[RESOLVED] Questions on 3 different CD-RW

[JazzBass]

Hi,
I have several questions about 3 CD-RW's.

First, does anyone favor one over the following two drives:

Yamaha: CRW8824EZ (8x8x24)

HP: 9150i

I can get the HP for $50 cheaper than the Yamaha, but from what I've read, Yamaha drives are pretty good.

Second question,

Another option is a Sony Spressa CRX145E/CH CD-RW. My system has a Cyrix PR200 w/MMX with 60 megs of Ram and the requirements for this particular drive is a Pentium 233 w/MMX and 32 megs of Ram. I've looked at other drives with identical speeds and they all say Pentium 200.
My question is: Does 33mhz really make that big of a difference?

The reason I want this drive is because of the price and we have one here at work and it works great.

I appreciate the help in trying to make this decision.

Thanks,
JazzBass

[shawnMt]

Yes, 33MHz can make that big a difference when it means your machine does not meet the hardware requirements on the box. Whether or not it will WORK - it's possible. But you are probably gonna suffer some performance if it does.

Edit - both the Yamaha and HP are good drives but I'd choose the Yamaha.

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Paint your old laptop! (http://www.auwebdesign.com/shawnpages)

[This message has been edited by shawnMt (edited October 09, 2000).]

[JazzBass]

Thanks ShawnMt.

Thanks for the education on the speed. I figured as much, but was not sure like for the reason I stated. I'll keep the Yamaha in mind.

Yamaha = 1
HP = 0

More opinions are welcomed.

Thanks again,
JazzBass

[Darren Wilson]

In fact the difference in speed of the processor is more than 33Mhz. The Cyrix chips run at a Performance Related (note the PR in front of the speed) and there was 2 speeds for the PR200. One of them run at 150Mhz (2x75) and the other ran at 166Mhz(2.5x66). So in reality the speed of the Cyrix is a maximum of 66Mhz making a 66Mhz deficite!. Also the weak floating point unit of the Cyrix caused a lot of software to run considerably slower on them over Intel or AMD based chips.

As for the CDRW, have you checked out the Plextor BurnProof? If not then it is worth checkin out and spending the extra money on as it will save you money longterm in the lack of wasted CDR's that are produced. I have one of these at home on trial at the moment (Plextor 32x12x10) and writing on the fly (CD 2 CD) at 12x, whilst surfing the Net, listening to MP3's off the HDD, and printing etc, I have yet to have a 'coaster'!!!! And the discs are complete in around 6 minutes (650Mb or 74min)!!!!!!!
If you don't want to spend any more money then go for the Yamaha.

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For a different ' angle ' on life visit my NEW homepage @ The Carpers Lodge - The UK's No.1 Non-Commercial / Independant Carp Angling Website (http://www.carperslodge.co.uk)

[This message has been edited by Darren Wilson (edited October 09, 2000).]

[JazzBass]

Boy, 2 responses from 2 moderators. That's pretty cool!

Anyway, Darren, thanks for the info.

I heard about the info you passed on to me awhile back. I had forgot about it. I'm also looking at some Evergreen products to upgrade my 'puter.

Unfortunately, money is tight and that's why I haven't bought a new system. I figure I can get k62-400 speed for about $150 from Evergreen instead of spending twice+ that for a new motherboard, CPU, RAM, and Video card.

Well, it looks like Yamaha will be in the tower soon.

Thanks guys,
JazzBass

[shawnMt]

Hey Darren I was wondering about that "burn proof" Plextor. I have yet to hear anything bad about it. That is right also about the PR200 being less than 200MHz - I was thinking about it while writing the above but forgot to include it http://forums.windrivers.com/cgi-bin/forum/smile.gif

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Paint your old laptop! (http://www.auwebdesign.com/shawnpages)

[Jgold47]

Yamaha.
DONT FORGET that a cd drive is only as fast as the computer that it is in. if the cpu cant get data to the drive fast enough it wont matter what speed drive you get.. Also, dont try to jump your processor by using an evergreen processor, they are real shady, you still have a slow old motherboard. I have gotten the 233 to work on p75-166 but the 400 wouldnt even work on 333's so be careful, you will start to notice a lot of video problems at first. . I would say not to get a cdrw and get a new computer, even with an upgrade, using ide, you probably wont max more than 2x burns, but good luck, and as a tip, disable all antivirus and run nothing in the background when making cd's. the anti virus, scans the temp file that is created and slows it down by like 2-300kbs

[Darren Wilson]

Agreed with the last post but with BurnProof if the data slows down (main cause of buffer over runs) then the writer waits until teh buffer has replenished itself before continuing. Believe it is not HYPE but reality and anyone who is serious about burning discs should have one. I have written over 150 discs this week using it whilst doing other processor and data intensive tasks on the same system whilst writing and have not had ONE coaster yet!!! Even the cheapest of the cheap discs burn correctly!!!! Perfect CD audio on the fly at 12x no problems, no skipping of tracks.

HIGHLY RECCOMENDED!!!!

------------------
why are our jobs so interesting??????

For a different ' angle ' on life visit my NEW homepage @ The Carpers Lodge - The UK's No.1 Non-Commercial / Independant Carp Angling Website (http://www.carperslodge.co.uk)

[JazzBass]

Thanks for the food for thought.

There is no way I can get a new computer at this point in time. Since the requirements call for a Pentium 200, I just may take a chance on it. I'm running Win 95B and it's running pretty fast and real stable.

If I don't get the Burner, that's about 1/3 the cost of a bare bones kit I can put together myself. Dumb prices have gone up so much in the past several months, the week I was going to buy something, BAM!. Stinking prices went up. http://forums.windrivers.com/cgi-bin/forum/frown.gif

Oh well, I don't want the fastest, I only want something that works.

Thanks again for the input everyone.
JazzBass

[This message has been edited by JazzBass (edited October 10, 2000).]