Lexar has introduced a new SD card with theoretical read speeds up to 1,700 MB/s and write speeds as high as 1,000 MB/s. But the word "theoretical" is doing a lot in that sentence, because right now there are no compatible devices on the market that will let you use the card at those speeds… and there might never be.

The new Lexar Profesional GOLD Pro SXDC Express Card is the first memory card to make use of the new SD 8.0 standard, formerly known as SD Express. By adding a single-lane PCIe interface, the card should bring support for blazing fast data transfer speeds. But there are currently no cameras, laptops, card readers, or other devices that support SD 8.

Lexar Professional GOLD PRO SDXC Express Card

The good news is SD 8.0 cards are backward compatible, which means you can still use the card with devices that support other SD card standards. The bad news is that they're only backward compatible to UHS-I speeds which means that write speeds are capped at 30MB/s rather than 1,000 MB/s.

In other words, there's literally no reason for anyone to spend money on one of Lexar's recently announced SD 8.0 cards (if they ever actually go on sale) until/unless somebody released a fully compatible device to use them with. And the digital camera and photography experts at PetaPixel seem pretty sure that's never going to happen.

That's because while the SD Express standard has been around for five years, it's never really caught on, and camera makers looking for faster removable storage have largely chosen to go with CFExpress rather than SD Express, as it offers up to 4 PCIe 3.0 lanes and support for higher speeds.

For what it's worth, in the same press release that Lexar used to announced its new SD 8.0 card, the company unveiled new CFExpress 4.0 cards with support for read/write speeds up to 3,700 MB/s and 3,400 MB/s, respectively, as well as a new set of rugged SD UHS-II cards made of stainless steel and featuring IP68 ratings for water and dust resistance.

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