If you’re into serious photography, you’d understand the importance of every second: a second it takes for your camera to write the photos it just took could be the winning shot of a game or the photo-finish of a race, and that second is gone forever. Burst shooting would help but once you max out your camera’s buffer, its gonna take a moment for the camera to write them onto your memory card. Speed matters and memory cards are no different and many of  today’s fastest are all UHS-I. The UHS-I bus standard allows speeds up to 104MB/s. Today we have another memory card in the lab, this time around we’re back with Silicon Power with their SP Superior SDXC Memory Card. At 64GB, this SDXC UHS-I Class 10 card is a beast on paper but let’s see actual performance show us what it can do. Read on!
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Silicon Power is a relatively new player in the flash data storage market and has rapidly matured into the company they are today. Featuring a wide array of products intended for everyone, Silicon Power a wide spectrum of products from RAM, SSDs, flash drives to portable hard disks. Silicon Power has sent us their Superior 64GB UHS-I Class 10 SDXC Memory Card to test and we’re excited to see what the company has to offer.
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Features & Specifications
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- Capture high-quality images and extended lengths of stunning 1080p full-HD video  with any SD UHS-1 compatible DSLR, camera, HD camcorder, 3D camera
- Powerful Transfer speeds, reducing lag time while photo-shooting:
- Superior series:
- up to 85/40 MB/s in reading and writing (SDXC UHS-1);*
- up to 90/45 MB/s reading and writing (SDHC UHS-1) *
- Class 10 video recording performance **
- Getting 10 more photos in consecutive shooting in JPEG by a UHS-1 supported device ***
Packaging & Closer Look
[one_half][singlepic id=14522 w=450 h=600 float=center][/one_half] [one_half_last][singlepic id=14523 w=450 h=600 float=center][/one_half_last]Where other companies choose to use dark packaging and metallic bling on their top-of-the-line products, Silicon Power sticks with the companies pastel and light colored packaging approach. The marshmallow explosion of colors highlights the capacity of the card. On the lower part of the front shows us the rated speeds of the card, and the lifetime warranty tag.
[one_half][singlepic id=14524 w=450 h=600 float=center][/one_half] [one_half_last][singlepic id=14525 w=450 h=600 float=center][/one_half_last]The Silicon Power Superior SDXC UHS-I card comes in standard SD card form factor. The card comes in a blue body and has a write-protect slider down one of the side.
Performance Testing
We used a Kingston MobileLite G3 USB3.0 for the tests in this section.
ATTO Disk Benchmark is an industry-standard for measuring the maximum theoretical speed of a given product and appears is mostly the tool used to illustrate the speed ratings of storage products. The Silicon Power Superior SDXC UHS-I Memory Card is rated for 85/40 MB per second read/write. Looks like Silicon Power has been a bit modest with the card delivering a rating of 90/61 MB. Very good start for the product here.
On to another test, we fire up CrystalDiskMark to see more performance figures. Great figures overall although its rare for the card to see any real-world use that would go below 512K unless it was used as a storage for other than photo and video.
User Experience & Conclusion
Benchmarks shows that the Silicon Power Superior SDXC UHS-I Memory Card has plenty of punch, but the real test for such devices is actual use. To really get a feel of the performance of the card, we used our Sony NEX-5N with a burst rate of 10fps set in RAW mode. Depending on settings, the camera will burst anywhere from 3-10 frames before the buffer fills up. Comparing with the KINGMAX SDHC PRO and Sony Memory Stick Pro HG Duo HX, the first thing we experience is the massive storage, that means more space for RAW+JPG in Fine quality. Testing out FX quality 1080p video recording was also smooth with no buffer lag. The most significant test though occurs in burst shooting. The Silicon Power Superior SDXC UHS-I Memory Card was quite snappy, faster than the KINGMAX PRO card but felt a bit slower than the Sony MS Pro HX card. This should be a given as the Sony card complements the Sony camera, but in most other applications the Silicon Power Superior SDXC UHS-I Memory Card should be plenty enough.
Time to wrap up our review, here’s our breakdown:
- Performance. The card handles nicely and performs solidly. It feels just a tad bit slower than the Sony MS Pro but given that the card exceeds its rated speeds, we give it a perfect score for humility.
- Build Quality. Nothing really special about the card, the gold connectors do feel premium and the body is quite solid. We give it a half-a-point above average.
- Functionality. Large capacity for maximum storage, fast speeds for sports photography, plenty of storage for HD video recording… there’s just plenty to go from there. The card offers plenty of flexibility for the would-be photographer/videographer and we give it excellent scores for that.
- Bundle. No card reader… no anything else, average.
- Value. The Silicon Power Superior SDXC UHS-I Memory Card retails for USD72. Now depending on what you’re looking for in a card, it can be expensive or cheap. Given that it competes with the higher-end solutions, it is in the cheaper-end of the spectrum with competition retailing for 80-100USD or higher. This is where it gets complex, as the value of the card is only as good as how you’ll be using it so think about your usage scenario. For general usage, there is the Elite version of this memory card.
If you’re in the market for a new memory card or wanted to upgrade your current system with a speedy solution, the Silicon Power Superior SDXC UHS-I Memory Card is a good option. A solid price/performance offer makes the card stand-out against other brands and is backed by a lifetime warranty.
The Silicon Power Superior SDXC UHS-I Memory Card is fast and affordable and will easily complement your sports photography and HD video setups. We give it our B2G Recommended Award and Bronze Award.
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