detail information

Reading performance:

For these tests we will use Nero CD/DVD-Speed to read various CD and DVD's, including audio discs and DVD-media. As already mentioned in the introduction, this drive supports:

• 16x/8x on DVD-ROM SL/DL
• 10x on DVD±R
• 8x on DVD±RW
• 8x on DVD+R9 DL
• 2x, 3x, 5x on DVD-RAM
• 40x on CD-R/RW

Pressed discs:

For this test we used a pressed CD-ROM disc containing Creative Blaster Audigy install CD which is close to 74 minutes long. Below you will see the produced result:

The LG GSA-4163B had no problems reaching 40.93x, let us see how this compares to other drives and look below:

From the table we can read - the LG GSA-4163B does what the specification indicates; it can read CD-Rom's at 40x. In addition, the average random seek times are even better then the official listed specifications.

CD-Recordable Discs:

For this test we made a copy of the original Creative Blaster Audigy install CD. The disc we used was a Verbatim 48X certified CD-R disc manufactured by Mitsubishi Chemicals Corporation. 

Again the LG GSA-4163B drive does what it is suppose to do according to the specifications. Also again the average random seek times are even better then the official listed specifications.

 CD-Rewritable discs:

Again, we made a copy of the original Creative Blaster Audigy install CD; this time we used a Verbatim Ultra Speed (24X) CD-RW disc made by Mitsubishi Chemicals Corporation.

As we can see above, the LG GSA-4163B drive had no problems reading this CD-RW disc at full speed; let us compare it to other drives below.

The reading speed and average random seek times are better then the official specifications on the LG GSA-4163B drive.

Audio - Digital Audio Extraction:

To test the digital audio extraction performance of the LG GSA-4163B, we again used Nero CD/DVD-Speed to measure the transfer rate. The audio disc we used is slightly larger than the disc used for the other tests, to be exact it's about 78 minutes long (77:43:45).

The drive reached 41.39x reading the audio disc back, let us compare the result with other drives:

The LG GSA-4163B drive performed very well - but not the fastest one so far, due to the 40x read limitation.

Below is the results produced by EAC:

 Burst mode

 Secure mode

The drive performed excellently in both burst and secure mode.

Advanced audio - DAE quality test:

Before we move on to testing DVD read speeds, we will take a last audio test, and this time we used the 'Advanced DAE Quality Test" feature in CD-Speed.

The extracting quality is excellent and it should support everything, except reading Leadout.

DVD reading performance:

Again, we will use Nero CD-Speed to measure the reading performance, this time for various types of DVD discs. The drive should read pressed single layer DVD-discs at 16X.

DVD - DVD-Video:

For our DVD reading performance tests we are going to start with a single and dual layered DVD video discs. While only 1X speed is required to watch DVD movies, it's useful to be able to read the discs at higher speeds if you're going to extract (rip) the content of the disc to your hard drive.

DVD-Video Single Layer

 
DVD-Video Double Layer

We can see that this drive is locked at 10x for reading DVD-Video SL discs. To see how the transfer rate is on a Data DVD we used the 'Half-Life 2" DVD-ROM:

DVD-ROM

As we could see there is no speed limit when reading the data DVD-ROM.

The LG GSA-4163x performed well according to the official listed specifications. Due to the Read/Rip lock the drive is around average compared with other drives.

DVD - DVD+R/RW:

For this test we used a Plextor (Taiyo Yuden) 8X DVD+R and a Verbatim 4X DVD+RW with about 4,4Gb of data. Below are the results:

DVD+R

 
DVD+RW

The reading speed was locked to 8x for DVD+RW, which is fairly normal for most new drives.

The LG GSA-4163x performed according to the official listed specifications, and the results are average when compared to other drives.

DVD - DVD-R/RW:

For this test we used a Maxell (Taiyo Yuden) 4X DVD-R disc and a Verbatim 4X DVD-RW disc filled with about 4,4Gb of data. Our test results are found below:

DVD-R

 
DVD-RW

 There are minor differences compared to reading the DVD+R/RW discs.

Again the LG GSA-4163B performed according to the official listed specifications, and the results is average compared to other drives.

Overall thoughts:

The LG GSA-4163B performed according to the official listed specifications, and overall an OK reader.

But now it's time to head on to a more interesting part: Writing CD-R and CD-RW discs…

Features

CD-R/W Writing performance