SanDisk Extreme 80MB/s U3 256GB SDXC Card Review

Introduction

The SanDisk Extreme cards offer high performance at a moderate price. The new-for-2015 Extreme 128GB and 256GB UHS-I SDXC cards have been boosted up to 80MB/s read speed rating. This is an upgrade over the 60MB/s read speed rating of the 16, 32 and 64GB Extreme SD cards introduced in mid 2014. All the latest Extreme SD cards are UHS Speed Class 3 (U3) rated to support at least 30MB/s continuous write speed required for 4K video recording. The Extreme U3 differ from the earlier Extreme Plus 80MB/s cards which were labeled U1 speed rating.

The Extreme 256GB UHS-I SDXC card in this review offers a tremendous amount of storage and can offer record hours of HD video recording. SanDisk claims 80MB/s read and 60MB/s write speeds. The card features a gold label that is similar between the Extreme 60MB/s and 80MB/s cards. The card is marked "Made in China" on the bottom.

Performance

The SanDisk Extreme 256GB SDXC card was tested in a variery of card readers. In benchmarks testing it reached 82.1 MB/s sequential read and 79.1 MB/s sequential write. Both surpass the ratings quoted by SanDisk and the write speed was significantly faster than the 60MB/s quoted write speed.

The Extreme 80MB/s outperformed the SanDisk Extreme Plus 80MB/s 32GB card in write speed (79.1MB/s vs 61.2MB/s), however the Extreme Plus posted a higher read speed at 99.5MB/s.

Card: SanDisk Extreme 80MB/s 256GB
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

Performance tests are also performed in cameras. So far it performed nearly equally to the Extreme Pro in the Pentax K-3 II (camera-limited) write speed test. Additional in-camera write test results will be added when this card is tested in additional cameras.

Cameras tested with this card: Canon 5Ds, Canon 80D, Fuji X-Pro2, Fuji X-T10, Nikon D500, Olympus PEN-F, Pentax K-3 II, Sony A7R II, Sony A6300

The following table contains information encoded in the SD card.

Available sizes and prices

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