ATP ProMax II CompactFlash Card and USB 2.0 Reader
In summary
A fast CF card that is designed to support cameras with the new UDMA interface.ATP Electronics Taiwan has recently introduced a number of memory card products to the Australian market, offering high data transfer speeds and support for the new UDMA (Ultra Direct Memory Access), which is beginning to be offered in an increasing number of digital still cameras and camcorders. UDMA supports faster data transmission through double transition clocking, in which data can be transmitted on both the rising and falling edges of the interface clock (unlike earlier systems which only sent data on the rising edge). . . [more]
Full review
ATP Electronics Taiwan has recently introduced a number of memory card products to the Australian market, offering high data transfer speeds and support for the new UDMA (Ultra Direct Memory Access), which is beginning to be offered in an increasing number of digital still cameras and camcorders. UDMA supports faster data transmission through double transition clocking, in which data can be transmitted on both the rising and falling edges of the interface clock (unlike earlier systems which only sent data on the rising edge).
The system was developed jointly by Quantum and Intel and initially offered data transfer rates of 33.3MB/second, which was roughly one third faster than existing cards. Faster speeds are now being provided and virtually all memory cards claiming 300x transfer speeds ““ which equate to 45MB/second – rely on UDMA technology. Whether these speeds are achieved in practice depends on how the devices are used because actual data transfer speeds are controlled mainly by the internal processing system of the camera the card is used in and the computer it (or the card reader) is connected to. (Newer products generally support faster data transfer rates than products that are one to two years old.)
ATP produces ProMax II CompactFlash cards with 300X transfer speed ratings in three capacities: 2GB (RRP $152), 4GB 9RRP $289) and 8GB (RRP $520). All are designed to match the performance of current and next generation DSLR cameras by optimising write transfer speeds for high resolution continuous shooting. The ATP ProMax USB2.0 reader is designed to complement this card. It also has slots for Secure Digital and Memory Stick cards, which can accommodate the reduced-size formats of these card types.
For our tests of the 4GB ATP CF card we used five different cameras: Canon’s EOS 5D, EOS 40D and EOS 400D and Sony’s DSLR A100 and A700. Each card was formatted in the camera, which was set to the manufacturer’s default processing settings. Our test target, which contained a moderately high level of detail, was evenly lit and the camera’s batteries were fully charged.
Testing involved three cycles of exposures, the first using Raw format, the second JPEG at top resolution and quality and the third with RAW+JPEG using the highest JPEG resolution. These cycles were repeated three times and the results averaged.
Bursts of shots were taken using the fastest burst speed available in each format and we timed how long it took to empty the buffer memory. Timing started when the camera’s card status light went on and ended when it went off. Our results are presented in the table below.
Camera |
Write Speed JPEG (high-resolution) |
Write Speed Raw files |
Write Speed RAW+JPEG (High resolution) |
Canon EOS 5D |
9.25MB/sec |
12.07MB/sec |
8.89MB/sec |
Canon EOS 40D |
9.82MB/sec |
13.74MB/sec |
10.47MB/sec |
Canon EOS 400D |
7.76MB/sec |
9.72MB/sec |
5.86MB/sec |
Sony DSLR-A100 |
8.94MB/sec |
9.59MB/sec |
6.57MB/sec |
Sony DSLR-A700 |
12.67MB/sec |
20.96MB/sec |
17.47MB/sec |
We then measured how long it took to transfer 3.1GB of image file data from the card to a desktop computer (Intel Pentium D 3.0GHz with 3.25GB of RAM running Windows XP SP2) using the ATP ProMax card reader. This compact reader measures 156 x 158 x 15 mm and comes with a USB 2.0 Hi-Speed cable.
Build quality on the supplied reader was adequate but we were concerned about the shallowness of the CF card slot, which left the connection points vulnerable to damage. (We had some problems with the reader in the course of our tests that may be due to damaged connectors.)
The average transfer rate we obtained from our tests using data captured by all five cameras was 9.49MB/second.
Specifications
Interface type: CompactFlash
Dimensions: 42.8 x 36.4 x 3.2 mm
Weight: Approx. 10 g
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