The final evaluation routine we put the Toshiba drive through was to see how well it performed as a CD-ROM drive. It's advertised as a "32X" capable part, but we wanted to verify that before singing its praises.
Here's the rig we used for performance testing:
Intel Pentium 2-300 and 450 CPUs
Abit BH6 440BX Mainboard
Goldstar 128MB PC-100 SDRAM (Chip Part# GM72V66841CT-7J)
Matrox Millenium G200 16MB AGP
Quantum3D X-24 PCI V2 SLI Card
Adaptec 2490UW Ultra-Wide SCSI Controller
IBM Ultrastar 9 UW-SCSI HD
Diamond Monster Sound MX200 3D PCI Sound Card
Toshiba SD-M1202 DVD-ROM
Win95 OSR 2.1
Test Conditions and Specifications: All tests were run a total of three times with the results averaged to determine final score.
Not too shabby as the Mossad loves to say, the Toshiba's results are right where a good 32X CD-ROM drives would be. The drive is pleasantly quiet, although it takes a second or two longer than a typical CD-ROM to recognize a disc once it's loaded. There wasn't any noticeable "spool up to a nuclear detonation" sound as you get with some 32X drives, this Toshiba unit is fairly quiet under all circumstances.
Overall the Toshiba/Hollywood Plus combo is a steal for $300 if you desire the DVD experience at home. The setup ran flawlessly, and the clarity and sound is everything you'd expect from the highly-touted DVD format.
· Exceptional Image Quality and Sound
· High Overall Speed and Low CPU utilization
· Low Cost compared to consumer home DVD-players
· Easily installed and operated.
· $200 Toshiba DVD-ROM Costs almost 3X as much as a stand alone 32X CD-ROM
· Limited amount of PC DVD titles at this time.
· Requires MPEG-2 Decoder card for full screen/full frame rate display
· Hollywood's pass through cable degrades image Win95/98 clarity at high resolutions
If you have any questions for us, please post them to the SharkyExtreme Discussion Board.
Craig Campanaro
Hardware Director
