Sandisk 8GB Extreme CF memory card - UDMA 60MB/s 400x (SDCFX-008G-A61, Retail Package)

by SanDisk

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.5 x 0.8 inches ; 1.6 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B002N694A6
• Item model number: SDCFX-008G-A61
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (60 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
  • #7 in Electronics > Camera & Photo > Accessories > Digital Camera Accessories > Memory Cards > CompactFlash Cards
  • #31 in Electronics > Camera & Photo > Accessories > Blank Media
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 2, 2001

Product Description

Sandisk Extreme SDCFX-008G-A61 CompactFlash (CF) Card SDCFX-008G-A61 210

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

61 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reliable, fast memory, January 17, 2010

By 

Canon man 123 "Canon man 123" (USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Sandisk 8GB Extreme CF memory card - UDMA 60MB/s 400x (SDCFX-008G-A61, Retail Package) (Personal Computers)

So far I've been happy with the performance of this Sandisk product. I've used Sandisk memory for some time now in my Canon SLRs and have never had any trouble with any of their cards. They do cost more but I feel it's worth it to have dependable CF cards. As far as performance, the Extreme cards are excellent. Until the buffer fills, my Canon 7D shoots about the same number of burst shots with the Extreme (60 MB/sec) as with my older Extreme III (about 20 RAW (18 MP) images at 8+ fps). However, after the buffer fills, there's a huge difference between the two cards. With the Extreme III, the camera chokes very quickly and takes much longer to finish writing the data. With the Extreme, I can continue shooting about 2 fps for several seconds.
Update: I've now had two of these cards for over a year & a half with zero problems. I even ran one through a complete wash cycle in the washing machine by accident, dried it out, & it's still working great. The picture data on the card was not corrupted our lost at all!

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Save your money if you don't have a Canon 7D or 1D IV, July 15, 2011

By 

D. Alexander - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sandisk 8GB Extreme CF memory card - UDMA 60MB/s 400x (SDCFX-008G-A61, Retail Package) (Personal Computers)

I've done some write benchmarks on the 16GB version of this card and others with my Canon 40D. Here are the results:

SanDisk Extreme 60 MB/s 16GB (400X)
17 RAW, 17 seconds to clear

SanDisk Extreme III 30 MB/s 8GB (200X)
18 RAW, 17 seconds to clear

Lexar 133X Pro 1GB
20 RAW, 16 seconds to clear

Kingston Ultimate 133X 4 GB
19 RAW, 21 seconds to clear

Kingston High Speed 1024 MB
18 RAW, 37 seconds to clear

For this circa-2008 DSLR, no card over 133X improves write speeds. No benefit was expected; cameras of this vintage max out at about 12 MB/s. All but two of the current crop of Canon and Nikon DSLRs perform at near full speed with a 200X (30 MB/s) card. These cameras reach 35 MB/s at best, so a 400X (60 MB/s) card offers only slight improvements, if any. Canon's 7D and 1D IV, both capable of 60 MB/s or more, will clear the buffer as much as twice as fast with a 400X card.

The bump from 200X to 400X has no effect on general shooting speed or movie recording. Movie recording at 1080p/30 takes about 5 MB/s or as much as 8 MB/s with custom firmware. Autofocus, turn-on speed, JPEG writes, image review, and so on are almost completely unaffected. The only benefit to the higher rating with a modern camera is reduced buffer clearing time with continuous high-speed raw.

There are, however, speed variances even among cards of equal rating. Size matters. Cards 8 GB and smaller tend to perform somewhat faster in-camera than larger cards of the same family. Brand also matters. Cameras from Canon, Nikon, and Sony perform best with cards from SanDisk and Lexar. Other brands, even if capable of rated speed in a card reader, tend not to rival those two in-camera. Rob Galbraith's CF/SD database, current as of early-2009, is invaluable in determining which cards work best with which cameras.

Card-to-computer transfer rates will be limited by the card reader interface or the camera. Most cameras directly connected to a computer send data at 10-15 MB/s. USB 2.0, the most common card reader interface, caps out at about 30 MB/s. Firewire 800 is about three times as fast and will max out this card, as will USB 3.0 and IDE/SATA converters. As well, all CF cards rated for 30 MB/s or more support UDMA, though this is of no consequence in-camera.

In short, this card is for you if you have a 7D or 1D IV and regularly hit a buffer limit in raw, or you shoot so much with any camera that card-to-computer times slow your workflow. Everyone else can spend less on the 30 MB/s version of same.

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Scandisk Extreme 8GB ., January 27, 2010

By 

James D Hunter - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Sandisk 8GB Extreme CF memory card - UDMA 60MB/s 400x (SDCFX-008G-A61, Retail Package) (Personal Computers)

This card is everything I was looking for. Allows for continuous shooting, downloads fast, almost impossible to completely fill the card in one setting in that one gets tired of shooting before the card is full. 60MB per second is FAST.