Kingston intros 266x CompactFlash Ultimate cards

We've seen more capacious, more glitzy, and more valuable CompactFlash cards before, but Kingston's latest lineup of CF Ultimate cards are noticeably quick on their feet. The devices, which are available in 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB sizes, sport write speeds of up to 266x, which Kingston claims is "twice the minimum sustained write speed previously available in the Ultimate line." Additionally, users can look forward to the included MediaRECOVER software that comes bundled in, and the lifetime warranty should allow heavy clickers to rest a bit easier. Only catch? These bad boys will run you $83, $144, or $280 depending on size, so unless you're desperate for the speed, we'd suggest looking elsewhere for your CF needs.

[LeiAtLarge @ Jul 23rd 2007 5:37PM]

The only camera today that will be able to take advantage of the speed is the new Canon MarkIII and even then, I doubt it'll be able to achieve the maximum transfer rate.

[strider_mt2k @ Jul 23rd 2007 5:51PM]

Would this speed up things if it were used as a drive for embedded applications?

[JK @ Jul 23rd 2007 5:56PM]

Hasn't Sandisk had 266x cards out for some time? The 4gb Extreme IV's aren't this expensive anymore...

[I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY @ Jul 24th 2007 2:09PM]

lEXAR has had 300x cards on an UDAMA 66 (100?) bus for a while now.

[I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY @ Jul 24th 2007 2:10PM]

I forgot to add:

Lexar's 8GB 300X card can be found for $210-220 and I have seen it on sale for $120-150.

[sylv3r @ Jul 23rd 2007 6:00PM]

The speed and the capacity seems good enough for an intermediate camera enthusiast like me though the price is a bit hefty

[Raid-5 @ Jul 23rd 2007 6:28PM]

it's more likly for some one who want to use it as SSD hard drive by using CF-IDE adapter.

But it's still too expensive compare to Samsung's 32gb SSD, and it is not a SSD

[halfmanhalfamazing @ Sep 3rd 2007 10:39PM]

Raid-5 said:
---------------it's more likly for some one who want to use it as SSD hard drive by using CF-IDE adapter.------------

That's exactly what I've done. I've got more information about it here:

http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3424

in case anybody wanted more info about that. The one thing I'm not clear on is if this kingston card has UDMA 33/66/100/133 support the way that Lexar's 300x and Sandisk's Extreme 4 line do. I'd think that they'd have to given that PIO modes just won't get the job done, but I couldn't find comfirmation via a google search.

But regardless, the CF as an SSD solution does work well.

[Chokko @ Jul 23rd 2007 8:54PM]

Can a Nikon D200 take advantage of this card?

[optV @ Jul 23rd 2007 10:12PM]

Not the full write speed, however, many of the current cameras won't. One major advantage would be uploading to a computer through a very fast read like an expresscard 34/54 or firewire 400/800 readers.

Same goes for the UDMA Lexars which claim 300x.

[Ryan @ Jul 24th 2007 10:14AM]

$220 gets you Lexars 300x card

http://store.lexar.com/index.cfm?productid=CF8GB-300-380&bhcp=1

[I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY @ Jul 24th 2007 2:11PM]

Please mark the above comment as spam. Click the exclamation mark to do so.

[I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY @ Jul 24th 2007 2:19PM]

Please click the ! exclamation mark and not the +/- to alert engadget to his spam.

[xl8 @ Jul 29th 2007 9:58PM]

thE ramsan, the HyperXCLR, the USSD 200FC, and the ZeusIOPS are the fastest pc drives in the world, but are unavalaible to the good people wich brings me to SAY that human beings only have one
life to live and if these companies dont want 2 make fast affordable drives for the general public absolutely right now, then they need to shut their f*ckin pie holes and get out of our faces and pc buiss. Gamers and pc enthousiasts have been lied to for decades , being told to buy the latest fastest video cards and cpus to speed up their games when these have done squat to speed pcs
or games! Any cpu/gpu chip over 266MHZ was useless on pata/ide drives. for the last 20 years marketing plots have dumbed people down into useless purchases when the only important upgrade in a pc is the hard drives speed and now that these fast & usefull drives are finally out, theyre priced for millionaires, frankly, imho f**k the pc industry.