The device’s rear panel carries the same interface and power connectors as the Plextor PX-716A model has. The innards of the device are cooled passively through the five vent holes in the rear of the case. This solution was natural in the times of the PX-712/708, but some apprehensions arise as to its efficiency in the PX-716A. The case of the new drive has a shortened length, so the component density is higher there. It’s another question how the manufacturer managed to squeeze such a wide functionality into the reduced volume of the case, but as for ventilation, the drive’s temperature remained normal throughout my tests, so you shouldn’t worry about its health (but don’t forget that optical drives, if you have more than one, should not be placed too close to each other in the system case).

Using the jumpers (one is already in the drive, and another is included in the drive’s package) you can not only select the drive’s status on the IDE channel (Master or Slave), but also:

1. Disable the support of UDMA-33, which is used by default, switching the drive into the Multiword DMA mode by closing the leftmost pair of the pins;
2. Switch the device into the test mode by closing the Cable Select and Slave pairs of the pins.

The top panel of the drive has changed. The spindle regulator that prevented the disc from beating in the PX-712A has disappeared in the PX-716A model. The tray is still colored black (you should already know that the black color of the tray is said to minimize first encoder errors as well as jitter). Among nice trifles, I can note the foam-rubber padding of the tray to reduce noise and to prevent dust from getting into the drive. Now let’s have a look inside to see what components this device is based on:

Plextor PX-716A

Plextor PX-712A

The innards of the new drive differ much from the previous model, but Plextor keeps loyal to its traditions and still uses chipsets from Sanyo. Here we deal with the next generation of Sanyo’s electronics, the LSI LC897492FL chipset. The previous model used the Sanyo LC897491FL chipset. So we can expect the functionality of the new model to be wider. We’ll learn shortly if this is really so. Right now let’s read through the specification of the Plextor PX-716A:

• CD-R writing: 48, 32x (P-CAV), 16, 8, 4x (CLV)
• CD-RW writing: 24x (P-CAV), 10, 4x (CLV)
• DVD writing:
  • 16x (CAV), 12x, 8x, (P-CAV), 6x, 4x, 2.4x CLV (DVD+R);
  • 8x (P-CAV), 6x*, 4x, 2.4x CLV (DVD+RW);
  • 16x (CAV), 12x, 8x (P-CAV), 4x, 2x, 1x CLV (DVD-R);
  • 4x, 2x, 1x CLV (DVD-RW);
  • 6x*, 4x, 2,4x (CLV) (DVD+R DL);
  • 2x* (DVD-R DL).
• DVD reading:
  • 5x-16x CAV (DVD-ROM Single Layer);
  • 12x Max (DVD-ROM Dual Layer);
  • 12x Max (DVD-R/RW);
  • 12x Max (DVD+R/RW);
  • 8x Max (DL).
• CD-ROM reading: 48x, 40x, 32x, 24x (CAV), 8x, 4x (CLV)
• DAE speed: 40x, 32x, 10x (CAV) 8x, 4x (CLV)
• Supported CD formats: CD-DA, CD-ROM, CD-ROM XA, CD-Extra, Video CD, Photo CD, CD-R, CD-RW, Multi-session, CD-I, CD+G, CD-Text
• Supported DVD formats: DVD-ROM (Single/Dual Layer), DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, DVD+VR, DVD-VR
• Supported CD burn modes: Track At Once, Session At Once, Disc At Once, Variable and Fixed Packet Writing, CD-MRW (Mt. Rainier)
• Supported DVD+R burn modes: Disc At Once, Multi-session, Incremental Recording
• Supported DVD-R burn modes: Disc At Once, Incremental Recording, Multi-border Recording
• Supported DVD+RW burn modes: Random Access Write, Sequential Write
• Supported DVD-RW burn modes: Disc At Once, Incremental Recording, Multi-border Recording, Restricted Overwriting, DRT-DM
• Supported DVD+R DL burn modes: Disc At Once
• Supported DVD-R DL burn modes: Sequential Write
• Buffer size: 8 megabytes
• Declared access time: 100 milliseconds (CD), 150 milliseconds (DVD)

The asterisk (*) marks what I would regard as surprises. The PX-716A didn’t originally support 6-8x rewrite speeds or burning dual-layer DVD-R discs (by the way, this is the first DVD-recorder we’ve met in our labs that can work with media of that type). All these features appeared only in firmware revision 1.04. It’s clearly an attempt of the manufacturer to make excuses to the users (other developers would most probably think such innovations sufficient for a new model). Here, the user has everything free of charge by updating the firmware.

That’s enough about the specification. Below is the information that Nero InfoTool and DVDInfo tell about the drive: