Plextor PX-612U review

Test machine

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For this review we will be using a computer with the following configuration:

Hardware:

• Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD4 (Intel P55 chipset)
• Processor: Intel i7 750
• RAM: 8 GB Kingston dual channel kit DDR3 
• GFX: ATI HD 5670 ( 1GB GDDR5 HDCP compliant)
• Hard disk OS: OCZ Vertex 2 60GB
• Hard disk storage: Samsing Spinpoint F1 1TB
• PSU: Chieftec 500W
• Display: FujitsuSiemens 22”
• Operating System: Windows 7 Premium 64x

The Plextor PX-612U was connected to a USB2 port on our test PC. The drive came shipped with firmware version 1.02.

Included software package

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The Plextor PX-612U came supplied with two DVDs, the first one is PlexUtilities and the second disc includes the Nero 10 essentials burning software. An exceptional package that will unlock the full potential of your Plextor DVD burner.

Plextor Software disc.

Nero 10 essentials

Note: We did not install any of this software on our review notebook or test it, you can find a quick review of the Nero 10 suite here, and also a closer look at PlexUtilities here.

Installed software:

For conducting our various tests, we will be using the following applications.

• Nero Burning ROM 11
• Nero DiscSpeed
• Exact Audio Copy
• Opti Drive Control
• DVDFab

 

Features and techniques

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BookType (Bitsetting):

The Plextor PX-612U doesn’t automatically set the bitsetting to DVD-ROM.

Here is how you can check if your discs are really written with DVD-ROM book type:

Opti Drive Control, click the Disc info button and you should see something like this:

Disc Quality Scanning

The Plextor PX-612U supports CD and DVD scanning through PlexUtilities only, other software like Opti Dirve Control will not allow you to perform any kind of quality scan, as we can see from the picture below.

Writing technique

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Now it’s time to take a closer look at the write technology used by the Plextor PX-612U.

For these tests I used Opti Drive Control, and wrote a full disc at the drive’s maximum speed.

CD Recordable:

According to the specifications of the Plextor PX-612U it should be able to write CD-R media at a maximum speed of 24x.

The Plextor PX-612U uses P-CAV (Partial Constant Angular Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 24x. This gives an average speed of 17.61x and a total writing time of 5 minutes and 5 seconds.

For comparison purposes we have produced the following table: 

As we can see the Plextor PX-612U is among the fastest drives when writing CD-R media.

CD Re-writable:

According to the specifications of the Plextor PX-612U it should be able to write CD-RW media at a maximum speed of 24x.

The Plextor PX-612U uses Z-CLV (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity) to write at its maximum speed of 24x. This gives an average speed of 15.01x and a total writing time of 5 minutes and 52 seconds.

For comparison we have made the following table: 

The Plextor PX-612U topped this test. The drive is the fastest drive we have tested with CD-RW media, and gave an average speed of 15.01x and a total write time of 5 minutes and 52 seconds.

8x DVD+R/-R writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Plextor PX-612U, it should be able to write DVD+R/-R media at a maximum speed of 8x.

DVD+R

The Plextor PX-612U uses P-CAV (Partial Constant Angular Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 8x. This gives an average speed of 5.75x and a total writing time of 11 minutes and 13 seconds.

DVD-R

The Plextor PX-612U uses P-CAV (Partial Constant Angular Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 8x. This gives an average speed of 5.83x and a total writing time of 11 minutes and 23 seconds.

For comparison purposes we have produced the following table: 

It’s clear the the Plextor PX-612U isn’t the fastest drive we have tested, however is still fast enough for an 8x portable drive.

8X DVD+RW writing speed:

According to the specifications on the Plextor website the drive should be able to write DVD+RW at a maximum speed of 8x.

The Plextor PX-612U uses Z-CLV (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 8x. This gives an average speed of 4.96x and a total writing time of 11 minutes and 27 seconds.

For comparison purposes we have produced the following table: 

The Plextor is the winner of this test and it was able to finish the burn process in 11 minutes and 27 seconds.

6x DVD-RW writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Plextor PX-612U it should be able to write DVD-RW at a maximum speed of 6x.

The Plextor PX-612U uses Z-CLV (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity) to write at its maximum speed of 6X. This gives an average speed of 4.96x and a total writing time of 11 minutes and 27 seconds.

For comparison purposes we have produced the following table: 

The Plextor PX-612U again gives outstanding performance with DVD-RW media, taking only 11 minutes and 27 seconds to complete the burn.

4x DVD+R DL writing speed:

According to the specifications of the Plextor PX-612U, it should be able to write DVD+R DL at a maximum speed of 6x, it also burns DVD-R DL at 6x but I won’t be testing that function now.

The Plextor PX-612U  uses Z-CLV (Zoned Constant Linear Velocity) to write at 6x. This gives an average speed of 4.53x and a total writing time of 24 minutes and 11 seconds.

For comparison purposes we have produced the following table: 

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to test the DVD-R DL burning capability of the Plextor PX-612U, but the +R DL capabilities of the drive as simply outstanding.

Summary:

The Plextor PX-612U has excellent writing performance on CD-R and DVD-/+R/RW media.

 

Let’s head on to the next page where we will check reading performance….

• Introduction
• Reading performance