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Pioneer DVD-500M 16X DVD-ROM Review
Pioneer DVD-500M 16X DVD-ROM Review - PCSTATS
The Pioneer DVD-500M is a 16X DVD-ROM with a listed DVD data max transfer rate of 21MB/s, currently putting it at the top of the market in terms of speed.
 77% Rating:   
Filed under: Optical Drives Published:  Author: 
External Mfg. Website: Pioneer Electronics Mar 05 2002   Max Page  
Home > Reviews > Optical Drives > Pioneer Electronics DVD-500M

Benchmarks - Nero, Sandra

Nero CD Speed 99 - Data - Benchmarks Source: Ahead Software

CD Speed is a CD-ROM benchmark which can test the most important features of a CD-ROM drive. In this particular test we use a pressed CD-ROM with about 640MB of data as the test disk. Using a CDR or CDRW as the test disk may (or may not) impact the results slightly, so the pressed disk is the de facto standard.

Samsung SC-152 - CDSpeed Data Tests

Nero CD Speed 99 - Data Benchmarks
Optical Drive SW-224 SC-152 DVD-500M SW-216
Disk Type Data Data Data Data
Avg Speed 30.82x 38.90x 32.30x 24.94x
Random Seek Time 87ms 86ms 86ms 94ms
1/3 Seek Time 91ms 105ms 100ms 112ms
Full Seek Time 137ms 181ms 164ms 192ms
CPU use: 1X 1% 1% 0% 1%
CPU use: 2X 3% 2% 1% 2%
CPU use: 4X 7% 4% 2% 5%
CPU use: 8X 11% 8% 3% 9%
Disk Recognition Time: 9.15s 6.30s 0.01s -
Disk Eject Time 1.12s 1.05s 1.19s 1.19s
Disk Load Time: 1.10s 1.14s 7.26s 1.14s

During the CD-Speed data transfer tests, the CPU usage remained the lowest of all the reference drives, 3% at maximum. Average disk speeds (32X)were placed at second highest, right after those of the 52X Samsung CD-ROM. The drive appears to have peaked at about 50X which means that it is capable of producing quite healthy speeds. Interestingly, the Pioneer drive had the fastest disk recognition times of all, the slowest disk load times... essentially evening things out between disk insertion and disk boot up.

Nero CD Speed 99 - Audio - Benchmarks Source: Ahead Software

CD Speed is a CD-ROM benchmark which can test the most important features of a CD-ROM drive. In this particular test we use a pressed Audio CD with about 65 minutes of audio on it as the test disk. CDROM's in general have a harder time processing audio data, and hence the results can be drastically slower than that of data tests alone.

Samsung SW-224 - CDSpeed Audio Tests

Nero CD Speed 99 - Audio Benchmarks
Optical Drive SW-224 SC152 DVD-500M SW-216
Disk Type Audio Audio Audio Audio
Avg Speed 22.98x 18.97x 29.96x 22.32x
Random Seek Time 86ms 88ms 88ms 97ms
1/3 Seek Time 102ms 98ms 95ms 98ms
Full Seek Time 157ms 167ms 161ms 163ms
DAE Quality 10 10 10 10
CPU use: 1X 2% 1% 0% 2%
CPU use: 2X 6% 3% 1% 4%
CPU use: 4X 14% 5% 2% 7%
CPU use: 8X 23% 11% 4% 13%
Disk Recog. Time: 8.38s 4.35s 0.01s -
Disk Eject Time: 1.10s 1.06s 1.19s 1.18s
Disk Load Time: 1.10s 1.14s 7.33s 1.14s

Audio benchmarks usually see higher CPU usage results and lower disk speeds. In this set of tests, the Pioneer DVD-500M produced very fast disk access times (29X) and very low CPU usage results (just 4% at max). Access times between the DVD-500M and the Samsung SC-152/SW-224 were pretty much the same.

SiSoft Sandra 2001 CDROM Benchmarks Source: Sandra

Sandra is designed to test the theoretical power of a complete system and individual components. The numbers taken though are again, purely theoretical and may not represent real world performance. Unfortunately we do not have the test results from the SW-216 to include in this comparison because an older version of Sandra was originally used to test it.

SiSoft Sandra 2001 CDROM Benchmark Results
Optical Drive SW-224 SC152 DVD-500M SW-216
Disk Type Data Data Data Data
Drive Index 1745 2533 1282 n/a
Buffered Read: 1327kb/s 2273kb/s 19MB/s n/a
Sequential Read: 2380kb/s 3663kb/s 1699kb/s n/a
Randon Read: 778kb/s 835kb/s 660kb/s n/a
Acess Time: 109ms 112ms 112ms n/a

Sandra doesn't have much good to say about the DVD-500M in this test - giving it the lowest drive index of the three. A Drive Index of just 1282 is not much to write home about, but we were glad to see that buffered read rates lived up to their listed values (21MB/s) by coming in at 19MB/s.

Conclusions:

Pioneer are like Sony when it comes to optical drives, many of us just assume they produce good sold drives because that is what we have heard. In this case the 16X DVD-500M from Pioneer lives up to expectations, providing a quick platform to view DVD's from. Retailing for about $55USD, the drive is a good value and one that we had no problems with while playing back entire DVD's like the Matrix.

< Previous Page © 2023 PCSTATS.com Optical Drives Reviews...»

 

Contents of Article: Pioneer Electronics DVD-500M
 Pg 1.  Pioneer DVD-500M 16X DVD-ROM Review
 Pg 2.  — Benchmarks - Nero, Sandra

 
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