Plextor PX-750A 16x DVD±RW/RAM

While CPU, memory, OS and other variables don't often make a huge difference, there are some nonetheless. We have a computer that is used only for testing hardware. We do this so all tests can be compared reliably.

Test System:

For DVD writers the performance tests are broken down into four sections: CD read, CD write, DVD read and DVD write tests. Each benchmark test has been run three times. The score given is an average of the three. DMA has been enabled in device manager for all IDE devices supporting it.

CD Read Tests: For the read performance section of the CD-ROM benchmarks, CD WinBench 99 v3.0 and CD Speed v4.10 are used to test read speeds, seek times and CPU usage. For DAE testing both CD Speed and CD DAE are used. CD Speed is used to give an overall DAE speed rating and CD DAE is used to give the track by track extraction speeds and to check the extracted tracks for errors the drive may have created.

CD Write Tests: To test the write speeds, Nero Burning Rom is used to write 650MB and 700MB to our test media. Times are recorded. To test rewrite scores, Nero is used again to time how long it takes to write 400MB of random files and directories. Then Sonic's DLA is used to test packet writing speeds. The same files are copied and pasted in Windows Explorer and timed.

DVD Read Tests: For the read performance section of the DVD benchmarks CD Speed v4.10 is used to test read speeds, seek times, and CPU usage.

DVD Write Tests: To test the DVD write speeds, Nero Burning Rom is used to write 4GB to our test media. Times are recorded. Then Sonic's DLA is used to test packet writing speeds. The same files are copied and pasted in Windows Explorer and timed.

CD Winbench 99 Scores:

The CD Winbench test is as close as we can get to testing every day usage. It fires off eight different applications using scripts. This tries to mimic the activities of a person loading these programs onto their own computer.

Plextor's new DVD±RW drive gave us some mixed performance in our CD Winbench tests.While the PX-750A's overall score was fairly good, it had the slowest transfer rates out of the four drives here. As you can see, it started reading at 12.5x (1880 / 150) and reached a maximum speed of only 37.6x (5650 / 150).

CD Speed v4.10 - Pressed CD:

For this test I used a pressed CD containing one Mode 1 data track. The disc is 74:38 in size and is full of data and directories.

	Plextor PX-750A	ASUS DRW-1608P2	NEC ND-4550A	LG GSA-4167B
Transfer Speed Average: Start: End:	29.40x 16.96x 38.86x	31.30x 18.12x 41.24x	35.60x 20.54x 47.09x	35.63x 20.45x 47.28x
Seek Times Random: 1/3: Full:	135ms 143ms 250ms	104ms 145ms 222ms	137ms 145ms 219ms	114ms 126ms 183ms
CPU Usage 1x: 2x: 4x: 8x:	0% 1% 2% 4%	1% 1% 3% 6%	17% 1% 3% 6%	1% 1% 3% 36%

The PX-750A didn't perform as well as I had expected when reading pressed CD's. While rated at 40x, the drive reached a maximum read speed of only 38x in our tests, and its seek times were higher than we'd like to see.

CD Speed v4.10 - CD-R Media:

For this test I made a copy of our pressed test CD. I used 12x rated Memorex Gold 74 minute media for the tests.

The PX-750A was a little faster when reading CD-R media.Thanks to this small speed boost, it reached a maximum transfer speed of 40x. Looking at the other scores, you can see that the drive's seek times were again quite high.

Unfortunately, Plextor's new drive had some trouble reading our 99 minute CompUSA media. If the session on the CD was larger than 90 minutes in size, it would not recognize the disc correctly. Using a disc with about 90 minutes worth of data, I was able to reach a maximum read speed of about 38.99x.

CD Speed v4.10 - CD-RW Media:

For this test I made a copy of a pressed test CD. I used some PNY 80 minute CD-RW media for the tests.

Plextor's new drive also reads CD-RW media at 40x. While the PX-750A came close, it wasn't able to reach this number in our tests.

CD DAE and CD Speed v4.10 - Pressed CD:

For this test I used Pure Funk. The CD is almost exactly 74 minutes. This helps to squeeze the maximum performance out of the CD.

Exact Audio Copy can tell us a lot about a drive's capabilities. You can see from the screen shot that while the Plextor PX-750A supports accurate stream and has the ability to retrieve C2 error information from the CD, it does not cache audio data.

CD Speed	Plextor PX-750A	ASUS DRW-1608P2	NEC ND-4550A	LG GSA-4167B
Average: Start: End: DAE Quality: Accurate Stream:	29.19x 16.95x 38.73x 10 Yes	30.52x 18.04x 38.58x 10 Yes	30.94x 17.99x 40.12x 10 Yes	30.81x 17.50x 40.79x 10 Yes

While not as fast as the other drives, the PX-750A had no problems ripping pressed audio CD's. Looking at the scores above, you can see that it reached a maximum DAE speed of 38.73x.

To get a better look at the quality of the extracted audio we use CD DAE. CD DAE is actually designed to be an audio ripping program. It converts the CD-DA on the CD to .wav files. We use it in our testing because it can also be used as a quick and easy way to test the quality. Where CD Speed tests the DAE as one large session, CD DAE extracts each CD track individually. It actually extracts each track twice and then compares them to check for any errors. Every error a drive creates could be a hiss or pop you would hear later in the audio tracks.

While Plextor's new DVD writer started out a little faster when extracting our test CD with CD DAE, its average and maximum speeds were slower than what we saw with CD Speed.

CD DAE and CD Speed v4.10 - CD-R Media:

For this test I used a copy of the Pure Funk CD. It's burned onto the same Memorex Gold 74 minute media I used in the CD Speed tests.

The PX-750A was slightly faster when ripping audio CD-R discs. While still not as fast as the other drives, it reached a maximum DAE speed of 39x in our tests. So how did it do in CD Speed's advanced DAE tests? Take a look below.

Plextor's new DVD writer completed CD Speed's advanced DAE tests with an average score of 28.06x. The drive had no problems passing all of the on-the-fly tests and did not create any errors. If you look at the advanced features, you can see that the PX-750A was able to read the CD-Text and subchannel data but failed to read the lead in and lead out sections of the CD.

To see how well Plextor's new drive can read scratched and dirty discs, I used CD Speed's ScanDisc utility to see how many sectors were damaged or unreadable. This is a very rough, but good way to test the drive's error correcting abilities.

CD Speed - ScanDisc

The PX-750A did surprisingly well here. By looking at the screenshot, you can see that the drive considered only 53.04% of the CD to be "damaged". On top of that, none of the sectors on the disc were unreadable.

You can also get an idea of how well the drive can read scratched and dirty discs by using CD DAE. CD DAE will extract the audio tracks twice and then compare them. From this information we can see what the drive's average speed was and how many errors it generated.

The PX-750A did very well in this test. The scratches on the disc had little effect on the drive's speed and the number of errors remained fairly low.