Novachips’ New CFexpress Cards

credits: Novachips

Novachips just announced two new CFexpress Type B card families built around the CFexpress 4.0 standard, the Extreme CX4B and the Express CX4B. Both are meant for high-end photo and video workflows that rely on sustained write speed rather than short peak bursts, and both lines have achieved VPG 800 certification, which guarantees a minimum sustained write speed of 800 MB/s on compatible CFexpress 4.0 hardware. The headline detail is capacity, since Novachips is the first company to pair VPG 800 with cards all the way up to 4TB.

The Extreme CX4B series is available in 600GB and 1TB versions and is built using SLC-mode flash memory along with what Novachips calls enhanced internal over-provisioning. In practical terms, this means a portion of the NAND is reserved to keep write speeds stable as the card fills up and during long, continuous recording sessions. These cards are also certified for VPG 400 when used in older CFexpress 2.0 cameras and readers, which is important because CFexpress 4.0 cards fall back to 2.0 speeds in current cameras. Not all CFexpress 4.0 cards maintain a guaranteed sustained write speed in that mode, but Novachips says these do.

The Express CX4B line is offered in 2TB and 4TB capacities and is optimised specifically for VPG 800 operation on CFexpress 4.0 systems. Unlike the Extreme series, it does not promise VPG 400 behaviour in backward-compatibility mode, focusing instead on maximum performance with next-generation cameras. Pricing and availability have not yet been revealed, as the company says that they will vary depending on the region.