Data Sheet

Designed for what’s next
The ProGrade Digital Gold and Cobalt CFexpress memory card families are based on proven,
Solid State Drive (SSD), Quad-lane PCIe controller technology that offers both best-in-class value
and performance options for imaging devices of the future. Non-Volatile Memory Express
(NVMe) host controller interface in the CFexpress standard ensures that host and card
performance are optimized for our leading edge CFexpress product lines. All ProGrade Digital
CFexpress cards are compliant with the CompactFlash Association, CFexpress 2.0 specification–
including PCIe and NVMe interoperability compliance.
For emerging mainstream imaging applications, our Gold label cards sustain burst write speeds
of between 600MB/sec and 1,000MB/second – ideal for DSLR and Mirrorless, full frame burst,
shooting. At 256GB and greater capacities in our Gold label cards, the average write speed
across the entire volume ensures uninterrupted recording for a broad range of compressed
video modes. Our Cobalt label cards can sustain minimum write speeds of 1,300MB/second and
allow capture of RAW 4K video across the entire volume up-to 650GBs of capacity. Both card
families provide sustained read speeds of 1,600MB/sec. ensuring that offload time is inimized,
and workflow efficiency is greatly improved over applications that traditionally use SD UHS-II or
CFast memory formats.
With specific focus on 4K video capture, one hour of raw 4K video requires a card write speed
between 380 and 1,000MB/sec dependent on color depth and frame rate. As shown in the
table below, ProGrade Digital offers cards that are capable of capturing even cinema-grade raw
video at up-to 12 bits of color depth, and up-to 60fps.
From a workflow perspective, read speed in cards is essential in terms of minimizing delay for
content ingest into the editing environment. ProGrade Digital Gold and Cobalt cards provide
nearly 3x the performance level of CFast cards – dramatically improving workflow efficiency. By
example, the table below shows a 1 hour, 4K video file of 636GB transferred in just 11.8 minutes
from a ProGrade CFexpress card to a workstation using a ProGrade Digital USB 3.1, Gen 2
reader at a real-world transfer speed up to 900MB/sec.
CFexpress, Gold and Cobalt
Memory Card Choice of Professionals
www.progradedigital.com
Depth sec MB/sec Depth sec MB/sec Depth sec MB/sec
Color Frames/ Write Color Frames/ Writec Color Frames/ Write
ProRes422* ProRes4444* Raw**
Broadcast Epsiodic Cinema
10 60 147 10 120 331
10 30 78 10 30 176 12 24 382
10 60 157 10 60 353 12 30 478
10 120 314 10 120 707 12 60 956
UHD
*From Apple ProRes white paper for compressed files
**No oversampling included
Gold Cobalt
4K
4K
4K
***File size shown requires download from three 650GB cards with three readers
UHD 10 60 ProRes422 530 900 9.8
Resolution Color Depth fps Encoding File size GBs MB/sec Minutes
4K 10 30 ProRes4444 636 900 11.8
4K 12 30 Raw 1,720 900 31.9
Broadcast
Episodic
Cinema***
Workflow Performance
Capture Performance