Lexar has announced a new line of professional-grade UDMA (Ultra Direct Memory Access) CF cards rated at 300x speeds. This equates to sustained write speeds of 45MB per second. Lexar indicates that this would make these new cards about 125 percent faster than current 133x CF cards.
There is a catch. You will need UDMA-enabled devices to take advantage of these speeds. Lexar’s press release promises that we will see a number of UDMA-enabled digital cameras (including DSLRs) later this year. Lexar’s own new card readers (a Firewire model and a USB one) capable of supporting these speeds will be available in the spring.
Lexar Professional 300x speed-rated flash memory cards will be available in April. Prices have not been announced yet.