Plextor 48/24/48A
Review by David R. Hedges on 11.21.2002
Product Provided by: Plextor
Retail Value: $159.00
Benchmarking
Well, three pages is enough blabbering for now--on to the benchmarking.
| Processor | AMD XP 1900+ |
| RAM | 512 MB PC2700 DDR Generic |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte GA-7VRXP |
| Chipset | VIA KT333 |
| OS | Windows XP Professional SP-1 |
| Source Hard Drive | 2x WD 80GB S.E. (800JB) @ RAID 0 |
| CD-R Media | Verbatim 94365 700 MB, 48x Certified |
CD-R Data CD Burn
A 702 MB compilation (a 701 MB AVI plus disc information) completed in exactly 3:00 in Nero. Bear in mind, this is actually slightly over the specified capacity, so this time is definately a high-end estimate of real-use applications.
CD-R Data CD Burn (continued)
Nero CD Speed was also used to visually represent what happens inside the burner when burning a CD. Remembering back to the explanation of CAV, this graph represents the relationship between RPM and data write speeds. As the RPM speed (yellow) remains fairly constant, the data write speed increases as time passes (as the burner moves farther out on the CD). Notice also, that this reports a 2 minute 50 second burn time. The slight fluxuations seen in this particular case have an unknown cause, but did not result in any compromise in data integrity.
CD-R Data CD Burn Quality
As shown below, the burn quality of the Plextor 48/24/48A is flawless, with 0 errors. This can be attributed to a culimination of many features working together, along with high quality media.
CD-RW Data CD Burn
Unfortunately, 24x CD-RW media was not available to Techware Labs at the time of this review, so the 24x CD-RW speed could not be tested. Presumably the data would be along the lines of a 24x CD-R burn time (3:49 for a regular 650 MB CD-R in Nero).
CD Data Read
A 74 minute pressed CD was read in 2 minutes 31 seconds, again using CAV. Low CPU usage is seen across the board, at varying speeds, and the seek times are acceptable for optical storage.
Advanced DAE
High quality Digital Audio Extraction (DAE) is an important factor for any optical drive to posess. The Plextor 48/24/48A, as shown below, has flawless DAE, when testing from the burned Advanced DAE test CD that Nero CD Speed has the ability to make.
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