detail information

The specifications of the BenQ DW1625 state that the drive is able to write CD-R discs at 40x. Let us find out how the drive really performs in speed and quality.

Writing Data CD-R discs:

Let us first take a look at the CD-R write technology used by the BenQ DW1625:

As we could see, the BenQ DW1625 uses CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) to write at its rated speed of 40x, this gives an average speed of 29.22x. This seems to be slightly lower than average for a 40x CD-Writer.

The Mad Dog MD-16XDVD9 uses CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) to write at its rated speed of 48x. This gives an average speed of 36.38x.

As we could see the Plextor PX-712A uses CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) writing strategy to reach it rated speed of 48X. This gives an average speed of 36.43x.

And as a last test we wrote a disc containing 700Mb using Nero Burning ROM software. Writing method used is DAO (Disc At Once), and the disc is set up as a non multi-session disc with 'finalize disc" enabled.

The BenQ DW1625 used 3 minutes and 24 seconds to write the disc at 40x. Let us see how this compares to other drives:

It's among the slower drives due to the writing speed of only 40x; we would like to see 48x like the majority of other drives offer.

Write Quality:

We will test CD-R discs from a total of 8 different CD-R manufacturers. To really measure the write speed, we used the 'create data CD" function in Nero CD-Speed. The discs were written at the maximum speed that the drive supports. For the quality test, we used K-Probe 2 which is a tool developed by a Lite-On employee. It runs under Windows and works with drives made by Lite-On. Also note that different drives and different reading speeds may affect the results obtained when scanning the discs. We used a Lite-On LTR-52246S drive with firmware 6S0F and scanned the discs at 48X speed.

A written CD-R disc will always have some C1 errors; C1 errors are easily corrected by the drive's error correction capabilities. The next level of errors is C2, while C2 errors could also be corrected by most drive's error correction capabilities; they are not wanted on a good quality disc. A good disc should not contain any C2 errors, and preferably have an average C1 error amount of below 2.0 for the best discs, or at least below 10.0 average for good quality discs. After C2 errors there are only un-correctable errors that will make a disc unusable.

Why wait any longer? Below are the obtained results:

The CMC Magnetics discs seem to be pretty good, they work fine with the BenQ DW1625 drive at least.

No problems with this media.

Good quality with Mitsubishi/Verbatim media, highly recommended.

This was not so good, but since we have another brand of Ritek CD-R, let's do a second test.

Simply excellent, looks like the problem with the first disc is due to a disc quality issue with the Traxdata media.

Simply blows away the competition, this scan is one of the better we have ever had!

Another good result with these rather rare CD-R discs.

Not the highest quality media, but the result is still acceptable.

No problems with this media.

CD-ReWritable:

The BenQ DW1625 supports a CD-ReWriting speed of 24x; let us see how this compares to other writers. Let us start with taking a look at the writing strategy it uses:

The BenQ DW1625 uses P-CAV (Partial-Constant Angular Velocity), to write at its rated speed of 24x, this gives an average speed of 23.12x. This seems to be about average compared to other drives, but let us include some other results for comparison.

The Pioneer DVR-107D uses Z-CLV, (Zone-Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its rated speed of 24x, this gives an average speed of 22.47x.

The Plextor PX-712A, with its P-CAV (Partial-Constant Angular Velocity) write speed of 24X for Ultra Speed CD-RW discs is among the faster writers due to its high starting speed of 21.12x.

And we did also write a disc in Nero Burning ROM, the compilation we made was 650Mb large and we wrote the disc with the Disc At Once write method.

The BenQ DW1625 used 3 minutes and 36 seconds for writing the disc at 24x; let us compare this to some other writers:

Among the faster drives due to the fast P-CAV writing strategy. But let us take a look at the writing quality with two CD-RW discs.

One of the worst results we have ever had with CD-RW media, BenQ should look into improving the writing quality with this media.

Low quality discs, and as we could see the result is horrible.

Summary:
I really kicks ass for CD-R writing quality, but on the other hand it gets its ass kicked by most other writers for CD-RW writing quality. Plus point for CD-R writing quality noted down along with a minus point for CD-RW writing quality.

But after all, it's a DVD-Writer, so head on to next page and read about DVD-Writing performance and DVD media compatibility…