Technical Specification

The basic technical characteristics of the BenQ DW1620A drive:

• CD-R burn speeds: 40x (CAV), 32x, 24x (P-CAV), 16x, 12x, 8x (CLV);
• CD-RW rewrite speeds: 24x (P-CAV), 16x, 10x, 4x (CLV);
• DVD burn:
  • 16x (CAV), 12x, 8x (P-CAV), 4x, 2.4x (CLV) (DVD+R/-R);
  • 4X, 2.4X CLV (DVD+RW/-RW);
  • 4X (starting from firmware revision B7P9) 2.4X (DVD+R DL);
• DVD read: 16x Max (DVD-ROM Single Layer), 8x Max (DVD-ROM Dual Layer), 8x Max , DVD-R/RW), 8x Max (DVD+R/RW), 8x Max (DVD+R DL);
• CD-ROM read: 40x Max;
• DAE speed: 40x;
• Supported CD formats: CD-DA, CD-ROM XA, CD-R, CD-RW, Photo CD (single & multi-session), Video CD, Super Video CD, CD-Extra, Mixed-mode CD, CD-Text, CD-Graphics;
• Supported DVD formats: DVD+R 4.7GB, DVD+RW 4.7GB, DVD-R 4.7GB, DVD-RW 4.7GB DVD Video, DVD-5, DVD-9, DVD-10, DVD-18;
• CD burn modes supported: Track-at-Once, Disc-at-Once, Multisession, Packet Writing (fixed & variable packet), CD Digital Audio, Direct-Over-Write on CD-RW, Test Write;
• DVD-R/RW burn modes supported: Disc At Once, Incremental Recording, Restricted Overwriting;
• DVD+R/RW burn modes supported: Sequential Write;
• DVD-RAM and DVD+RW burn modes supported: Random Write;
• Buffer size: 2 megabytes;
• Declared access time: 120 milliseconds for both CD and DVD media;
• Weight: 1 kilo;
• MTBF: 50,000 hours.

Note the rather low access time declared by the manufacturer and a good selection of speeds for CD-R discs. The device is rather heavy (which is an indirect proof of the reliable mechanics) and it boasts a high mean time between failures.

That’s actually all about I can say describing this drive. Here’s the information reported about it by Nero InfoTool and DVDInfo.

Mount Rainier is still unsupported, but this fact isn’t surprising anymore. As for the inability of the drive to return C2 errors, NERO InfoTool checks this feature out using the standard MMC ReadCD command, which is used by a majority of programs (for example, EAC), but the latest versions of Nero CDSpeed can use the specific commands of the Philips chipset which return information not only about C2, but also about C1 errors, and also about the jitter of the tested disc. So, the drive can return C2 errors, but not in all programs.

That said, we can proceed to the tests.

Performance in CD WinBench 99

I took a GSA-4160B model from LG as an opponent to the reviewed BenQ, since they are close in their price and technical characteristics. Moreover, the GSA-4160B is one of the best drives we have recently tested in our labs. Of course, we will bring in other 16x models where necessary.

We’ll traditionally start out with the synthetic WinBench benchmark.

The BenQ has got a higher overall score than the GSA-4160, but its result isn’t impressive at all against other products with the same speed formula (the mentioned LG and the Pioneer DVR-108 were the only devices to get a lower score in this test). This rather low Winmarks score is due to the low speed on the innermost tracks of the disc, while on the outermost tracks the read speed is average. The access time isn’t exceptional, but rather average, too. So, the BenQ DW1620 can’t boast high speed parameters – its results are good, but not champion-like.