|
3/14/00
- By, Marco
?BigWop? Chiappetta
 |
| Test
System |
| The
reference hardware |
|
Tyan
S1854 Trinity 400 Motherboard, PIII 733
Overclocked to 770MHz., 256MB PC133 RAM,
Shuttle 56x CD, IBM 22GXP HD, Via IDE Busmaster
Drivers, Windows 98SE, DirectX 7.0
 |
| Benchmarks
with the Shuttle SD-561 |
| What
is she made of? |
|
Now
let?s get down to some actual numbers.
SiSoft
Sandra 2000
As
you can see, the drive doesn?t live up to the
?56x? moniker (not many CD-ROM drives do),
however, it does outperform the Memorex 48X
drive used for comparison in Davo?s
Kenwood review.
CD-Speed
99
The
CD-Speed 99 benchmark again shows that the drive
never hit it?s advertised max of 56x, however,
the drive was very consistent.
Its access time was also slightly slower
than advertised, but look how smooth the graph
is. It
also fairs well with respect to other
drives listed in the CD Speed database here.
As you can see, it ranks right up there with top
50-56X performers. Make no mistake,
the drive is fast, there?s just a little bit
of marketing involved in that 56x number.
Note:
DAE Performance
I
also tried Audio Catalyst 2.1 to rip some CD?s,
and the drive consistently ripped between 8x and
20x, which is again respectable.
Telling
it like it is
All
in all, the Shuttle SD-561 56x CD-ROM reviewed
here is a good all around drive. Although it
never hit its peak advertised speed, it did
perform at a very high level.
Its not quite at the same level of a
Plextor SCSI or Kenwood TrueX EIDE drive.
However, if you?re considering a CD-ROM
purchase and don?t want to drop the big bucks
on one of those other drives, I?d have no
problems recommending this product. We
have seen this drive retailing on the net for
around $55. It is hard to beat that kind
of price/performance ratio.
We
give the Shuttle SD-561 56X CD-ROM Drive a Hot
Hardware Heat Meter Rating of...
|
To Hot Hardware! |
| 
