Testing:

Testing was conducted by connecting the ATP Electronics ProMax UDMA card reader to a USB 2.0 port on a Gigabyte P35C-DS3R motherboard. Several benchmarks were then used to gauge the performance of the ATP Electronics ProMax II CompactFlash Card. For comparison purposes, a Sandisk Ultra II 1GB CompactFlash card was run through the same tests as the ATP unit, and a non-UDMA card reader was also used for good measure.

The benchmarks executed include:

» HD Tach 3.0.4.0
» HD Tune 2.54
» Real world testing

HD Tach RW 3.0.4.0:

Simpli Software's HD Tach RW 3.0.4.0 benchmark provides information on most types of storage devices (hard drives, flash drives, memory cards). Th information provided includes an analysis of the random access time, CPU utilization, average read rate, and the burst rate of the storage device being tested. Lower values are best for random access time and CPU utilization, while higher values are better for average read rate and burst rate.


When connected to the ATP Electronics ProMax UDMA card reader, the Sandisk Ultra II card couldn't even come close to matching the performance of the ATP Electronics UDMA card. However, without the ATP Electronics ProMax UDMA card reader, the difference between the ATP Electronics UDMA card and the Sandisk card is minimal, except when it comes to the random access time. The better random access time might be helpful when you are accessing files on the card. The big surprise was the increase in CPU usage when using the ATP Electronics ProMax II card with the ATP Electronics ProMax card reader.

HD Tune 2.54:

HD Tune 2.54 gauges drive performance much like HD Tach RW 3.0.4.0. The graph below details the results for access time, average transfer rate, and burst rate. Lower values are better for access time and higher values are better for the other two categories.


This benchmark confirms what was shown with the HD Tach benchmark. When the ProMax II UDMA CompactFlash card is used with the ProMax UDMA card reader, the difference in performance is startling. Likewise, when the UDMA card reader is not used, the ATP Electronics card still outperforms the Sandisk Ultra II card in every test.