Spring 2004 DVD Performance Roundup: More DVD Dual 8X
by Kristopher Kubicki on April 28, 2004 7:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
Burn Tests CDR Media
We used the following configuration to test our burners:Albatron 865PE Pro II
Intel Pentium 4 2.4GHz 800FSB
2 x 512 DDR OCZ PC3200 EL
Maxtor 80GB 7200RPM 8MB IDE
Windows XP SP1
Below are the corresponding firmwares to each drive that we used:
| Drive | Firmware |
| ASUS DRW-0802P | 1.13 |
| AOpen DDW8800 | 1.4A |
| Gigabyte GO-W0808A | USY1 |
| Nu Tech DDW-082 | B372 |
| Sony DRU-530A | 2.0A |
| Toshiba SD-R5272 | 1030 |
Notice the Gigabyte firmware is designated as USY1. The retail drive (when it ships) may use a slightly more advanced firmware. The NuTech B372 firmware is not officially supported yet. You may download it here, though. Please use this firmware at your own risk.
You may download our entire burn time spreadsheet here. Higher burn speed averages are more desirable.
| Ritek 97m31s01f - 52X CDR | |||
| Drive | Average Burn | Length | Mode |
| AOpen DDW8800 | 27.13X | 79:57.71 | Z-CLV |
| ASUS DRW-0802P | 22.39X | 79:57.71 | Z-CLV |
| Gigabyte GO-W0808A | 31.65X | 79:57.71 | CAV |
| Nu Tech DDW-082 | 23.51X | 79:57.71 | P-CAV |
| Sony DRU-530A | 29.39X | 79:57.71 | P-CAV |
| Toshiba SD-R5272 | 22.89X | 79:57.71 | Z-CLV |
| Mitsubishi 97m23s24f - 24X CDRW | |||
| Drive | Average Burn | Length | Mode |
| AOpen DDW8800 | 16.00X | 74:43.00 | CLV |
| ASUS DRW-0802P | 22.26X | 74:43.00 | Z-CLV |
| Gigabyte GO-W0808A | - | 74:43.00 | - |
| Nu Tech DDW-082 | 21.22X | 74:43.00 | Z-CLV |
| Sony DRU-530A | 22.40X | 74:43.00 | P-CAV |
| Toshiba SD-R5272 | 15.78X | 74:43.00 | Z-CLV |
You will notice that the Gigabyte GO-W0808A could not recognize the Mitsubishi CDRW for burning or erasing. Reading the disc was no problem, but it looks like future firmware will have to solve this issue. This will most likely be solved before the Gigabyte drive begins retail shipments. The Gigabyte GO-W0808A smoked everyone else's burn speeds for CDR.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
24 Comments
View All Comments
rlrus - Tuesday, May 4, 2004 - link
Nu has posted the official firmware upgrade B373, I hope this one is as good or better than the unofficial B372. I bought this drive and hope I have as good results as Anand Tech. With it's ability to write 8 times on 4 times Media and it's speed and error rate being almost as good as the more expensive drives it seemed a bargain.mcveigh - Sunday, May 2, 2004 - link
21:the Nu models do as well or better than everyone else and at the lowest price point.
why shouldn't they win?
KristopherKubicki - Saturday, May 1, 2004 - link
Jeff7181: I think there is a way to get it to scale proper. I will do that for the next review.Kristopher
QuaiBoy - Friday, April 30, 2004 - link
Seems to me that all of the DVD writer reviews lately on Anandtech seem to favor the Nutech product. I don't see a reason from these results to pick that drive over any of the others. There's nothing that makes it anything special, and it certainly doesn't deserve an award over the other drives.Another vote for total write times and for not claiming that all drives with the same chipset will perform similarly. Too many variables. At least test with more media types, like TY and Optodisc. Cheapies like Princo appeal to many as well.
-Evan-
Jeff7181 - Friday, April 30, 2004 - link
The Write Quality graphs are very misleading/hard to read since they are all on different scales... makes on look like crap until you realize you're looking at a 0 - 10 scale rather than 0 - 70. Anything you can do about that or are you just stuck displaying what the crappy software showed you?KristopherKubicki - Thursday, April 29, 2004 - link
This was all commented on in the article. The 708A and the 2500A also use radically different pickups and servos. But then again, i never claimed those two were similar in the review either.Belzer: most of those drives i pointed out were clearly rebadges.
Kristopher
CrazeeHorse - Thursday, April 29, 2004 - link
Belzer,yes. Maybe I should have rephrased my statement, as MAXIMUM burning speed. Yep, it also depends on the burn strategy employed.CrazeeHorse - Thursday, April 29, 2004 - link
Belzer,yes. Maybe I should have rephrased my statement, as MAXIMUM burning speed. Yep, it also depends on the burn strategy employed.CrazeeHorse - Thursday, April 29, 2004 - link
Belzer - Thursday, April 29, 2004 - link
"If you mean burn speed, of course it will be similar in different drives that use the same chipset, as their burn speeds are defined by the chipset!"Uhm, no! Burn speed also depends very much on the write strategies implemented in the firmware. For example NEC ND-2500A and Pioneer DVR-A07 use the same chipset. The NEC uses a 4x-6x-8x Z-CLV technique for 8x burns, the Pioneer uses a 6x-8x Z-CLV technique and is faster.
Drives with the same chipset can have very different properties, only complete rebadged drives will have the same properties.