- CD Format

For our CD transfer rate tests, we used the Nero CD-Speed utility and two different media, one Pressed and one USRW. Let's take a look at how the drive performed compared with the other two drives.

The BenQ drive supports up to 48X reading speed with Pressed CD media and so was close to the performance of the LiteOn drive which is known for its reading capabilities.

Once more, fast reading speeds from the BenQ drive, this time with USRW CD media.

- AudioCD

For this tests we used a pressed AudioCD, as well as the Advanced DAE test through the use of Nero CD-DVD Speed.

The BenQ DW-1655 media supports a relatively high DAE speed. As the Advanced DAE quality test reported, the Quality score was a perfect 100, while the reported average speed was 33.15X. The drive supports CD Text, Subchannel Date reading as well as Leadin, but not Leadout data.

- 90mins Audio disc

- 90mins Audio disc

The drive managed to finish reading both the 90 and 99 mins audio media. As we can see from the above screen-shots, the 90 mins audio CD was read at around 7X average speed and the 99mins audio CD although reaching the maximum reading speed, could not continue at this speed all the way to the end, where the drive had some erratic speed changes but was nonetheless successful in reading the disc.

- DVD Format

Let's have a look at how the drive performs with DVD media. A set of DVD media was used, both SL and DL.

Since all three drives support up to 16X max reading speed with SL media, all drives reported almost identical speeds.

The two layers of a PTP DVD-ROM disc are read sequentially with the drive starting reading from the inner part of the disc, which is the beginning of each layer, progressing towards its outer range. When reading PTP media, the BenQ and Plextor drives reported the highest speeds, with the LiteOn being slowest, due to its 8X max reading speed with DL media.

The first layer of an OTP dual layer DVD-ROM is read exactly the same way as the first layer of the PTP disc we tested previously, the main difference being the reading strategy of the second layer on the disc. The beginning of the second layer is located in the outer part of the disc, so the drive starts reading from the outer tracks towards the inner part of the disc. Again, the BenQ and Plextor drives were faster with almost identical speeds. There's very little between the BenQ and Plextor drives with the various DVD-ROM formats.

With write once media, the reviewed drive dominates, reporting the highest average speeds of 12.09X and 12.05X for DVD+R and DVD-R media respectively, due to its supported speed of 16X for these formats. With re-writable media, the BenQ drive was again fastest although speed differences between the reviewed drive and the other two are negligible.

Good ripping speed was reported, with an average of 12559kb/s, placing it just behind the Plextor drive.

-Appendix

Nero CD-DVD Speed Graphs

CD Pressed / US-RW / AudioCD /

DVD Pressed SL / DVD Pressed DL PTP / DVD Pressed DL OTP / DVD-R / DVD-RW / DVD+R / DVD+RW