Plextor PX-760A 18x DVD±RW

DVD Write and ReWrite Tests - Nero Burning Rom 6.6.1.4 and DLA 4.95:

To test the DVD writing performance of Plextor's new drive I used Taiyo Yuden 16x DVD+R, Taiyo Yuden 16x DVD-R, Verbatim 8x DVD+RW and Verbatim 6x DVD-RW media. To get the writing times, a 4.38GB image was burned to our test discs using Nero. All tests have been performed with AutoStrategy and PoweRec enabled.

When writing to DVD+R and DVD-R media at 16x, the PX-760A uses CAV. By looking at the screenshots above, you can see that Plextor's new drive starts writing at about 7.2x and accelerates, reaching a maximum speed of 18x at the end of the disc.

The PX-760A also features 8x DVD+RW and 6x DVD-RW writing speeds. While the drive uses CLV when writing to DVD-RW media, it uses P-CAV to reach its maximum DVD+RW writing speed.

If you were expecting the PX-760A to take the top spot in our DVD±R writing tests, you might be a little surprised. While its 18x writing speed gave it the advantage over the drives from Lite-On and NEC, it was still no match for the GSA-4167B and its P-CAV writing method.

While Plextor has a list of recommended media on their website, I wanted to see for myself how well the PX-760A worked with some of the DVD+R and DVD-R media currently available.

The PX-760A's media compatibility was a mixed bag. While the drive wrote to a good portion of our test media at its rated speed, only three types worked at 18x. As you can see, there were also a number of cases where Plextor's PoweRec technology prevented the drive from reaching the maximum available writing speed.

So what about writing quality? Testing a drive's DVD writing quality isn't easy. Until now, there were very few options, unless you wanted to shell out thousands of dollars for a certified test machine. Fortunately, we can test a disc's PI (Parity Inner) and PO (Parity Outer) rates using the PI/PO tests built into PlexTools Professional. For this review, we're going to use the Burst test run at 3-8x using "Middle Accuracy". This willgive us the number of PI Errors (before correction), PO Errors and the number of uncorrectable blocks (POF).

For comparison, I also tested the discs on a BenQ DW1640 and Lite-On SOHW-1673S. When combined with Nero CD Speed, the DW1640 is able to report PI Errors, PI Failures, Parity Outer Failures and jitter levels. For this test, the discs are read at 8x with both the PI and PIF ECC sums set to 8. With the SOHW-1673S, we used KProbe and read the discs at 4x with the PI and PIF ECC sums set to 8 and 1 respectively.

I also put these discs through a "stress test" by reading them back at 16x with the DW1640. By reading these discs back at this speed, we can see if there are any readability issues caused by the number of errors or high levels of jitter.

The PX-760A's writing quality was pretty good with most of the DVD+R media we tested. In most cases, the error rates stayed well within acceptable limits. The only exception being RiDATA's 16x DVD+R media. The PI and PIE rates were not only high, there were a small number of PIF and POF errors. As you can see, this caused some readability issues.

Lastly, here are some results from our DVD-R test media. While the writing quality varied from one manufacturer to another, the results were fairly good for the most part.

To test the PX-760A's packet writing performance I used DLA 4.95. Verbatim 8x DVD+RW and 6x DVD-RW media were used once again.

Plextor' new DVD±RW performed very well in our packet writing tests. The PX-760A turned in some very good times when reading and writing to DVD-RW and DVD+RW media.

Double Layer DVD Write Tests - Nero Burning Rom 6.6.1.4:

To test the double layer DVD writing performance of the PX-760A, I used Verbatim 8x DVD+R DL, Verbatim 2.4x DVD+R DL, Memorex 2.4x DVD+R DL and Verbatim 4x DVD-R DL media. I created about 8GB of random files and directories on my hard drive and then burned them to our test discs with Nero.

Finding DVD+R DL media that would work at 10x was not an easy task. The only media we found that would work at this speed were Verbatim's 8x DVD+R DL discs. With Verbatim's 2.4x DVD+R DL media, the writing speed was limited to 6x and Memorex's Ritek manufactured discs would not work at anything faster than 4x.

The PX-760A did very well in this test. Thanks to its 10x DVD+R DL writing speed, the drive took a little more than 15 minutes to write 8001MB of data. If you do the math, this is a good two minutes faster than the SHM-176H6S and more than three minutes faster than the drives from NEC and LG. So what about writing quality? Take a look below.

The writing quality was pretty good with Verbatim's 8x and 2.4x DVD+R DL media. Even at 10x, their 8x rated discs yielded some commendable results with PlexTooks, KProbe and CD Speed. The results with Memorex's Ritek manufactured media were also better than I expected. While higher than what we saw with the Verbatim discs, the PI/PIF rates remained for the most part within acceptable limits.

The PX-760A also features 6x DVD-R DL writing speeds. To test the drive's writing times, DVD-R DL media from Verbatim was used.

The PX-760A had no problems taking the top spot in this test. Thanks to its 6x DVD-R DL writing speed, it took the drive only 18:44 to write 8001MB of data. So what about writing quality? Take a look below.

The PX-760A's writing quality was pretty good with Verbatim's 4x DVD-R DL media. The error rates stayed within acceptable limits and there were no readability problems. Unfortunately, the results weren't as good with RiDATA's new DVD-R DL media. The error rates were not only very high on the second layer, there were a number of PO Failures. As you can see, this caused readability problems with both drives.

Performance Revisited:

It's hard not to be impressed by the performance of Plextor's new DVD writer. The PX-760A did very well in our DVD writing tests, turning in some very good times with DVD±R, DVD±RW and DVD±R DL media. It was also fairly quick when reading DVD's. The PX-760A had no problems reading single layer data and video DVD's at 16x and read both DVD±R and DVD±RW media at 12x.

Plextor's new DVD writer also did very well in our CD read tests. With SpeedRead enabled, it was able to read all types of media at its rated speeds and had some very good seek times. Writing CD's wasn't a problem for the PX-760A either. The drive turned in some respectable writing times and its writing quality was quite good. With all things considered, the Plextor PX-760A gets a solid 8 out of 10 for the performance section of this review.