integral 512mb card review

The one thing that I really miss with conventional film photography is that I could choose a film stock to match the photographic situation. When photographing people I would use Fujichrome 100 with a 81b filter on my lens, this produced nice warm colours in skin tones. For technical shots I used Ektachrome 100 etc. I knew my film stock backwards. Today’s memory cards don’t have the same characteristics, in fact on the surface they are not that interesting. Read on.

When I first started in digital photography I used a 48mb SanDisk card, and it served me well, but at the time it was pricey, I paid approx £120 for it. Fortunately memory cards have been dropping in price, now you can buy 512mb cards for about £30 and 1gb cards for £50 and there are many competing brands all after your custom.

I have been sent a 512mb Integral 100x high-speed CompactFlash card for review, this claims a minimum write speed of 15MB/s (100x) and a read speed of up to 17MB/s (113x). This would seem to be the ideal choice for the mid-range or professional digital camera user who wants maximum performance when capturing high-resolution images.

The card uses an advanced high-speed controller that helps to reduce the wait time between shots, ideal for use with high mega pixel cameras or when capturing fast moving scenes such as sport or nature. In addition, the high-speeds are essential for anyone using the TV quality movie function available on many digital cameras as they enable users to capture longer movies at a higher quality.

The low power, sleep mode design incorporated into the Integral 100x high-speed CompactFlash card helps users to save battery power in power-saving compatible devices. 

I decided to test this card on a few real world tests and compare the write times with the same images shot on a Kingston Elite Pro 512mb card and a SanDisk Ultra II 512mb card. The results are interesting:

22 files on Nikon DX (camera set at 1/1000)

SanDisk Ultra II	26:97
Integral 100X	26:92
Kingston Elite Pro	26:57
MicroDrive (340mb)	39:12
SanDisk 48mb (old)	33:18
128mb integral card (old)	41:42

Fresh battery in Nikon

SanDisk Ultra II	25:98
Integral 100X	25:73
Kingston Elite Pro	25:35

Transfer 100mb of data from computer to card using SanDisk USB 2.0 card reader

SanDisk Ultra II	40:99
Integral 100X	40:08
Kingston Elite Pro	40:03

 

Transfer 100mb of data from card to computer using SanDisk USB 2.0 card reader

SanDisk Ultra II	45:82
Integral 100X	45:69
Kingston Elite Pro	45:02

 

The results speak for themselves, there is not much real difference between the integral, Kingston and SanDisk 512mb cards. Note the increase in speed when I used a new battery in the Nikon, albeit only by a second. This would indicate that transfer times will vary from one battery state to another. Just for interest I also tested my old integral 128mb card, this produced the slowest times. Having said that, I have been using this card for nearly four years and it has never let me down, nor have I noticed any lack of performance in actual shooting conditions (rather than test conditions). To me reliability ranks high on any list of priorities.

All in all the integral card is a good performer, at its retail price £50.00 it's good value but expensive - shop around and you will no doubt find it at a better price.

Priced at £49.99 inc. VAT for the 512MB Integral 100x high-speed CompactFlash with a five year warranty.

Available from IT resellers including, www.macwarehouse.co.uk,  www.insight.com/uk and www.pcwb.com