The SD Association has announced a new standard for memory cards that will result in new SD cards with transfer speeds up to 4Gb/s - four times faster than previously possible.

Full-size SD Express cards can soon employ the latest SD 8.0 specification and use faster PCIe and NVMe architectures. They will be a much better fit for the demands of 8K video recording, RAW continuous burst mode in professional still cameras, and all other speed hungry applications.

Gaming systems can also benefit, claims the Association.

"By dramatically increasing the speeds for SD Express we’re giving device manufacturers and system developers more storage choices," said the SDA's president, Hiroyuki Sakamoto.

"SD 8.0 may open even more opportunities for extra high performance solutions using removable memory cards."

The new, faster SD Express cards will appear across the SDHC, SDXC and SDUC ranges. Like current Express cards, they will sport an additional "EX" added to their on card specifications markers.

It is likely to be some time before the new spec appears on cards you can purchase, and they'll likely to be extremely expensive when first released, but if you are a pro photographer or videographer, the investment could be very much worth it.