Nero CD Speed
Our first series of tests begin with Nero CD Speed, where we'll test the drive's 32x CD read speed. The benchmarks will also help gather seek time results based on different access patterns using various types of media. Using a commercially-pressed CD, an Audio CD, a CD-R and a CD-RW disc as the four common medium for this benchmark, we will know where the drive stands in terms of its ability to read each different type of media.
Our media of choice were - the Warcraft III Installation disc (commercially-pressed CD), a "NOW That's What I Call Music" album (Audio CD), a 40x Maxell CD-R that's based on Hitachi's dye, and an unbranded 24x CD-RW disc based on the Mitsubishi dye. After running these media on CD Speed, the results were then collected and compiled in the table below.
Nero CD Speed (Speed)
| Nero CD Speed (Speed) |
Data CD (Warcraft III Installation CD) |
Audio CD (NOW That's What I Called Music Vol. 40) |
CD-R CD(Various Files) |
CD-RW CD (Various Files) |
| Average: |
25.09x |
25.50x |
24.61x |
25.26x |
| Start: |
15.00x |
14.75x |
15.00x |
15.01x |
| End: |
33.03x |
33.78x |
32.24x |
33.26x |
Nero CD Speed (Seek Times)
| Nero CD Speed (Seek Times) |
Data CD (Warcraft III Installation CD) |
Audio CD (NOW That's What I Called Music Vol. 40) |
CD-R CD(Various Files) |
CD-RW CD (Various Files) |
| Random: |
135ms |
131ms |
130ms |
135ms |
| 1/3: |
156ms |
160ms |
151ms |
156ms |
| Full: |
296ms |
304ms |
283ms |
296ms |
Nero CD Speed (CPU Usage)
| Nero CD Speed (CPU Usage) |
Data CD (Warcraft III Installation CD) |
Audio CD (NOW That's What I Called Music Vol. 40) |
CD-R CD(Various Files) |
CD-RW CD (Various Files) |
| 1x: |
0% |
1% |
0% |
0% |
| 2x: |
1% |
1% |
1% |
1% |
| 4x: |
2% |
3% |
2% |
2% |
| 8x |
6% |
9% |
5% |
5% |
The results in Nero CD Speed were nothing short of impressive. From the standard CD-ROM right down to the CD-RW media, the TEAC drive handled them all with ease. Perhaps the best part of the drive have got to be its low CPU Usage, which also happens to be one of the lowest we have seen in a long time for a DVD writer. Our only qualms have got to be the drive's slow seek time. Seek times are considered as the time it takes to move the laser mechanism into another position, so a lower seek time score would mean that the drive is able to perform that duty faster. Other than that, there's little else to complain about the drive's CD-ROM read capabilities as far as Nero CD Speed is concerned.
Ziff-Davis CD Winbench 99
We then compared the TEAC DV-W50D 4x DVD±RW with other drives, such as the Lite-On 32x12x40x and the TDK 440N Indi 4x DVD±RW drives using CD Winbench 99. It'll be interesting to see where the TEAC writer stands against some of the faster drives out there.
Ziff-Davis Media CD WinBench 99
| Benchmarks |
LITE-ON LTR-32123S (40x CD-ROM) |
HP dvd300e 4x DVD+RW (40x CD-ROM) |
TDK 440N Indi 4x DVD±RW (40x CD-ROM) |
Teac DV-W50D 4x DVD±RW (32x CD-ROM) |
| Disk Access Time |
97.5 milliseconds |
103 milliseconds |
103 milliseconds |
120 milliseconds |
| Disk Transfer Rate (beginning/end) / KB/sec |
2690 / 5510 |
2630 / 5350 |
2620 / 5340 |
2450 / 4990 |
Compared to the other three drives, the TEAC writer trailed behind them by quite a fair bit. Which was only natural, since they are all 40x-Read writers. But for a 32x-Read drive, the TEAC's performance isn't shabby at all, although our complain here is that the drive's Disk Access Time could have been much better - which was analogous to Nero CD Speed's seek time results. There's nothing else to complain about the drive's CD-ROM handling and for a 32x-Read drive, its performance is good overall.
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