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If I could ask a company to put the complete package of storage products together, it would be exactly what ProGrade Digital has done. It starts with a ProHub by which an assortment of different readers could connect by USB-C for high speed. ProGrade Digital did just that with their PG20 Pro Hub and infused this with the latest in digital transfer performance, Thunderbolt 4. Next up, they manufactured CFExpress A/C Readers, again with the USB4 standard which, not only connected for CFExpress speeds up to 3550 MB/s, but also fit magnetically right into that Pro Hub. We reviewed this equipment here. That never stopped ProGrade Digital though…
ProGrade then continued by creating two external SSDs, the PG10 USB4 Portable SSD which has been manufactured to ensure very high sustained write data transfer (reviewed here), as well as the PG10.5 USB4 Mini 2TB Portable SSD which we reviewed here. Both utilize USB 4.0 with the Mini attaining speeds of over 4GB/s while the PG10 levels out at 2.5GB/s. Once again, both are envisioned to fit perfectly into the PG 4.0 family. These are the peripherals that serve to measure the speed of ProGrade Digitals SD/CFExpress family. We reviewed the fastest CFExpress card in the world earlier, this being the PG Iridium 4.0 CFExpressB 1.6TB Memory Card and it provided performance highs of 3563MB/s data transfer and just under 800K IOPS. On the Test Bench right now, we have the equally performing PG Gold 4.0 2TB CFExpressB Memory Card…
The ProGrade Gold 4.0 CFExpressB Memory Card is available in 512GB, 1TB and 2TB capacities and has advertised speeds of 3400MB/s read, 3000MB/s write and up to 1500MB/s sustained write data throughput. To be clear, these speeds are only attained through use of a USB 4.0 reader and plugged into a USB 4.0/Thunderbolt 4/5 compatible PC or laptop. The PG Gold 4.0 comes with a 3-year limited warranty and has low power consumption for extended battery life when recording continuous video.
ProGrade takes things even further. They have what they term as ‘Triple Protection’ which combines their 3-year warranty, laser etched serial numbers into the metal casing to dissuade copycat imitations, as well as a great compliment of software for these memory cards. Purchase of the PG Gold 4.0 includes a Quick Start Guide that directs one to three software programs, RefreshPro, Recovery Pro and Ingest Pro. This is the refresh Pro UI. Simplicity.
While Ingest Pro helps move data directly from your camera to PC and Recovery Pro helps recover data, we find Refresh Pro to be an excellent software tool as you can sanitize your PGD CFExpress card without having to resort to exiting Windows on your PC.
For our testing today, we plugged the PGD Gold 4.0 directly into an AIC (PCIe Add-in Card) created for just this purpose. By testing directly in the CPU lanes, we can be assured that the results obtained are absolutely the best one can get from the card being tested. While card readers may provide a bit better heat dissipation because of their build, they always seem to result in slightly lower performance which we will get to later in this report.
TSSDR TEST BENCH AND PROTOCOL
SSD testing at TSSDR differs slightly, depending on whether we are looking at consumer or enterprise storage media. Our newest system is comprised of the latest Intel Ultra 9 CPU set into the ASUS Z890 ProArt Creator motherboard with 64GB of Corsair Platinum Dominator DDR5-6400 memory. For Creators, this motherboard contains two Thunderbolt 5 (80Gbps), a Thunderbolt 4 (40Gbps) and a USB 3.2 2×2 (20Gbps) Type-C port, something no other has done to date.
For this Test Bench, there are just a few standard performance tweaks and our new ProArt Z890 Test Bench is set at 5.4GHz while the 64GB Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR5-6400 memory settled in at 6600MHz.
The components of this Test Bench are detailed below. All hardware is linked for purchase and product sales may be reached by a simple click on the individual item.
TSSDR INTEL ULTRA 9 ASUS PROART Z890 COMPONENTS
| PC CHASSIS: | Corsair iCUE Link 6500x RGB Mid-Tower Dual Chamber |
| MOTHERBOARD: | ASUS ProArt Z890-Creator WIFI LGA 1851 ATX |
| CPU: | Intel Ultra 9 Desktop Processor 285K |
| CPU COOLER: | Corsair iCUE Link Titan 360 RX RGB Liquid |
| POWER SUPPLY: | Corsair HX1000i Platinum Modular Ultra Low Noise |
| GRAPHICS: | ZOTAC GeForce RTX 3080 Trinity White |
| MEMORY: | Corsair Dominator Platinum 64GB DDR5-6400 |
| FANS: | Corsair iCUE Link RX120 MAX RGB |
| KEYBOARD: | Corsair K100 AIR Wireless RGB Mechanical |
| MOUSE: | Corsair Dark Core RGB Pro Wireless Gaming |
| MONITOR 32″x3 | Samsung 32 Inch Viewfinity UR59 4K |
Very good reviews in general