The Nintendo Switch 2 has finally been unveiled, bringing with it some intriguing technical advancements. One of the significant updates is its need for a new type of memory card known as MicroSD Express. While this sounds exciting, there’s a bit of a catch: these cards might hit your bank account harder than you’d like. To put things into perspective, these cards are more expensive on a per-gigabyte basis compared to many contemporary SSDs. For instance, you’re looking at around 20 to 25 cents per gigabyte for MicroSD Express cards, while budget-friendly SSDs often go for as low as 5 to 6 cents per gigabyte. This price hike can be attributed to the integration of NVMe and PCIe 3.0 technologies, similar to what’s found in M.2 SSDs, packed into the small MicroSD Express format.
Take a look at Sandisk’s MicroSD Express offerings, for example. Their 128GB card has a suggested retail price of $49.99, and if you need 256GB, that’ll be $64.99. These cards boast impressive speeds—reading up to 880 MB/s, writing up to 480 MB/s, and sustained writes at 100 MB/s.
On the other hand, Lexar has announced they’re pushing the limits with capacities reaching up to 1TB. But brace yourself for the cost that comes with this upgrade in this new standard.
Consider Lexar’s Play Pro range: their 1TB MicroSD Express card carries a hefty price tag of $199.99. If that’s too much for your budget, the 512GB version comes in at $99.99, and you can grab a 256GB card at $49.99. Lexar claims these cards can reach reading speeds of 900 MB/s and writing speeds of 600 MB/s.
Comparing price-per-gigabyte, Sandisk’s 128GB card will set you back roughly $0.39 per gigabyte, while the 256GB option costs around $0.25 per gigabyte. Lexar, however, might be the better deal if you’re after both performance and cost efficiency, as their cards are priced evenly at $0.20 per gigabyte. Plus, they seem to offer superior technical specs overall.
Moving on to storage on the Switch 2, Nintendo will include 256GB of internal space as a standard feature. However, that figure might not be the grand advantage you’d think. Even if you own physical game cartridges, you might still have to download and install parts of the game onto the system. Nintendo refers to these cartridges as “Game-Key Cards” because they often act like licenses rather than fully-functional game media. With many publishers aiming to save on cartridge costs and the projected rise in NAND storage prices, this approach is likely here to stay.
Take, for example, a game like Street Fighter 6. Should you get its physical copy, prepare to absorb an additional 50GB of data onto the console right away. That means your standard 256GB storage could max out sooner than anticipated. So, unless you’re ready for the headache of constantly managing and redownloading games, expanding your storage with these costly MicroSD cards might be on your agenda.
When you dive into the MicroSD Express standard, the differences from a traditional MicroSD card might not be immediately apparent. However, this advancement marks a significant leap from the UHS-I standard used by the original Switch. The SD Express speed classes for MicroSD Express are segmented into four groups: Class 150, Class 300, Class 450, and Class 600, with the numbers indicating the cards’ minimum read/write speeds in megabytes per second. Moreover, MicroSD Express cards feature between 16 to 17 pins, a noticeable increase from the 8 pins found in the older UHS-I models.
At the heart of these cards are NVMe and PCIe 3.0 interfaces, providing speed capabilities that reach up to 2GB/s—especially if a PCIe 4.0 interface is employed. While comprehensive tech specs are available on sites like AnandTech, it remains unclear if the Switch 2 itself will fully harness these capabilities. So far, no available MicroSD Express card hits the absolute peak speeds, leaving some capacity potentially unutilized.
Lexar’s Director of Brand Marketing, Joey Lopez, expressed enthusiasm in a statement, emphasizing the unmatched performance their MicroSD Express cards offer in this compact format. They aim to deliver these advanced cards, prepping gamers for handheld gaming’s next era.
As for comparing speeds, the gap between the swiftest UHS-I MicroSD cards and the fastest theoretical MicroSD Express cards is substantial. Currently, the Lexar Play Pro MicroSDXC Express card is topping the list, but real-world performance tests will give us a clearer picture once the Switch 2 and these cards become accessible. If you’re curious about the Switch 2, check out our hands-on preview for more insights.
