A memory card speed comparison between all the most popular cards in the Nikon D7200.
Use this guide to help you find the best memory cards for your style of shooting.
Camera Specs
Sensor: 24.2 MP / No OLP
Processor: EXPEED 4 Image Processor
Continuous: 6fps
Video: 1080p60
Nikon D7200 – Amazon / Adorama / BHphoto
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Best SD Memory Card For The Nikon D7200
One bad characteristic of the Nikon D7200 is the slow memory card write speed. It seems the Nikon D7200 performs a lot like Sony cameras in that it uses slow USB 2.0 bus speeds to write to memory cards.
With a single processor this means the camera has to wait for each image to transfer to the memory card before processing the next image. This makes Nikons mid and lower end APS-C cameras some of the worst performing cameras in terms of memory card write speeds aside from Sony. The good news is, because of this bottleneck, most memory card perform about the same so you can buy a cheaper card without it impacting your performance too much.
Nikon D7200 Speed Tests
For the D7200 write speeds; three tests are done and the average is calculated. For USB speeds we use CrystalDisk on Windows 10.Â
SD Memory Cards | USB 3.0 Read | USB 3.0 Write | D7200 Write | See Price |
UHS-II | Â | Â | ||
Delkin 32GB UHS-II | 253.5 MB/s | 219.6 MB/s | 30.01 MB/s | Amazon / Adorama |
Toshiba 64GB UHS-II | 258.8 MB/s | 226.5 MB/s | 29.98 MB/s | Amazon |
Lexar 64GB 2000x UHS-II | 272.7 MB/s | 244.5 MB/s | 29.95 MB/s | Amazon / Adorama |
Transcend 64GB UHS-II | 290.2 MB/s | 182.1 MB/s | 29.57 MB/s | Amazon |
Lexar 64GB 1000x UHS-II | 147.4 MB/s | 78.4 MB/s | 28.07 MB/s | Amazon / Adorama |
Sandisk Extreme Pro 64GB UHS-II | 260.5 MB/s | 214.8 MB/s | 24.59 MB/s | Amazon / Adorama |
UHS-I | Â | Â | ||
Sandisk Extreme Pro 64GB U3 | 98.6 MB/s | 90.8 MB/s | 30.36 MB/s | Amazon / Adorama |
Samsung Pro+ 64GB U3 | 97.5 MB/s | 87.3 MB/s | 30.18 MB/s | Amazon / Adorama |
Samsung Pro 64GB U1 | 96.3 MB/s | 82.2 MB/s | 29.75 MB/s | Amazon / Adorama |
Samsung Pro 64GB U3 | 97.7 MB/s | 78.6 MB/s | 29.50 MB/s | Amazon / Adorama |
Kingston 64GB U3 | 98.1 MB/s | 90.4 MB/s | 28.99 MB/s | Amazon / Adorama |
Sony 64GB U3 | 96.5 MB/s | 84.5 MB/s | 28.00 MB/s | Amazon |
Sandisk Extreme Plus 64GB U3 | 99.0 MB/s | 64.4 MB/s | 27.10 MB/s | Amazon / Adorama |
PNY 64GB U3 | 96.5 MB/s | 66.1 MB/s | 26.49 MB/s | Amazon / Adorama |
PNY 64GB U1 | 96.5 MB/s | 66.5 MB/s | 26.22 MB/s | Amazon |
Transcend 64GB U3 | 96.7 MB/s | 68.4 MB/s | 25.71 MB/s | Amazon / Adorama |
Lexar 633x 64GB U3 | 93.3 MB/s | 67.3 MB/s | 25.41 MB/s | Amazon / Adorama |
Sandisk Extreme 64GB U3 | 72.43 MB/s | 54.1 MB/s | 25.18 MB/s | Amazon / Adorama |
Lexar 600x 64GB U1 | 95.4 MB/s | 64.8 MB/s | 24.49 MB/s | Amazon / Adorama |
Samsung 64GB U1 EVO | 47.7 MB/s | 27.3 MB/s | 17.41 MB/s | Amazon / Adorama |
The fastest SD memory card tested for the Nikon D7200 was the Sandisk Extreme Pro. This is usually the case as this card is a very good card. The Samsung Pro+ U3 would be the runner up followed by the UHS-II Delkin.
Fastest UHS-I Memory Cards
Sandisk and Samsung seem to hold the throne here while Kingston and Sony also performed well.Â
Sandisk Extreme Pro 64GB – Amazon / Adorama
Samsung Pro+ U3 – Amazon / Adorama
Fastest UHS-II Memory Card
Although you gain no performance in camera by using UHS-II memory cards, they do have an edge when it comes to transferring speeds via USB 3.0 card readers.
Of these I would personally stick with the Toshiba or Lexar cards. Although my Delkin card has been great and is a very fast card, in USH-II compatible cameras, the Toshiba and Lexar 2000x usually outperform the competition.
Delkin 32GB – Amazon / Adorama
Toshiba 64GB –Â Amazon
Lexar 2000x 64GB – Amazon / Adorama
The Difference Between SDHC and SDXC
When you see SDHC or SDXC on a memory card, this has to do with how the card uses memory.
SDHC are 32 bit cards while SDXC are 64bit cards. Typically any card 64GB or higher is going to be SDXC and 32GB cards and lower will be SDHC.Â
These formats really only matter if you’re shooting with Sony cameras and want to take advantage of certain video codecs. Although, recently Sony has been adding support to allow for these codecs to work even in SDHC.
The Difference Between U1 and U3
The U1 and U3 specs on a card have to do with the minimum write speed. It doesn’t mean U3 is faster than U1, it just means that U1 cards are garanteed to perform at a minimum speed of 10MB/s, and U3 cards are garanteed to perform at a minimum speed of 30MB/s.
While it looks as though the Nikon D7200 doesn’t perform according to U3 minimum specs, it actually does get very close when it writes to the card. What we are seeing are other delays involved when processing each shot before transferring. The Nikon D7200 also has an internal bus speed max similar to USB 2.0 speeds which has a cap at around 30MB/s.
Best SD Memory Card Nikon D7200
While not a great performer in terms of memory card write speeds, it’s still a great camera especially for the average Joe that doesn’t do a lot of burst shooting. If sports and nature photography is your thing and you shoot a lot of high speed burst photography, then perhaps this camera is not for you.