Kenwood 52x cd rom review
Publisher/Manufacturer: Kenwood
TrueX Technology Developoer: ZenResearch
Release Date: Available now
Price: 129.95 ($99.00 when searched at Pricewatch)
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System Requirements:
Minimum*
- IBM®-PC-AT or Compatible
- Pentium® Class Computer (or equivalent)
- Standard EIDE/ATAPI Interface
- Available Half-Height Drive Bay
- Windows® 95**
Recommended (For Optimum Performance)
-200MHz Pentium® with MMX or higher (or equivalent)
- 16MB RAM (32 MB recommended)*
- PCI Bus Master Controller
- PCI Bus Master EIDE Drivers for Windows 95/NT
- Windows® 95 OSR2 or Windows® 98
* Based on the estimated average
transfer rate since a 75X Max drive is not available. **A software driver is required to
install Windows® 95. This driver is available from our web site at
http://www.kenwoodtech.com Intel’s 440LX chipset or better (or equivalent) is
recommended for best results.
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| Drive Specifications Drive Interface
- EIDE/ATAPI
Disc Loading
- Motorized Tray
Disc Readable Formats
- CD-ROM Mode 1 and Mode 2
- CD-R
- CD-Extra
- CD-DA Audio
- Photo CD (Single- and Multi-Session)
- CD-I/FMV
- Video CD
- CD-ROM-XA
- CD-RW
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General Specifications Installation Orientation
- Horizontal or Vertical (Using Locking Tabs)
Dimensions (W/H/D)
- 14.9 x 4.3 x 20cm (5.9 x 1.7 x 7.9in)
Weight
- 0.95kg (1.96lbs.)
Power Supply
- DC +5V at Normal 1.2A (Peak 1.5A)
- DC +12V at Normal 0.5A (Peak 1.5A)
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Data Transfer Rate
- 6,750 to 7,800 KB/sec. (typical)Burst Data Transfer Rate
- 16.6 MB/sec. (PIO Mode 4 and
DMA Mode 2)
Access Time (1/3 Stroke)
- 90ms (typical)
Within 7 Track Band
- 5ms |
Reliability MTBF
- 100,000 POH at 25% duty cycle
Warranty
- 1 year
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I had the benefit of previously reviewing the first drive in this "new"
format the True-X beam technology and was blown away by it's performance. I did not think
that they could perfect on it at all. Well let me be the first to say how wrong I was. I
will include in the testing here the results of the Kenwood 40x and the 52x to show
you how fast these damn things really are.
First the Technology for those of you who have not read my previous review and have
not been to either Kenwood or ZenResearch web pages to read up on it here is what
it all means. With the multiple lasers reading the disc it leaves the disc drive to spin
that much slower and read much more data hence a quieter drive instead of that horrific
jet take off sound every time your CD-ROM spins up to read a CD.
| Standard technology way to read a CD ROM disc |
ZenResearch/Kenwood setup to read a CD ROM disc |
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Pics courtesy ZenResearch
Installation was slick as hell. I just had to change one setting in my bios for the
CD-ROM drive and that was to set it to PIO4 to enable this baby to move at the speed it
was intended to as this is not mentioned in any of the material that was included in the
manual or other tech notes so you best do this to get what you paid for in performance.
By the way the tech support at Kenwood is excellent. When I sent the email to
mention the slow results on the first pass I had an answer to my query in no time at all.
Now on to the test results.
| Test (CD Tach) |
Kenwood 40x |
Kenwood 52x |
Panasonic 32x (non-UDMA drive) |
Asus 40x |
Mitsumi 40x UDMA |
Mitsumi 40x NO UDMA |
| Drive Rating |
46.1 |
49.0 |
19.1 |
28.4 |
26.4 |
20.5 |
| 16k Average |
45.6 |
49.8 |
19.7 |
31.8 |
30.1 |
20.8 |
| CPU Utilization (12x) |
5 |
5% |
50% |
4% |
4% |
49% |
| Random Access |
109 |
98ms |
85ms |
69ms |
69ms |
69ms |
| Full Stroke Access |
296 |
184ms |
182ms |
149ms |
125ms |
141ms |
Conclusion:
Well the results pretty well speak for themselves. Plus with the new firmware that reads
CD-R's and CDR-W ( this has the biggest difference in the 40x and the 52x and the best
reason to go buy this drive over the 40x ) now this drive is the one to get if you want
the fastest and reads all the media you may have. The drive is ultra quiet compared to all
of the drives I have seen in the last year or so ( not including the Kenwood 40x of course
as it is quiet as well ). The performance of this drive has no match as the chart above
shows. Once again Kenwood has THE fastest drive on the market. The King reigns
supreme and no one has risen to knock the King off of his throne. Long reign the king of
CD ROM drives.
Reviewed by: Mark "True" Hetherington
Date: March 30,1999
Test System:
P2-266 on ABIT LX6 MB
128MB SDRam
Windows 98
Real3d Starfighter courtesy of Real3d
Diamond Monster 3D II courtesy of DiamondMM
Kenwood 52x CD-ROM courtesy of Kenwood
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