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Silverstone FP35 Bay Card Reader Review

Author: Austin Hamann

Published: Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Benchmarks and Conclusion

What is the most important factor when buying a card reader aside from its features, speed. So below is a little test conducted to compare the write, read and delete speed using a 2GB Sandisk SD card with a 759MB folder in the Silverstone FP35 in my PC and in the standard multi card reader in my HP Laptop.

System as it was tested

Intel E7200@ 3.39GHz
EVGA 750i FTW
2GB Corsair XMS2 @ 855MHz
ASUS 9600GSO TOP 384
Seagate Barracuda 250GB
Stock Intel
Corsair TX750W
Windows XP PRO 32-Bit

Reference System

T5750 (2GHz)
HP Pavillion dv6700
Nanya Tech/Mosel 3GB DDR2 667MHz
Intel GMA X3100
Toshiba MK2546GSX
Stock Intel
Battery
Windows Vista Home Premium 32-Bit

As you can see from the graphs the write speed of the FP35 is not much faster than the HP card reader, but there is an amazing difference between the two when copying files off the SD card, roughly a 380 percent increase in speed, delete speeds are also stellar. The one thing that wasn't recorded was the fact that the HP card reader requires more than 55%+ of the CPU cycles to copy the files off the card, and 25%+ to copy them back to the SD card, while the FP35 doesn't require any work from the CPU, it doesn't make the E7200 go above idle. Some of you may be wondering, well there is a massive difference between 3.4GHz (for the desktop) and 2.0GHz (for the laptop), and this is true, but the CPU frequency difference is negligible because it didn't even require the CPU to work! Besides, I tried testing this theory but for some reason my desktop keeps Blue Screening every time I boot at stock or lower (which makes no sense to me as it runs fine with an 870MHz overclock) so I gave up on that theory.

This card reader is feature rich in that it has something that not many other card readers have, 12v/5v output for external storage along with the many other features, it is easy to use because there are no drivers, and it comes with a very clear and effective instruction guide, it is very fast, and is not too expensive, though most card readers can be had for $10+ cheaper. This is a stellar product.

Good Things

+12v/+5V output for external storage
USB, 1394, e-SATA ports
HD audio headphone jacks
Two different colored front plates(Silver & Black)
supports most card formats
good instructions
Easy to use
High speeds

Bad Things

The FP35 could use more USB ports as it takes up a motherboard's USB header (the FP34 has 2)
All the cables can get messy depending on where headers are placed on your motherboard
Higher price over most card readers

Ninjalane Rating

We would like to thank SilverStone for helping to make this review possible