Canon R6 III Recommended Memory Cards for the R6 Mark III

[Tim Mayo]

I've just finished testing 50 memory cards in the R6 III, 23 CFexpress Type B and 27 UHS-II SD cards.

The R6 III isn't writing to the CFexpress slot much faster than 520 MB/s. So because the vast majority of CFexpress Type B cards can sustain this speed and more, they mostly perform the same in-camera. There were only three cards that dropped below these speeds, which increased the buffer clearing times.

There is definitely no in-camera benefit to using the newer CFexpress 4.0 cards over the 2.0 cards, but you will benefit from up to 50% faster transfer speeds when using a 4.0 reader.

There is more of a variation in performance when it comes to UHS-II SD cards. If you need to shoot to both cards at the same time, then you will always be restricted by the speed of the SD card, so it's best to go with a fast one!

It would be great to hear what cards people are choosing to use in your own R6 III. Also if you have any issues with any cards, please do let us know.

Full details can be found in the blog post here:

Tested in Camera: The Best Canon R6 III Memory Cards - RF Shooters

We have tested 50 memory cards in the 32.5 megapixel full-frame Canon EOS R6 III to find out how they actually perform when used in the camera. The Canon R6 III features dual memory card slots. Slot 1 is compatible with CFexpress Type B cards (up to 8TB in size) and slot 2 is compatible with...

rfshooters.com

 

[THXGEEK]

Hey Tim (and everyone else) - any idea if a future firmware update will take advantage of the enhanced performance the 4.0 cards offer? And on the R5II as well?

 

[Tim Mayo]

Hey Tim (and everyone else) - any idea if a future firmware update will take advantage of the enhanced performance the 4.0 cards offer? And on the R5II as well?

Not unless the cameras have PCIe Gen 4 hardware built-in already but have been restricted to run at PCIe Gen 3 speeds, then a firmware update could enable the faster speeds. But I expect we will never see a camera that maxes out the write speeds of either a 2.0 or 4.0 card due to the heat it would generate.