Lexar Professional 1000x UHS-II 64GB SDXC Memory Card Review

Introduction

Lexar Professional 1000x SD cards feature UHS-II performance at a value price. The 1000x UHS-II card line was introduced in early 2015. The cards utilize a new bus interface to provide improved transfer speed while being backwards compatible with UHS-I and Standard SD devices, although at lower speed. Lexar advertises the 1000x cards with read speeds of 150MB/s and a write speeds of 75MB/s. The 150MB/s speed can only be attained using the UHS-II interface, otherwise the card is limited to about 95MB/s in UHS-I mode. Lexar 1000x UHS-II cards are available in 16, 32, 64, 128 and 256 GB capacities. The 64GB card (LSD64GCRBNA1000) is tested in this review.

What separates UHS-II cards from standard SD and UHS-I cards is new UHS-II interface. The back of the card has a second row of pads that connect to matching pins on UHS-II enabled devices. The card still has the traditional SD connections and will work at lower speed in UHS-I and earlier devices. In UHS-I mode this card will operate in SDR104 mode (104MB/s maximum bus speed).

Performance

While the Lexar 1000x UHS-II card offers a boost in read speed over UHS-I cards, its write speed is still within UHS-I territory. During benchmark testing in UHS-II USB 3.0 card readers, it reached 153.2 MB/s sequential read speed. Write speed measured 84.3 MB/s in the fastest test. In UHS-I mode the card reached 93.2 MB/s sequential read and 76.1 MB/s sequential write. In UHS-I mode it still trails the fastest UHS-I cards.

Card: Lexar Professional 1000x UHS-II 64GB
Benchmark: CrystalDiskMark 3.0.3 x64
Program settings: 1000 MB, 5 passes, random test data
Operating system: Windows 10 Pro
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H
Processor: Intel Core i7-3770K @ 4.40GHz
RAM: 32GB DDR3 1600

The Lexar 1000x 64GB SDXC card was tested in several digital cameras. In some UHS-II capable cameras, such as the Olympus E-M5 Mark II and PEN-F, it outperforms UHS-I cards because the camera uses UHS-II and does not support the fast SDR104 UHS-I mode. In other cameras such as the Nikon D500 it lags several UHS-I cards; the D500 supports UHS-II as well as SDR104 in UHS-I mode, so UHS-I cards with higher write speed than this Lexar 1000x card have the advantage.

Cameras tested with this card: Canon EOS R, Canon 5D Mark IV, Canon 77D, Canon 80D, Canon EOS M5, Canon Rebel T7i, Fuji X-T3, Fuji X-Pro2, Fuji X-T10, Nikon D500, Nikon D7500, Nikon D5600, Nikon Coolpix P1000, Olympus E-M1 II, Olympus PEN-F, Panasonic GH5, Sony A7R II, Sony A9, Sony A6300

Lexar Professional series memory cards have a limited lifetime warranty. The card tested in this review was made in Korea.

The following table contains information encoded in the SD card.

Recommendation

The Lexar 1000x UHS-II card offers a combination of speed and value. It offers superior 150MB/s download speed over UHS-I cards but is not quite as fast as UHS-I cards in write speed. Some cameras including the Olympus E-M5 II and PEN-F benefit from its UHS-II interface, while other cameras may be faster with other UHS-I cards. Given the competitive price, the 1000x card may be worth consideration for your camera.

Available sizes and prices

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