# Is the fastest 1066x CF card going to waste in a D800?



## Duh800 (Mar 15, 2014)

Does anyone know the maximum read/write speed of the D800?
I have a D800 and shoot 14-bit RAW bursts of sports and also video.
I want the newest/fastest memory card available, but don't want to waste money on a card that is faster than the camera.
Lexar's recently introduced their 1066x CF card with:


1066x Speed Rating
Max. Read Speed 160 MB/s
Max. Write Speed 155 MB/s
UDMA 7 Compliant
Lexar's next step down is 1000x:


1000x Speed Rating
Max. Read Speed: 150MB/s
Max. Write Speed: 95MB/s
UDMA 7 Compliant
My question is, would a 1066x card be wasting money in a D800?
Is the D800's processor fast enough to justify the higher cost of this new 1066x card?
IOW if the D800 can only read/write around 95 MB/s then a cheaper 1000x CF cards will work *identically* in a D800.
I realize Lexar now has a 3333x CF card but I'm not even considering that card. $$$$$$


Also this is not about 'compatibility' as in, "Does a 1066x card _work_ in a D800?"
I'm virtually certain it will work since Lexar's website says the 1066x CF is compatible with the D800.
FWIW, Nikon has tested only up to 1000x and I think they only test new cards about once a year.
But "compatible" is not the question.

The question is similar to, "What is the speed limit where I drive and should I pay a fortune for a car that can go much faster?"
Sure, you can pay $300,000 for a Ferrari and only drive it 55 MPH.
The Ferrari works fine at 55 MPG.
Does anyone know the maximum read/write speed of the D800?


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## pondball (Mar 16, 2014)

I was looking at CF options for my D700 today and saw these same cards, but assumed they were too fast for me... Am now trying to find a chart that suggested the limits for my camera and can only assume the resource should list the other cameras as well. I think I rad some where in TPF that the D700 can only count to 999 or 900 but that related to the size of the card, not the speed. There was also the speed issue of reading the card though. I've looked at Kingston CF cards and a few others but have read some bad reviews on those and am leaning towards spending the extra $$$ on SanDisk extreme cards. I'll see if I can find a link... Surely nikon would have a chart of some sort to say what speed is supported?


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## pondball (Mar 16, 2014)

Looks like there are some reviews at this site http://www.robgalbraith.com/multi_pagee519.html?cid=6007


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## Derrel (Mar 16, 2014)

Here is a page with some ACTUAL testing data done on the D800 and D800e  Rob Galbraith DPI: Nikon D800/D800E

It goes up to what were the best cards at the time of testing, the 1000x Lexar cards. When the D800 was first made, 1000x was the fastest card speed available.


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## BillM (Mar 16, 2014)

I did some D800 testing Saturday. I was mainly testing SD cards but I figured I'd check the only 2 CF cards I own while I was at it. The SanDisk CF I have is a 60 MB a second card. With either card the buffer filled in 4 seconds but the Lexar continued shooting just a little faster after that and took 4 additional shots in the next 6 seconds. For the SD card testing I did the SanDisk Extreme Pro just made the Lexar 600x look silly by comparison.
Hope this helps.



CF Cards

Lexar Pro 1000x 32 GB
25 Shots in 10 seconds
25.60 seconds to write

SanDisk Extreme 32 GB
21 Shots in 10 seconds
27.70 seconds to write


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