News
Buyer's Guide: The Best Monitors 
PNY SDHC Optima 8 GB Class 4
More suggestions 
Less suggestions | Caractéristiques | |||
| Capacity | 8 GB | ||
| Format | SDHC | ||
| Speed | 8 MB/s and 20 MB/s | ||
| Guarantee | 5 years | ||
Pierre-Jean Alzieu
Test date: September 1, 2008
Test date: September 1, 2008
On the Nikon D60
As you can see, writing is not this SDHC card's strong point. It really slowed our Nikon D60 down over a burst of 30 images.
From the 8th frame onwards, we noticed a real slowdown, and instead of capturing images at the camera's top speed of 3 fps, this memory card brought it down to 2 fps.
PNY have two different ranges of SDHC memory cards. First there's the 'regular' variety, and then there's the Optima line. These are class 4 products, meaning they should reach a maximum speed of at least 4 MB/s, although the manufacturer claims that its transfer rates are even better, reaching 8 MB/s for writing and 20 MB/s for reading.
Optimistic claims for writing speeds
As is often the case, manufacturers announce specifications that are slightly better than reality. With photo files, our tests showed a writing speed of 7.2 MB/s, which puts this card ahead of its little brother, the 4 GB model, which only scored 5.4 MB/s on the same test. Patience is what you'll need with the smaller model, because getting 4 GB onto the 8 GB Optima card takes 9 minutes 28 seconds, compared to 12 minutes 38 seconds for the smaller card.
When reading data, the slight advantage is held by the 8 GB card. It can copy data to your computer at 17.7 MB/s, against 17 MB/s exactly on the 4 GB model.
Data transfer speeds (MB/s)
Pluses
-
Excellent reading speeds
-
Storage space
Minuses
-
Too slow at writing for professional users
-
Expensive
This card is great for digital cameras with big sensors. It has an excellent reading speed, which allows it to be emptied onto a computer very quickly. On the other hand, it can't really keep up when writing data in burst mode.
