Test system setup and benchmarks

System Setup

Intel Celeron 400 PPGA
Supermicro P6SBA
128MB Corsair 3.3v CAS-2 unbuffered PC-100 SDRAM
nVidia reference RivaTNT - STB Velocity 4400
     Driver version 4.10.01.0152
Western Digital Caviar 26400 6.4GB EIDE HD

Benchmarks Used

Ziff Davis CD Winbench 99 - 1024x768x16
CD Inspection Test
CD Winmark
Shogo:MAD v1.0 Installation from CD - 459,052KB

Special thanks to U-tron Technologies and Corsair Memory for test-bed systems and peripherals.

Benchmark Results
	Kenwood 52x	52x CD-RW	Asus 50xMax
CD-ROM Winmark 99	1400	N/A	1250
CD-ROM Transfer rate
inside:	6680	2840	3310
outside::	7700	2900	3960
Access Time	94.6ms	N/A	76.1ms
CPU Utilization	2.82%	N/A	3.04%

Results Analysis

The 52x TrueX blew the doors off of our previous speed king, the Asus 50xMax. On both the inside and outside tests, the multibeam CLV of the Kenwood drive scored consistently over 6.5MB/s. Consistently high transfer rates such as these are almost unprecedented for standard CD-ROMs, and this was far greater than any "max speed" drive we've seen. It appears as if Kenwood and Zen were really serious when they claim the 52x is the fastest drive on the planet (at least for now)!

The drive is also exceptionally quiet. The only time we heard it in operation was during the spin-up cycle after inserting a new disc. During either random access or sequential reads, it was almost impossible to hear the drive in action, and vibration was virtually nil. This is even more impressive when compared to the desk-rattling chatter and brain-throbbing whining from the Asus CAV drive.

Bug fixes

The 52x also seems to be more free of the errata that plagued the previous generation 40x drive - we were able to load and read CD media without fault. On one instance, a stamped music CD failed to read, but after ejecting the disc from the tray and reloading it, everything ran smoothly. A CD-RW burn from our Ricoh MP704 yielded halved results on the 52x, but actually crashed and burned on the Asus as well as a generic 20x Max we had lying around the office. CD-RW discs aren't exactly commonplace in the average computing space however, and the fact that it reads at all was good enough for us.