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HotHardware Test Systems |
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It's Snappy |
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Artec Dual DVD±R/RW
Plextor PX-708UF DVD±R/RW
Albatron PX875 Pro Motherboard
BFG Asylum GeForce FX 5700 Ultra 128MB
Pentium 4-C @ 2.4GHz
512MB Kingston HyperX PC3500 DDR-RAM
Western Digital 30GB ATA-100 7200RPM Hard Drive
Creative 52X CD-ROM
Windows XP Pro SP-1
DirectX 9.0b
NVIDIA Forceware v53.03
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Utilities and Media Used For Testing
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SiSoft
SANDRA Pro 4
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Nero
InfoTool
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Nero CD
DAE
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Nero CD-DVD
Speed
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Nero
Burning ROM 6
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An audio
CD 63:33:02 in Length for MP3 Encode Test
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4.0GB of
AVI files for Sandra DVD Data Tests
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3.9GB of
AVI files for Nero DVD Data Tests
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698MB AVI
file for Sandra CD Data Tests
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703MB of
MP3 files for Nero CD Data Tests
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Underworld on DVD for all DVD Movie Tests
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Pearl
Jam - Riot Act for DAE Tests
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Media
Used:
-Philips 40X CD-R
-Memorex 4x DVD-R
-TDK 4X DVD+R
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To help give us an idea of the
Artec Dual DVD's performance, we ran a series of common tests to
paint a clear performance picture. As with any test, however,
without a frame of reference, the results can be somewhat
ambiguous. So we ran the
same tests on a Plextor PX-708UF dual format drive for
comparison. We also wanted to note that while the Plextor drive supports both FireWire and USB 2.0, we completed all
of our tests while connected through USB 2.0.
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CD-ROM Performance Tests -
Artec Dual DVD±R/RW
Drive |
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Speeding Things Along |
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Nero InfoTool:
To start things
off we ran Nero InfoTool to give a clear breakdown of the Artec Dual DVD±R/RW's feature set.
Artec
DVD±R/RW
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PLEXTOR
PX-708UF
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Essentially
the Artec Dual DVD drive offers the same overall feature
set as the better known competitor, minus Mt Rainier
support. While Mt Rainier allows for easy
drag and drop functionality, it needs to be natively
supported by the OS to be utilized. Since this is not
yet available with most of today's OSes, this isn't a major
strike against this otherwise capable drive.
SiSoft SANDRA Pro 4:
We ran the
Sandra CD/DVD test module with a CD
data disk and DVD data disk to test
the read performance capabilities of each drive. For Sandra's
CD data tests, the benchmark utility requires a CD with
large files be inserted. For this test we used a
CD with a single AVI file that was almost 700MB in
size. For the DVD data test, a DVD+R disk
with 4GB of AVI files was used.
Read
Performance - CD Data
Artec
DVD±R/RW
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PLEXTOR
PX-708UF
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With the CD
data read test, the Artec drive was only able to hit a
buffered read speed of 925KB/s compared to the Plextor
drive which peaked at 21MB/s. We should also note
that the Average access time of the Artec drive was
significantly slower than the Plextor drive, hitting 743
ms compared to 428 ms. These two factors gave the
Plextor drive a slight lead in the overall results.
Read
Performance - DVD Data
Artec
DVD±R/RW
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PLEXTOR
PX-708UF
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With DVD data read testing, the
performance gap continued, with the Artec drive falling just
short of 1MB/s buffered reads compared to 20MB/s with the
comparison drive. The Artec drive also suffered from poor
Average Access Times, hitting 628 ms compared to the Plextor
drive at a snappier 328 ms. Nonetheless, these performance
gaps only resulted in minor differences in overall scores.
More Nero Tests
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