Silicon Power's 8GB UDMA 300x Compact Flash card
By Thomas Ricker 
posted Jul 9th 2007 7:41AM
posted Jul 9th 2007 7:41AM
Sure, there still aren't any DSLRs available to handle it, but at least now you have choice in your unsupported UDMA CF media. Meet the UDMA 300x Compact Flash card from Silicon Power. Available in 2, 4, or 8GB capacities, these cards feature an Ultra Direct Memory Access 45MBps transfer rate making them the ideal choice for rapid firing, professional DSLRs -- you know, when they actually start supporting UDMA sometime later this year. On sale in Japan in the next few days for prices which should top-out at around $200 for 8GB. [Via Impress]
These things ROCK! I purchased a CF to ATA hard drive interface last year. I've been running the 4 GB card to boot my Windows XP machine. System boots in less than 15 seconds, and runs very fast. They also make a great place for putting your page file, and if you're running SQL server -- either the temp file or your database files.
$200.00 my ass, I can buy them all day long for less than $50.00
In a sense, it's how fast the photo you have just taken,gets written to the memory card.
In sports photography if you dont have a fast card the buffer will fill-up, you wont be to shot any more pictures until the buffer empties out...all this is done in "burst shooting"
Can someone explain to me what 300x means in a device that doesn't rotate?
It just means 300 times as faster than normal speed.
In this case normal is measured compared to CD standards, so 1x CF = 1x CD Rom = 150 kB/s.
Even in case of CDs the n times faster usually refers to the reading speed, not to the rpm. There is / was a 72x CD Reader which actually only spun at something like 10x but used 7 read heads.
Bye,
Gaspode
300X could be the model number.
Hey look it has as much space as the iPhone XD.......
These would also make embedded applications snappier too, what with UDMA and all.
(That is if it works the same as a HD.)
it's 300x, go to the website and translate. each x represents 150kbps (cd-rom speed), so make the calculations and you will get 45Mbps. X means transfer rates.
300X is very useful right now even if the cameras do not support it. With the right card reader it cuts down the time needed to transfer the photos to PC. Larger RAW files and larger photoshoots make this a necessity.
A Neccessity? Hardly. A convenience? Likely. For $200? Naww.. I don't think so.
@ Dutch Guy,
it is a necessity, when you are shooting 25MB+ raw files on a job.
I remember when we had 8 MB Compact Flash cards, and by golly, we liked it that way!
Hell, my old 98 Compaq Presario had only 8 gigs altogether.
My Amiga didn't even have any built in storage!
By the way, thanks for all the answers guys.
I just picked up the new 300X Lexar 8 gig CF card for $149 and am looking forward to using it. Sure, my 1Ds Mark II at work doesn't support UDMA. But the SanDIsk Firewire 800 card reader does support UDMA and actually moves files much faster than with a Fireiwre 400 reader.
Ironically, my NEXTO OTG mobile backup device (stick card in and it sucks photos out of the CF card onto a 120 gig drive while I keep shooting with different card) doesn't support UDMA. Because of that, it downloads photos much slower from UDMA SanDisk Extreme Four 4 gig cards than it does with the older SanDisk Extreme III cards that don't support UDMA.
At this point, there are only to CF card readers that benefit from UDMA at full speed. The SanDisk and Lexar Firewire 800 card readers. They are more than twice as fast as the fastest USB2 UDMA card readers. So you need Firewire 800 to really benefit from these new CF cards at all.
@jv,
Um, I don't understand your point. The EOS 1Ds Mark II does not support UDMA so it can't take advantage of the faster write speeds. Mentioning the throughput of the internal bus makes no sense WRT what I wrote.
Thomas
I use this card since 1 week with my Canon 400D and it works great. At least I top the writing speed of my Canon and not limited with the CF Card.
With double battery and this 8GB card I can shoot as much and as long I need
I bought it for les than 165USD at Taiwan-import online shop.
http://www.taiwan-import.com/shop/product_info.php?cPath=26_27&products_id=129