10 SDXC/SDHC Memory Cards, Rounded Up And Benchmarked
The latest flash-based SD memory cards with UHS-I deliver up to 63 MB/s throughput. Users who want to exploit that performance need to pay attention to a few details, like making sure they upgrade to a USB 3.0 card reader. Which card is the fastest?
Lexar Professional 133x (16, 32 GB)
Memory specialist Lexar sent us two SD memory cards for this review, its Professional 133x with 32 GB and 16 GB capacity. Lexar does have a 128 GB SDXC card on its Web site, but it wasn't ready for review when we started collecting samples.
32 GB SDHC
The 32 GB Professional 133x is available for $120, which is acceptable considering the card’s positioning as a solution for digital photography and enthusiasts. Considering Kingston’s current pricing of $280, this is less than half the cost. In return, though, you also less than half of the performance.
The Professional 133x at 32 GB reaches 23 MB/s sequential read throughput, according to h2benchw and CrystalDiskMark 3.0. It is comparably weak as Kingston's Ultimate XX lineup in 512 KB random writes at only 0.8 MB/s, although this type of workload is unusual for SD memory cards. Sequential write speeds never drop below 14.1 MB/s, which is still a commendable result, despite the fact that the UHS-I cards from Kingston and SanDisk reach almost twice the peak write throughput. The card is not very convincing if you hammer I/O-intensive workloads through it, and it does not deliver very high throughput in combined reads and writes.
16 GB SDHC
The 16 GB model delivers similar performance as the 32 GB version. In has better combined read and write throughput (8 MB/s versus 7 MB/s) and slightly better I/O performance, but also a bit less throughput performance. These differences are not relevant, though. The card is well-suited to applications that require sequential operation, but it doesn't do well in random operations that involve a lot of write access.
Stay On the Cutting Edge: Get the Tom's Hardware Newsletter
Join the experts who read Tom's Hardware for the inside track on enthusiast PC tech news — and have for over 25 years. We'll send breaking news and in-depth reviews of CPUs, GPUs, AI, maker hardware and more straight to your inbox.
Current page: Lexar Professional 133x (16, 32 GB)
Prev Page Kingston Ultimate XX (8, 16, 32 GB) Next Page PQI SDXC C10 (64 GB)Sabrent debuts 5GB/s Rocket Nano 2242 Gen 4 SSD — a good fit for Lenovo Legion Go, laptops, and NUCs
AMD takes CPU market share from Intel in desktops and servers, but Intel fights back in laptops
Stack Overflow bans users en masse for rebelling against OpenAI partnership — users banned for deleting answers to prevent them being used to train ChatGPT