[macTak]

Yes its true, and I vaguely remember that particular test.

However, I believe the test referenced was conducted with class 6 cards rather than class 10 ones.
Also, if memory served me right, the Silicon Power card proved to have sustained write speeds of 19.7 MB/s which was(at the time) considered top be the highest minimum write throughput of all the cards

Having said that, They may have conducted some new tests since then(with class 10 cards?). But since my 32GB cards perform on equal footing to my Sandisk Extreme cards I never really bothered to look into it any further.

The test I am referencing is indeed with the Class 10 version. But, these theoretical minimums and maximums, etc. don't always have an exact correlation with real world results (as your own tests have shown). The UK version of the site has a very extensive set of benchmarks of all the relevant Class 10 SD cards (including the newer SDXC with UHS I speeds), and here is the link (which I am posting as a helpful reference to all, as for some reason search engines do not easily turn up this:

Benchmarks 2011 SD Cards

The have a lot of different tests, but alas no explanation as how to interpret most of them. Another advantage is you can do a compare for whatever you cards you want and it will give you the tested results for all the tests. The min write speed test for your Silicon Power card came up with 10.3 MB/s, which actually was quite good for this test. Some of these tests do seem to have some peculiarities--in that same test, the min write speed for the Sandisk Extreme Pro 16GB came out at 0.8MB/s, so read and interpret at your own risk.

On a side note, I am somewhat disappointed that the K-5 will most likely not gain any read/write performances with the addition of SDxC Card support. Not that I needed this or anything(I find the existing buffer to be quite adequate) its just that it would have been nice to improve LV recovery times. - Again just very slightly disappointed

No, you should not be disappointed. In fact, you should be thanking Pentax. This provides good justification for upgrading to the K-3

[rfortson]

Just for consideration by others making a purchase. Based on a few comments on this thread (and price) I ordered and just received a WINTEC 16GB card. Unfortunately it is DOA.
Jim

Well that stinks! Where did you order it from?

[JMaher]

I ordered from Newegg but I don't think you can blame the seller for a manufacturing defect.

[rfortson]

I ordered from Newegg but I don't think you can blame the seller for a manufacturing defect.

Not blaming the seller. Just wondered if the seller would stand behind the product, and Newegg certainly should. Did they replace/refund it?

[Chex]

I have a 16Gb and 8Gb Silicon Power Class 10 and they are working good so far with no problems.

[JMaher]

Refunded and I ordered a Transcend Class 10 16GB to replace it.
Jim