Plextor PX-B940SA 12x Blu-ray Disc Writer Review

1. Introduction2. Plextor PX-B940SA3. The Software4. Testing Methodology5. Performance: CD Testing6. Performance: DVD Testing7. Performance: BluRay Testing8. Closing Thoughts9. View All Pages

Blu Ray writers are finally starting to come down in price and today we are reviewing the Plextor PX-B940SA drive. Plextor have been producing some of the finest drives on the market for the last decade and their optic quality has always been a primary selling point.

With HD-DVD resigned to the annals of history, BluRay as a platform is dominating the market.

Over the last few years Plextor have produced many great players. The PX-B940SA we are reviewing today is their first 12x BluRay drive. The technology in this unit is based around the Pioneer BDR-205 drive, but the PX-B940SA is capable of 12x BD-R, 12x BD-r DL and 2x BD-RE writing speeds with a maximum BD-ROM speed of 8x.

This Plextor PX-B940SA is also backwards compatible with all major DVD and CD formats and is supplied with a substantial 4MB buffer and a software suite from industry leader Cyberlink.

Plextor PX-B940SA 12x Blu-ray Disc ReWriter
BD-R Write Speeds	12x (CAV) 10x, 8x, 6x (P-CAV) 4x, 2x (CLV)
BD-R DL Write Speeds	12x (CAV) 10x, 8x, 6x (P-CAV) 4x, 2x (CLV)
BD-R LTH Write Speeds	6x (Z-CLV) 4x, 2x (CLV)
BD-RE Write Speeds	2x (CLV)
DVD+R Write Speeds	16x (CAV) 12x, 8x (P-CAV) 8x (Z-CLV) 6x, 4x, 2.4x (CLV)
DVD+RW Write Speeds	8x (Z-CLV) 6x, 4x, 2.4x (CLV)
DVD-R Write Speeds	16x (CAV) 12x, 8x (P-CAV) 8x (Z-CLV) 6x, 4x (CLV)
DVD-RW Write Speeds	6x, 4x, 2x (CLV)
DVD+R DL Write Speeds	8x (Z-CLV) 6x, 4x, 2.4x (CLV)
DVD-R DL Write Speeds	8x (Z-CLV) 6x, 4x, 2x (CLV)
DVD-RAM Write Speeds	5x, 3x, 2x (CLV)
CD Write Speeds	40x, 32x, 24x (P-CAV) 16x, 10x, 4x (CLV)
CD Rewrite Speeds	24x (Z-CLV) 16x, 10x, 4x (CLV)
BD Read Speeds	8x Max (BD-ROM Single Layer) 8x Max (BD-ROM Dual Layer) 8x Max (BD-R/RE) 8x Max (BD-R DL) 6x Max (BD-RE DL)
DVD Read Speeds	16x Max (DVD-ROM Single Layer) 12x Max (DVD-ROM Dual Layer) 16x Max (DVD±R) 12x Max (DVD±R DL) 12x Max (DVD±RW) 5x Max (DVD-RAM)
CD Read Speeds	48x Max (CD-ROM) 40x Max (CD-R) 24x Max (CD-RW)
DAE Speeds	40x Max
Buffer Size	4 MB
Access Times	280 ms (BD-ROM) 170 ms (DVD-ROM) (DVD-RAM) 140 ms (CD)
CD Formats	CD-DA CD-ROM CD-ROM XA CD-R CD-RW CD-Extra Photo CD Video CD CD Text
DVD Formats	DVD-ROM DVD-Video DVD±R DVD±RW DVD±R DL DVD-RAM
BD Formats	BD-ROM BD-R/RE BD-R/RE DL
BD Recording Modes	Sequential Recording (BD-R) Random Recording (BD-RE)
DVD Recording Modes	Disc At Once Incremental Recording Restricted Overwrite (DVD-RW) Random Write (DVD+RW/DVD-RAM) Layer Jump (DVD-R DL)
CD Recording Modes	Disc At Once Session At Once Track At Once Fixed and Variable Packet Writing

The Plextor PX-B940SA arrives in a blue box with a picture of the product on the front and a list of specifications on the right.

The bundle includes a software disc, quick reference guide, warranty information, mounting screws and a Serial ATA cable. Our reviewers bundle was missing a SATA cable, so apparently some light fingered reviewer decided he needed a spare cable.

The Plextor drive is protected between two pieces of stryofoam.

Our drive features the 1.04 firmware revision which was updated a short while ago. Opti Drive Control shows that the PX-B940SA is an RPC-2 DVD drive. This means that the drives region information is stored in the firmware. The region can be changed five times and then it can't be changed again. The PX-P940SA won't let the end user set the book type of single layer DVD+R or DVD+RW media. The drive does however automatically set the book for DVD+R DL discs to ‘DVD-ROM' which helps with compatibility issues, particularly with older DVD players.

The drive might look familar to many people because it is based on Pioneer's BDR-205, a great drive. If you took away the Plextor and PX-B940SA logos, the drive would look identical to the Pioneer model.

The front of the drive is a clean design, and there is a single LED on the right next to the eject button. This LED lights up green when the drive is reading or writing data. This drive can back up titles protected by versions of SafeDisc previous to 2.51.

DVDINFOPro gives an overview of the drives reading and writing support. The Plextor drive can read and write to most BD and DVD formats.

Windows 7 automatically detects and installs drivers for the BluRay drive the first time it is connected. No problems at all with the setup on Windows 7 64 bit.

Plextor bundle a comprehensive software package from industry leaders Cyberlink. KitGuru loves Cyberlink software, so this was immediately a good start. The CD that comes with this drive contains PowerProducer, PowerDirector, Power2Go, PowerBackup, InstantBurn and PowerDVD.

Cyberlink PowerDirector 7 is included on the disc. This can be used to create custom movies by simply dragging and dropping the files into the editing timeline and then you can add scene transitions, background music and title effects. It is a pretty handy piece of software to have and it allows the user to clean up video clips and images and to use pre-designed system templates for ease of use. You can save the finished files to the hard drive.

Cyberlink Power2Go6 is the main program which is used for disc burning. This software allows the creation of CD's, DVD's and BD's and can be used to make backups of existing discs. Power2Go also gives enhanced security features, allowing the user to password protect and encrypt files on discs. Ideal for sensitive porn collections, so they say.

Power2Go7 is now available and can be purchased for a small upgrade fee.

Cyberlink PowerBackup 2.5 is another software application which is bundled on the disc, it allows for an easy way to back up data. It can handle differential, incremental and full backups depending on your demands and needs. Stream to disc archiving is also offered.

Cyberlink Instantburn 5 is Cyberlink's packet writing software. Like Roxio's Drag to Disc or Nero's INCD, it allows the user to utilise the writer as if it was another hard drive or USB drive. Once its formatted, you can cut, copy, paste and rename files and folders on a CD-RW, DVDRW or BD-RE.

Cyberlink PowerDVD 8 is bundled with the package and although it is pretty old now, it still works great. It can be used to playback Blu-Ray discs and DVD's and other high definition formats such as MPEG2 and H.264 and WMV-HD. This version only supports 2 speaker output however so if you want to improve the experience you need to upgrade to the latest Ultra version. Well worth it however.

To test today, we are using one of our AMD performance systems.

Review Test System:
Processor: AMD Phenom II X6 1100T
Motherboard: MSI 890 GXM-G65
Cooling: Noctua NH D14 (with extra 140mm Noctua fan)
Memory: Kingston 8GB DDR3 @ 1600mhz
Chassis: Antec Dark Fleet DF85
Power Supply: Antec High Current Gamer 900W
Monitor: Dell U2410
Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit

Comparison hardware:
Pioneer BDR-2203
Sony BWU-300S

Software:
Nero CD-DVD Speed
CD WinBench 99
Nero Burning Rom

Verbatim, Panasonic, Memorex and Maxell media.

To test the CD read performance we are using CD WinBench 99 and CD Speed. Nero Burning Rom is used to write 700MB to our optical media.

CD Reading:

CD Winbench is a great ‘real world' test, as it uses eight different applications which are activated by scripting.

The Plextor drive started reading the media at around 14x and then hit a maximum speed of 38x on the outside of the optical media.

Next, we used a CD containing one Mode 1 data track. The disc is around 74 minutes in length and has a mixture of data and folders, in keeping with a data structure many of us would have on a hard drive.

Random access times	access time (lower is better)
Plextor PX-B940SA	142ms
Pioneer BDR-2203	114ms
Sony BWU-300S	140ms

CPU demand (8x)	percentage (lower is better)
Plextor PX-B940SA	12%
Pioneer BDR-2203	7%
Sony BWU-300S	5%

When writing CD's the Plextor PX-B940SA has the worst access time and demands the highest amount of processor time. Its nothing critical, but worth noting.

CD Writing:

It took the Plextor drive 3 minutes and 12 seconds to write 80 minutes of data which is a very good result. The Sony BWU is the class leader however with CD media and it took only 2 minutes and 51 seconds. The Pioneer drive took last place with 3 minutes and 54 seconds for complete mastering.

DVD Reading:

We used a single layer Verbatim DVD disc for these tests: 4.37GB in size.

Random access times	access time (lower is better)
Plextor PX-B940SA	148ms
Pioneer BDR-2203	150ms
Sony BWU-300S	153ms

CPU demand (8x)	percentage (lower is better)
Plextor PX-B940SA	10%
Pioneer BDR-2203	5%
Sony BWU-300S	3%

Plextor's drive put in a good showing when reading single layer DVD ROM discs, maxing at 15.98 x at the end of the disc.

Next we used 16x Vertabim DVD R media to test drive read speed.

Random access times	access time (lower is better)
Plextor PX-B940SA	158ms
Pioneer BDR-2203	161ms
Sony BWU-300S	166ms

CPU demand (8x)	percentage (lower is better)
Plextor PX-B940SA	10%
Pioneer BDR-2203	6%
Sony BWU-300S	4%

The Plextor drive lives up well to the speed claims performing alongside the Pioneer BDR-2203 drive. The Sony BWU-300S is the clear leader again in this test.

Next we used Verbatim DVD Dual Layer media to test drive read speed.

Random access times	access time (lower is better)
Plextor PX-B940SA	173ms
Pioneer BDR-2203	175ms
Sony BWU-300S	164ms

CPU demand (8x)	percentage (lower is better)
Plextor PX-B940SA	7%
Pioneer BDR-2203	4%
Sony BWU-300S	5%

The PX-B940SA lives up to claims when reading DVD-R and DVD DL media. It exceeded the 16x speeds for DVD R discs and more than 12x for dual layer discs.

DVD Writing:

To test the Plextor DVD writing performance we used Verbatim 16x DVD+R and 8x DVD +RW media. To achieve write times we used a 4.38gb image file burned via Nero software.

A good set of results for the Plextor drive measure over 6x recording for +R media and over 7x recording for +RW media. The Sony drive struggled a little with the +R recording, dropping to 5.52 x.

BluRay Reading:

To test the Plextor PX B940SA's BD ROM read performance we used the Blu Ray disc version of Avatar.

Random access times	access time (lower is better)
Plextor PX-B940SA	78ms
Pioneer BDR-2203	69ms
Sony BWU-300S	92ms

CPU demand (8x)	percentage (lower is better)
Plextor PX-B940SA	3%
Pioneer BDR-2203	3%
Sony BWU-300S	2%

The PX B940SA performed well with the BD-ROM disc test. The software bundled works fine with this disc, although we would recommend you pay a little extra for the updated version of PowerDVD.

Next we used a Maxell BD-R disc to measure read performance.

Random access times	access time (lower is better)
Plextor PX-B940SA	76ms
Pioneer BDR-2203	83ms
Sony BWU-300S	93ms

CPU demand (8x)	percentage (lower is better)
Plextor PX-B940SA	3%
Pioneer BDR-2203	3%
Sony BWU-300S	2%

Again, very strong results from the Plextor drive, with the highest end disc performance, just shy of 8x.

Next we used a Panasonic BD-R Dual Layer disc to judge read performance.

The Plextor drive peaked around a maximum of 8x with our dual layer bluray disc test, which is very impressive, and ever so slightly faster than the Sony drive.

Random access times	access time (lower is better)
Plextor PX-B940SA	78ms
Pioneer BDR-2203	86ms
Sony BWU-300S	95ms

CPU demand (8x)	percentage (lower is better)
Plextor PX-B940SA	3%
Pioneer BDR-2203	3%
Sony BWU-300S	3%

The Plextor drive has been recording some of the best access times of all the drives on test today, and again, with Dual layer blu ray discs, it registers 78ms, faster than both Pioneer and Sony units.

BluRay Writing:

To test BluRay write performance we used BD-R and BD-R DL media from Memorex.

The Plextor drive is lightning quick when writing to BluRay media, clearly outperforming the other comparison drives today.

Plextor have been one of the industry leaders now for a very long time. Their drives have always been crammed with cutting edge technology and with the PX-P940SA they are trying to strengthen their market hold in the BluRay sector.

The PX-B940SA made news months ago as it was the first drive from the company to support both BD-R and BD-R DL media at 12x speed. At these speeds the drive takes around 11 minutes to burn a full 25GB BD-R disc which is significantly faster than the other drives we have tested to date. The Sony BWU-300S for instance only managed 13 minutes and 38 seconds, which was seen as quick last year.

It is very important that the best media is purchased, as getting a full 12x burn speed proved rather difficult during our testing. 10x was easy enough, even with budget 4x Maxell BD-R's which can be purchased for very little online (image above).

As a package deal, it is very strong. The excellent software bundled supplied by Cyberlink enables the user to watch Blu-Ray movies, including those which feature BD+ and BD Live enabled features. The drive is also very capable in regards to transfer rate testing, reading BD ROM drives and other bluray discs at 8x speed.

CD and DVD discs also didn't prove to be a problem, with solid read and write results with all our tested media. Access times also proved to be class leading.

KitGuru says: The PX-B940SA has a good feature set with the buffer underrun technology supported by a generous 4MB buffer. It can be bought online for around £175 inc vat.

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