# ProGrade launches new high-capacity Gold Series CFexpress Type B memory cards



## Canon Rumors Guy (Oct 3, 2022)

> ProGrade has launched new high-capcity CFexpress cards to their Gold line of memory cards. The new memory cards are available for preorder from B&H Photo.
> Overview
> Designed for emerging mainstream imaging applications, the 512GB CFexpress 2.0 Type B Gold Memory Card from ProGrade Digital provides read speeds of up to 1700 MB/s, which helps to quickly offload content to your computer, and write speeds of up to 1500 MB/s. Additionally, the Gold’s minimum write speed is guaranteed not to drop below 400 MB/s, which allows for the uninterrupted recording of a wide variety of codecs, including raw 4K video, 4K and 6K ProRes 4444, 4K, 6K, and 8K ProRes 422 HQ, and more. This card is resistant to temperature extremes, shock, vibration, and X-rays, and is also backward compatible with select XQD cameras that adopt firmware to enable CFexpress. This card also takes advantage of an NVMe host controller interface and backward compatibility with CFexpress 1.0.
> ProGrade Gold General Features...



Continue reading...


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## Chaitanya (Oct 3, 2022)

512GB card at $180 seems to offer best value for money of the bunch. Great to see pricing of these cards fall to reasonable level(better value than UHS-II SD cards).

Edit: here are handful of 512GB UHS-II V90 rated cards(which should provide equivalent performance to this 512GB card. SD cards need to come down in price in current scenario they simply dont make sense. 








Memory Cards, SD Cards & Micro SD Cards | B&H


Browse B&H for a vast selection of Digital Memory Cards, SD Cards from top brands like SanDisk, Lexar, Transcend and Delkin Devices, with unbeatable prices.




www.bhphotovideo.com


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## bbasiaga (Oct 3, 2022)

Glad to see some affordable options coming around finally. Angelbird has one in this price range as well, but I'm not sure how the specs compare. In another year or so hopefully there will be more. And then I can look at upgrading to an R5!

-Brian


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## snappy604 (Oct 4, 2022)

My cobalt 325gb has been solid and very fast on my r5.. pricey when I bought, but no regrets. Holy o the 2 TB size


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## JN- (Oct 4, 2022)

It doesn’t appear to have the new VPG400 rating.


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## David - Sydney (Oct 4, 2022)

Chaitanya said:


> 512GB card at $180 seems to offer best value for money of the bunch. Great to see pricing of these cards fall to reasonable level(better value than UHS-II SD cards).
> 
> Edit: here are handful of 512GB UHS-II V90 rated cards(which should provide equivalent performance to this 512GB card. SD cards need to come down in price in current scenario they simply dont make sense.
> 
> ...


This website has some tested sequential write speeds as most specs list "up to xxx" speed so it seems to be a better source. The table with the details is half way down.
https://havecamerawilltravel.com/fastest-sd-cards/
Another website with similar testing is
https://www.cameramemoryspeed.com/reviews/sd-cards/
I believe that CFe Type B has such a lead in the market (price/capacity/speed) that SD Express 8.0 can never catch up even if it is slightly bigger.


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## David - Sydney (Oct 4, 2022)

Note that Canon never approved of ProGrade Gold CFe cards to support 8k raw recording. Only their Cobalt range. If you want to use the 2TB for longer 8k record times then Raw lite mode would need to be used.


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## David - Sydney (Oct 4, 2022)

Do you need CFe Type B... mostly no except for buffer clearing of large mp sensor and 8k raw recording. Buffer clearing times/images tested for R5 is at
https://www.the-digital-picture.com/News/News-Post.aspx?News=34990
but they didn't use a V90 USH-ii card so it is a little misleading.


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## Chaitanya (Oct 5, 2022)

David - Sydney said:


> This website has some tested sequential write speeds as most specs list "up to xxx" speed so it seems to be a better source. The table with the details is half way down.
> https://havecamerawilltravel.com/fastest-sd-cards/
> Another website with similar testing is
> https://www.cameramemoryspeed.com/reviews/sd-cards/
> I believe that CFe Type B has such a lead in the market (price/capacity/speed) that SD Express 8.0 can never catch up even if it is slightly bigger.


Cameramemoryspeed still hasn't started testing CFexpress cards(A and B) yet. I saw user reviews for some of these cheap/entry level CFexpress cards and their performance is better than SD UHS-II V90 cards by significant margin while being seriously cheap. 








CFexpress Cards - Camnostic


Using the Canon EOS R5, the best selling CFexpress cards are measured and compared against real-world performance factors.




camnostic.com












The Best CFexpress Memory Cards in 2023


The best CFexpress memory cards as determined by our tests.




petapixel.com


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## David - Sydney (Oct 5, 2022)

Chaitanya said:


> Cameramemoryspeed still hasn't started testing CFexpress cards(A and B) yet. I saw user reviews for some of these cheap/entry level CFexpress cards and their performance is better than SD UHS-II V90 cards by significant margin while being seriously cheap.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Agreed... The argument for having dual SD/CFe type B cards for the R5 is somewhat mixed. The price differential at time of launch was not very different there was only the backward compatibility benefit. When running dual raw still recording the buffer speed is limited by the slowest card.
There may have been some blowback in the media if Canon went dual CFe B cards but I think that users wouldn't have complained that much and would have had an even better experience eg faster buffer clearance and the option of dual raw video recording. It would have meant more heat being generated though.


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## Chaitanya (Oct 5, 2022)

David - Sydney said:


> Agreed... The argument for having dual SD/CFe type B cards for the R5 is somewhat mixed. The price differential at time of launch was not very different there was only the backward compatibility benefit. When running dual raw still recording the buffer speed is limited by the slowest card.
> There may have been some blowback in the media if Canon went dual CFe B cards but I think that users wouldn't have complained that much and would have had an even better experience eg faster buffer clearance and the option of dual raw video recording. It would have meant more heat being generated though.


Given how much negative press R5 overheating got not surprised R5 doesnt have dual CFexpress slots but hopefully future models(R5 and above with R6 and lower maybe moving to 1x CFexpress and 1x SD slot) will simply have better thermals and drop that SD slot in favour faster media. In next few years these cards will only continue to improve(even if prices stagnate to current level). 
This also brings into question stupidity of excluding CFexpress slot in 7D series replacement.


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## jim (Oct 5, 2022)

Seems all links to these cards have disappeared! Maybe the price was too good to be true...


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## Chaitanya (Oct 5, 2022)

jim said:


> Seems all links to these cards have disappeared! Maybe the price was too good to be true...


Here is link to Prograde website where they were listed for preorder(seems like they have run through their initial stock/limit):








ProGrade Digital CFexpress™ 2.0 Type B Memory Card (Gold) 1700


These cards can shoot in 8K, 6K, 5K, 4K, UHD, high bit rate MPEG-4, and Raw Video. Purchase your CFexpress memory card here!




shop.progradedigital.com


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## jim (Oct 5, 2022)

Chaitanya said:


> Here is link to Prograde website where they were listed for preorder(seems like they have run through their initial stock/limit):
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Those are the older (and more expensive) versions of their Gold range and are available now or in some cases sold out. Note there is no mention of a 2TB card. The newer version has the same basic specs but was significantly cheaper. Their website is a mess, if you look at the Overview page, they show 4 verisons of the "Gen2" Gold cards, two with the higher 400MB/s minimum write speed but you don't know which one is being sold and if there are other differences.


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## David - Sydney (Oct 5, 2022)

Chaitanya said:


> Given how much negative press R5 overheating got not surprised R5 doesnt have dual CFexpress slots but hopefully future models(R5 and above with R6 and lower maybe moving to 1x CFexpress and 1x SD slot) will simply have better thermals and drop that SD slot in favour faster media. In next few years these cards will only continue to improve(even if prices stagnate to current level).
> This also brings into question stupidity of excluding CFexpress slot in 7D series replacement.


Yes, the R5 overheating issue was blown way out of proportion as the Sony fanboys didn't like the R5's specs. Maybe the second version will have dual CFe but history has told us that the 5 series always had mixed cards.

R6 won't need anything faster than fast UHS-ii cards as it doesn't have 8k and 20fps can be managed within the bandwidth of the faster UHS-ii cards.

I think that the faster UHS-ii cards are close to the theoretical limit of 312MB/s half duplex write speed with 10 of them at ~260MB/s. I don't think that we will see a step improvement over time. 
The UHS-ii pricing is still high as there is limited demand for the fastest ones. Without those websites with actual tests, the market has no idea about what the cards are actually capable of.


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## Johnw (Oct 5, 2022)

David - Sydney said:


> the R5 overheating issue was blown way out of proportion



Maybe so, but I believe there are still improvements to be had once hardware changes are on the table for the Mark II.


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## David - Sydney (Oct 6, 2022)

Johnw said:


> Maybe so, but I believe there are still improvements to be had once hardware changes are on the table for the Mark II.


You would expect that... but we will see. The R5c avoids any video related heating issues and the lack of IBIS shows that dissipating sensor heat is still an issue with the current design for video purposes. No one can complain about overheating in video modes when the R5c is available (at a price premium).

Better heat pipes/spreaders will help a R5ii to avoid hot spots but that is already now allowed with the high temperature settings. Most people wouldn't have an issue of high temperature surfaces especially on a tripod or in a housing but low temperature burns when handheld would have been a blocking issue in the original design. The availability of raw lite modes and external recorders completes the choices. If the external recorder/high temperature limit/raw lite option was available from the initial release then it would have addressed all the criticisms.

I am expecting the most gains to be had with a new Digic design. I believe that is a key heat generator and the biggest issue for battery life/efficiency in the current generation vs Sony for instance. CFe Type B slot/cards are also clearly a heat generator but I think that most users would prefer dual CFe B slots than mixed media. The argument for the availability of a cheap SD from any store for a high end body doesn't seem to gel for me.


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## f119a (Oct 6, 2022)

jim said:


> Those are the older (and more expensive) versions of their Gold range and are available now or in some cases sold out. Note there is no mention of a 2TB card. The newer version has the same basic specs but was significantly cheaper. Their website is a mess, if you look at the Overview page, they show 4 verisons of the "Gen2" Gold cards, two with the higher 400MB/s minimum write speed but you don't know which one is being sold and if there are other differences.


I asked ProGrade and they said 'the item is not available for the moment'


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