|
By
- Marco
"BigWop" Chiappetta
8 / 24 / 2000
 |
| Test
System |
| The
reference hardware |
|
Tyan
S1854 Motherboard (VIA 133a), PIII
933MHz., 256MB PC133 2-2-2 RAM, Shuttle
10x DVD, IBM 22GXP HD, Via IDE Busmaster Drivers
(580_2149), Windows 98SE, DirectX 7.0a
 |
| Benchmarks
with the Shuttle SDVD-101 |
| What
can she do? |
|
Let's
see what this drive can do under SiSoft Sandra
2000. For all the testing we used a retail
CD-ROM from the game, "F.A.K.K.
2". We could not run any of the
benchmarks using a DVD disk because of the
MPAA's security measures (I think).
SiSoft
Sandra 2000
As
you can see, the drive performs quite
well. Not exactly double the performance
of the 5X DVD, but it does beat it.
We
also ran CD-Speed Pro 99, again using the same
F.A.K.K. 2 disc.
CD-Speed
99
(Sorry this is blurry, I had to shrink it to
make it fit!)
The
CD-Speed 99 benchmark again shows that this
drive is a decent performer. Notice that
the Spin-Up time was over 3 seconds using this
disk...it was easily twice as long with a CD-R
in the drive.
Note:
DAE Performance
We
also used Audio Catalyst 2.1 to rip some CD?s,
and the drive consistently able to rip audio
between 9x and 18x, which is respectable.
Users wanting to rip at higher speeds should be
using a top quality CD-ROM drive.
DVD
Playback
This
drive came bundled with one of the best software
DVD players, PowerDVD.
Playback
was smooth and we didn't notice any dropped
frames. With a good video card (We used an
Elsa Gladiac 64MB) and PowerDVD you can expect
great quality when playing DVD's on your
computer. Here's a quick glimpse of Famke
Janssen from the movie "Rounder", just
to give you an idea.
The
big finale...
Our
overall feelings about the Shuttle SDVD-101 are
good. With the exception of the rather
long Spin-Up times using CD-Rs, there really
isn't much to complain about.
Unfortunately, there isn't much to brag about
either. As a whole performance was good
and the drive was reliable, it just didn't put
up any exemplary performance numbers. As a
drive for the mainstream user I would recommend
it without hesitation. However, hardcore
user looking to add DVD to their system should
might also want to hold onto their standard
CD-ROM drive for optimal CD perfomance.
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