SanDisk Extreme vs Ultra 64GB microSDXC - Quick Review
Although most modern Android phones come with 16GB, 32GB and recently even 64GB of internal storage, sometimes you just need more for your music, video and pictures. While any microSD card will do just fine for storing files, when it comes to recording HD video, not all cards are created equal. The purpose of this quick review is to compare the performance the SanDisk Extreme 64 GB vs the much cheaper SanDisk Ultra 64GB microSDXC cards. Both cards are class 10 UHS-I cards with the same capacity, created by the same manufacturer, but priced very differently.
As it can be seen from the specifications for these cards, the difference in price seems to be justified to a point. For double the price of the SanDisk Ultra, your get more then twice the read / write speeds with the Extreme. Well, specs are specs and when it comes to real life performance things seem to look a bit different. That is why we put them on some real life tests using the Samsung Galaxy S5, a USB 3.0 card reader and as bonus, we did some tests with the GoPro HERO3+ Black Edition.
For testing the two cards on the Galaxy S5 we used SD Tools for Android, a free application for getting information about your SD card and doing some basic read/write tests on your installed external SD card. The read speed with the Extreme is around 5 MB/s faster, while the write speed is almost double from the Ultra. When we compare the results with the ones from the card reader, we are starting to wonder if the Galaxy S5 can fully utilize the potential that SanDisk Extreme is offering.
Now here is where things get interesting. It seems like the speeds from the test results using the card reader are quite different from what we got on the Galaxy S5. It is fair to notice that the results for the sequential read/write for the SanDisk Extreme 64GB are even better then the ones provided in the specs. All the results for both cards are very close to what SanDisk claimed they can do.
If you plan to shoot 1080p@30fps/60fps video both cards will do just fine. On the Galaxy S5 1080p@30fps videos use around 17.5 Mbps ~ 2.2 MB/s, 1080p@60fps videos go up to 28.4 Mbps ~ 3.6 MB/s and 2160p even higher at 48 Mbps ~ 6 MB/s. While on theory, both cards can handle these speeds well, in real life 60fps/4K videos tend to drop frames on the Ultra. While Samsung uses quite reasonably moderate bitrate the videos of other Android phone manufacturers go even higher with speeds starting at 20 Mbps for 1080p@30fps.
Quite similar is the situation with the write performance of these two cards on the GoPro HERO3+ Black Edition where 1080p@30fps uses around 20 Mbps and 1080p@60fps around 30 Mbps. While 30fps videos can be recorded without any problems on the SanDisk Ultra, 60fps and higher resolutions require a better write performance and this is where the SanDisk Extreme really shines.
At the end, if you need just storage and your phone supports 1080p@30fps as max resolution / fps, the SanDisk Ultra is an excellent choice. But if you already have a phone that can record 4K or 60fps HD videos, or you are planning on buying one, the SanDisk Extreme is a nice investment (if you got the money). Not to mention that you can use this card on other video and DSLR cameras.
Manufacturer Specifications
| Card | Read Speed | Write Speed |
|---|---|---|
| SanDisk Extreme 64 GB | 80 MB/s | 50 MB/s |
| SanDisk Ultra 64 GB | 30 MB/s | 10 MB/s |
Tested on Samsung Galaxy S5
| Card | Read Speed | Write Speed |
|---|---|---|
| SanDisk Extreme 64 GB | 22.1 MB/s | 16.2 MB/s |
| SanDisk Ultra 64 GB | 17.7 MB/s | 7.5 MB/s |
Tested via Card Reader
| Card |
Read Speed (Sequential) |
Read Speed (Random large-block) |
Write Speed (Sequential) |
Write Speed (Random large-block) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SanDisk Extreme 64 GB | 89.4 MB/s | 80.2 MB/s | 56.6 MB/s | 40.3 MB/s |
| SanDisk Ultra 64 GB | 19.8 MB/s | 19.3 MB/s | 9.6 MB/s | 5.7 MB/s |
Recording HD videos + 4K
Tests are tests, but at the end the SanDisk Extreme is twice the price of the SanDisk Ultra. Do you really need to pay more to get the same amount of storage and do you need the obvious performance improvement that the Extreme offers?If you plan to shoot 1080p@30fps/60fps video both cards will do just fine. On the Galaxy S5 1080p@30fps videos use around 17.5 Mbps ~ 2.2 MB/s, 1080p@60fps videos go up to 28.4 Mbps ~ 3.6 MB/s and 2160p even higher at 48 Mbps ~ 6 MB/s. While on theory, both cards can handle these speeds well, in real life 60fps/4K videos tend to drop frames on the Ultra. While Samsung uses quite reasonably moderate bitrate the videos of other Android phone manufacturers go even higher with speeds starting at 20 Mbps for 1080p@30fps.
Quite similar is the situation with the write performance of these two cards on the GoPro HERO3+ Black Edition where 1080p@30fps uses around 20 Mbps and 1080p@60fps around 30 Mbps. While 30fps videos can be recorded without any problems on the SanDisk Ultra, 60fps and higher resolutions require a better write performance and this is where the SanDisk Extreme really shines.
At the end, if you need just storage and your phone supports 1080p@30fps as max resolution / fps, the SanDisk Ultra is an excellent choice. But if you already have a phone that can record 4K or 60fps HD videos, or you are planning on buying one, the SanDisk Extreme is a nice investment (if you got the money). Not to mention that you can use this card on other video and DSLR cameras.