CF card types

[Rhys]

What exactly is the difference between a pro and a retail CF card?
Does anybody really benefit from faster speed cards and if so, what cameras can handle the excessive speeds listed? I see them rated 40x, 80x, 120x etc and don't even really know what 1x equals in terms of Mb/s so all they look like is impressive numbers put on as an advertising gimick. Thus far I have had no problems with my XT and card speed and my CF cards mostly aren't even rated!

[erichlund]

What exactly is the difference between a pro and a retail CF card?
Does anybody really benefit from faster speed cards and if so, what cameras can handle the excessive speeds listed? I see them rated 40x, 80x, 120x etc and don't even really know what 1x equals in terms of Mb/s so all they look like is impressive numbers put on as an advertising gimick. Thus far I have had no problems with my XT and card speed and my CF cards mostly aren't even rated!
The honest answer for most people is that the only real advantage to more expensive CF cards is fewer card errors. I suspect most of us don't use our cameras like a machine gun, so keeping up with a single shot at a time is not a problem for the lowliest of CF cards.

For those that do use their buffers for things like sports action, the faster CF cards do have an advantage in the faster cameras. On some tests done on DPReview, I've seen where camera speed tests are done with various cards. With a fast camera you do get better performance.

Of course, I don't know what the numbers mean either, but that doesn't really matter. The only real question is will this card give me better performance in my camera? But, I stay away from the cheap brands because I don't trust the reliability of the card, not because of speed issues.

[Robert Besen]

1x on a flash card is the same as 1x on a CD drive. I believe it's something like 300kbits/sec.

[Majarvis]

1x on a flash card is the same as 1x on a CD drive. I believe it's something like 300kbits/sec.
150 I believe.

So, a 60x CF card would be about 9MB/sec.

[Norm in Fujino]

I use Sandisk Extreme III, fastest available, and they do cut down buffer times on the Oly E-300 (which supports the high speed). I shoot only RAW, and while I almost never use continuous shutter, I do frequently chimp the histogram after shooting, so having a fast card really cuts down the time from shutter press till I can use the replay function (no live histogram, of course). Also the fast card cuts down the time required to transfer photos from the card reader to computer.

[cdifoto]

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007

[ReF]

i though rare, i do occasionally do max out the buffer on the XT using Sandisk Ultra II, so much so that in certain situations i switch down from RAW to Large/Fine Jpeg to cram in more shots before the thing slows down. so yeah, i find it useful, but it all depends on your usage. the review time as norm pointed out is also significantly cut down - it bothers the heck out of me waiting for images to load on the xt's lcd when using my one normal speed card. transfering data on and off the CF card is also a lot faster with the high speed cards - a full 256 normal speed card takes about as much time to download as a 1 gig sandisk ultra II (when i use a usb2 card reader).