Review: TEAC CD-W552E (IDE) Reviewer: Dennis Provided by: TEAC Germany Firmware: version 1.05 |
As most of our readers will know, the current CD-RW recorder market is reaching its peak. CD-recorders have reached their maximum speeds and almost all major CD-RW drive manufacturers have started producing their fastest recorders. The Japanese TEAC company is no exception and has recently released their CD-W552E drive. As the model number suggests the drive supports 52x writing (and reading) speeds, while re-writing is done at a maximum speed of 24x.
When we
reviewed the TEAC CD-W540E drive, it was the fastest 40x recorder available at that time. In this review we will compare the TEAC CD-W552E drive to other 52x recorders and see if this drive is also a 'speed monster'. Besides that we will of course also take a look at how the drive performs in general and with more advanced tests. Read on to find out what we have to say about this latest TEAC recorder!
Test Machine:
For the tests we'll be using the following configuration:
Hardware:- Motherboard: GigaByte GA-7VAXP
- Processor: AMD AthlonXP 2100+
- RAM: 512MB (PC2700)
- GFX: ASUS V8200 (GeForce 3 Ti200)
- Hard Disks: DiamondMax 40GB (7200rpm)
The TEAC CD-W552E drive was hooked up as Master to the (onboard) secondary IDE-controller and identifies itself as "TEAC CD-W552E". DMA (Direct Memory Access) was enabled and autorun was disabled for every device.
Used Software:
The Windows XP Professional operating system is installed on our test machine. We'll be using the following software to perform the various tests:
- Ahead InCD v3.5.22.0.b
- Ahead Nero Burning Rom v5.5.10.15
- Ahead Nero CD Speed v1.02
- Ahead Nero InfoTool v1.03.2
- Elaborate Bytes CloneCD v4.2.0.2
- Exact Audio Copy v0.9 beta 4