In today’s digital world the SD card is often taken for granted. These memory cards help capture treasured photo or video memories so choosing a reliable, speedy card is always an important consideration. As the quality and format of photos and video capturing devices improve, the need for faster SD cards becomes readily apparent.

Kingston recently updated their SDHC/SDXC UHS-I U3 line with the addition of 128GB and 256 GB cards. Today we will be looking at one of these larger capacity cards. The Kingston SDXC cards take advantage of UHS-I Class 3 write speed performance making them ideal for capturing the latest 3D and 4K2K video formats. More info on this specification can be found  

 

Opening the package we find the SD card. Kingston does not provide a protective plastic case for the card, which seems to be the norm with a lot of SD cards these days.

Externally the Kingston looks like every other SD card on the market in terms of form factor. Kingston does include hologram on the label to help prevent counterfeiting of the card that has become a notorious problem in the memory card world.

 

 

Kingston offers both SDHC and SDXC versions in sizes ranging from 16 GB, 32 GB, 64 GB, 128 GB up to 256 GB. For today’s review we will be looking at the 128 GB capacity memory card.

Specifications and Features

Kingston Mobile Lite G4 (USB 3.0 card reader)

 

For benchmarking ATTO Disk Benchmark and Crystal Disk Mark were used. As a basis for comparison the following SD cards were used: Kingston SDXC 128 GB Class 10, Kingston UHS-I SDXC 64 GB and Super Talent Brand 16 GB SDHC Class 10.

Looking at the ATTO benchmarks we see the Super Talent with writes around 15 MB/s and reads in the 23 MB/s range, the Kingston 128 GB SDXC is around 14 MB/s for writes with 43 MB/s reads, the Kingston UHS-I SDXC 64 GB at 37 MB/s writes and 63 MB/s for reads and the latest Kingston SDXC UHS-I U3 128 GB at 78 MB/s writes and reads in the 95 MBs/s range.

 

  

 

Next the tests with Crystal Disk Mark reveal the Super Talent SDHC and the Kingston SDXC 128 GB both with equivalent write speeds of 15.53 MB/s while the Kingston edges out the SuperTalent on read speeds with 42 MB/s vs 23 MB/s. The Kingston SDXC 64 GB had read speeds of 58.17 MB/s and write speeds of 38.65. While the Kingston SDXC UHS-I U3 128 GB showcases impressive 94.88 MB/s read and 80.62 MB/s write speeds.

 

  

 

For real world testing I brought the Kingston SDXC UHS-I U3 128 GB card along with my Canon 60D and Sony RX100 out for shooting video and photos. It is important to remember that the hardware used with the SD card will have an impact on card performance. For instance on my Canon 60D the camera’s buffer was the rate limiting factor when capturing burst shot images. I am happy to report that the SDXC UHS-I U3 128 GB card work perfectly with both my cameras in shooting pictures and video. Although I did not have 3D and 4K2K video shooting as my equipment lacked that capacity.

Kingston provides a useful table that reveals the photo, video and storage capacity of each size SD card  

Grading	Scores Out of 10
Overall
Design / Aesthetic
Value / Price
Performance / Usage

Disclosure: This product was given to us for review by the company for review purposes only, and is not considered by us as payment for the review.

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