SD Ultimate cards offer significant performance benefits over the current Standard and Elite Pro lines of SD cards, including 133X super-fast transfer rates of larger size files-ideal for the shooting demands of professional digital photographers...Many current devices are sold with an 'X' speed rating, much like CD-ROM drives, to give users a performance indicator of how fast the card can transfer (read and/or write) images. Some manufacturers use 'X' to indicate read or write speeds; others use both as 'data transfer' and a few manufacturers do not define their cards' speed at all. Kingston® X-speed ratings are based on 'write' speed and X-speed performance is a function of MegaBytes per second (MB/sec) of write speed. Higher X-speed ratings equal faster cards. "</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/kingston-sdultimate.gif" /><br /><br />Kingston sent me one of these to test, so expect to see a Quick Look article posted soon!

[mcsouth]

8O wowser!!! I'd love to have that 1GB card you show in the photo in my new Canon SD400! Wonder what the pricing will end up being like?

[Jason Dunn]

8O wowser!!! I'd love to have that 1GB card you show in the photo in my new Canon SD400! Wonder what the pricing will end up being like?

"The SD Ultimate cards are the first to ship from Kingston's Ultimate family of digital media. Starting with the rollout of the SD Ultimate 512-MB card, part #: SD/512-U and SD Ultimate 1-GB card, part #: SD/1GB-U; the cards will have an MSRP of $72 and $164, respectively. The SD Ultimate line will be followed by CF Ultimate card offerings."

[mcsouth]

:oops: uhhhh, I guess it would help to read the whole article, instead of skimming..........

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

Don't count on it being fast in compact cameras. They just don't have the ability to write that fast.

[mcsouth]

Don't count on it being fast in compact cameras. They just don't have the ability to write that fast.

I understand - the higher end digital SLR's should always have the upper hand regarding transfer rates, reflecting the difference in usage. That said, there are smaller "point n' shoot" cameras that benefit from faster cards as well.....

The (Canon) SD500 has a single continuous shooting modes, and a brief review image is displayed for each frame captured. We found the 2.0fps quoted speed to be perfectly accurate, though for some reasons the rate drops slightly at some lower resolutions, possibly due to the extra processing overhead incurred by reducing the file size before creating the JPEG........

In our extensive tests we could not get to the point - even after 50 or 60 shots - where the buffer caused the frame rate to drop or the shooting to pause significantly.

Nothing to complain about here; not only does the SD500 manage to maintain a good 2.0 frames per second at most file sizes and quality settings, the buffering is so fast that you can shoot pretty much indefinitely, even at the top 7MP/Super Fine setting, as long as you have a fast enough SD card. It seems impossible to fill the buffer when using a fast card, meaning you can keep shooting for as long as you have the battery power and card capacity to do so.

Link to the original article: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canonsd500/page4.asp

Granted, we're still not talking about huge transfer rates - they figure the Canon is doing well over 2.5MB/s, so the reality is that these cards WOULD be overkill as you say. However, it is obvious that a higher speed (60 X or so) card still benefits this camera when used in burst or movie mode.[/i]