Kingston V90 256gb micro sd card evaluation: close to 1.3$ per G, but is still worth the money?
With the continuous improvement of the camera equipment performance, the mainstream resolution of video recording has been upgraded from 1080P to 4K, some devices even support 8K video recording, and the transmission speed level requirements for memory cards have also been upgraded from the previous V10 (C10) to today’s V60 or even V90.
At present, the top V90 micro sd cards on the market requires a minimum sequential writing speed of 90MB/s. It not only has high requirements on the transmission speed limit, but also has high requirements on the stability and continuous reading and writing speed. Only a few top brands have the ability to produce it, and the price will not be low, especially for the ultra-large-capacity version that exceeds 128G, and the unit price per G is mostly more than 1.3$.
Today we are going to review two V90 ultra-fast memory cards from Kingston, namely Kingston Canvas React Plus SD memory card (SD card) and Kingston Canvas React Plus microSD memory card (TF card), both of which perfectly meet the V90 standard, among which, the TF version just launched not long ago is the only V90 TF card product available on the market.
Appearance and packaging: very low-key, it does not look powerful
The two memory cards we got this time are both 256G versions with USH-Ⅱ card reader. The packaging is not much different from Kingston’s other series of products. It maintains Kingston’s consistent low-key style, only the highest reading speed sign on the outer packaging can fully reflect its king strength.
The standard SD version of Kingston V90 ultra-fast memory card has a maximum writing speed of up to 300MB/s, which is the top of the V90 level, while the TF version has a maximum reading speed of 285MB/s, which is also a unique level in TF card products.
It should be noted that Kingston has launched a V30-level ultra-speed version SD card product before. Its appearance is basically the same as this V90 ultra-speed version of the memory card. Only the speed logo is different. You should pay attention when buying it.
It can be known from the speed logo that the two products in this evaluation all meet the V90 standard, they have C10 certification, and the TF card version has A1 certification. In addition, the SDR2 and U3 logos indicate that these two cards are UHS156 cards, and can run under HD312 (theoretical maximum speed is 312 MB/s) mode, it is definitely the top product in the consumer market.
It should be noted that to fully experience the performance of Kingston V90 super-speed memory card, the device needs to support the USH-Ⅱ interface. The back of these two cards has an extra pin compared to the ordinary SD card or TF card (UHS-Ⅰ). The upper pin row is mainly responsible for processing default speed, high speed and UHS-I interface, and this additional pin is used to transmit USH-II signal. If the connected device only has a UHS-I interface, these two cards can only run in SDR104 mode and the transmission speed can only reach 104MB/s.
Performance test: It is the best
Compared to its low-key packaging and appearance, Kingston V90 ultra-speed memory card’s transmission performance is clearly much more worth our expectations, because it is a high-speed memory card product,.
In order to simulate a normal environment, we use a mainstream configuration notebook for speed test, all cards are connected via the original Kingston MobileLite Plus series card reader, and card transmission performance will be tested through ATTO Disk Benchmark and HD Tune Pro test software respectively. File copy test were added to test the actual transmission performance.
First of all, let ’s take a look at ATTO Disk Benchmark, which use different data packets to check reading and writing performance of these two memory cards under different file sizes. In this test, the maximum writing speed of the standard SD version is up to 278.77 MB/s, the maximum reading speed is 289.81MB/s, while the maximum writing speed of the TF version is 210.27MB/s, and the maximum reading speed is 266.67MB/s.
The random reading and writing performance of these two cards is excellent. Especially the SD version. The random reading and writing performance is very balanced in the test above 32KB, and the reading speed and writing speed are very close, compared with ordinary “high-speed” cards, the speed is much faster, which is more than enough for 8K video recording and viewing.
SD card HD Tune Pro test
When it comes to the file benchmark test under HD Tune Pro, the test is performed by writing the file and then reading the file in this mode, which can test the limit reading and writing speed of the memory card. The performance of SD version Kingston in this section is very good, the reading speed is 294MB/s, and the writing speed can also reach 276MB/s under the condition of 20G file length. Considering the performance of the test platform, it can basically reach the nominal 300MB/s transmission speed.
TF card HD Tune Pro test
The TF version has a sequential reading speed of 274MB/s and a writing speed of 234MB/s, which may be limited by the test platform, but the overall performance perfectly meets its “unique level” positioning. There are no second TF memory card on the market that can achieve this speed.
In the actual test, the reading and writing speed of the SD version of the memory card was tested by manually copying the test file generated by HD Tune Pro between the storage and the solid state drive (Samsung 970EVO), both of which reached 250MB/s and 236MB/s. The daily transfer efficiency of shooting material can be much higher than other memory cards.
In actual performance, the SD version can maintain a reading speed of 280MB/s at the initial stage, and it will stabilize at about 255MB/s at 30% process until the end, while the writing speed has remained at about 235MB/s, it than stabilize at around 85% after fluctuating at 70% process. The overall performance was still very good. The performance of reading and writing was very balanced, matching the theoretical test results.
The TF version also maintains a high level in this test. The reading speed stabled at 250MB/s after peaking at 260MB/s in the first 8% process. The transmission speed is stable until the transmission is completed, and the performance of writing is even more amazing. The transmission speed maintained at around 200MB/s from start to end (fluctuation at ± 1MB/s), and this data is better than other TF memory cards.
After completing the file transfer performance test, we add the actual camera application test, and we chose the Nikon D500 that supports UHS-II memory card for rapid continuous shooting test.
In the test, the resolution was set to the maximum 5568×3712 and completely save RAM format and use the highest precision JPEG format file. We compare a V30 level UHS-I memory card by calculating the speed of saving continuous photos.
Based on the initial sound of the shutter in the video, the Kingston V90 ultra-speed memory card saves 45 pictures in about 29 seconds, and the ordinary V30 memory card (actual sequential writing speed is 90MB/s) saves 45 pictures in about 35 seconds, the total size of each RAW + JPEG in the generated file is about 46M (4M + 40M). Limited by the camera’s reading and writing data performance, Kingston V90 ultra-speed memory card is about 20% faster. It has not fully exerted its nearly 3 times faster writing speed advantage.
But if you work in a higher-resolution working environment, the high-speed advantage of Kingston V90 will be more obvious.
Elinfor evaluation room summary
The only shortcoming of these cards is that they are expensive. Kingston V90 Super Speed Memory Card has the strongest transmission performance of all SD memory cards and TF memory cards currently available on the market. It is also the only kind in the TF card market. The existing camera devices that use these two memory cards are temporarily unable to completely show their transmission performance.
Especially for the 8K video recording performance of the V90 SD memory card. There are not many consumer products on the market that support 8K video recording yet. Although some mobile phones that support 8K video recording (such as Samsung S20) have TF expansion ports, but in actual measurement, it does not support instant saving to TF card under 8K and 4K60 frame shooting mode. Kingston V90 ultra-speed memory card is more of a future-oriented memory card.
In practical applications, in addition to shooting, these two V90 memory cards can also meet the transmission speed requirements of reading and editing 4K video directly on the computer. When used with the USH-Ⅱ card reader the speed is far faster than mechanical hard disk, and when the TF card version is used on mobile phones, you can safely install software on it, without worrying about stuck.
In terms of price, the price of the 256G standard SD card version of the Kingston V90 ultra-fast memory card is about 2000 yuan. The price per G is close to 10 yuan. Compared to V90 memory card of the same level that cost more than 359$ or does not have 256G version, these two V90 memory cards cost “only” 286$ can be described as “super cheap.”
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