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What drives have similar chipsets or are just as good perfomance wise to the BenQ DW1640/1650/1655 drives? Anything currently in the market that compares to these?

If you take away the fact that it does not scan... My favorite is the Samsung SH-S203B... Several others here pointed it out to me and it is outstanding even at high speeds. Not sure the IDE version SH-S202x lives up to the same reputation as the SATA S203B...

SithTracy wrote:If you take away the fact that it does not scan... My favorite is the Samsung SH-S203B... Several others here pointed it out to me and it is outstanding even at high speeds. Not sure the IDE version SH-S202x lives up to the same reputation as the SATA S203B...

I wish my board supported SATA, but looks like I'm stuck with IDE for now. I wish someone had a detailed review of the SH-202 (IDE version). I'm also curious to see how it compares with it's SATA counterpart.

Anyone else with recommendations on a solid IDE drive currently in the market?

Sith, I think you can hack CD Speed to get it to do tests with the Samsung. I'll have to check and see.

Yes you can, but no jitter scanning...

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ahead\Nero Toolkit\CD Speed\CD Quality]
"Blocked"="SAMSUNG,TSST,HL-DT-ST,PLEXTOR"

Remove SAMSUNG and TSST.

I'll probably be asking this same question in about 6 months.

You could always get a PCI SATA card, just make sure it supports opticals. The SIL 3114 built into my Asus works with them so I imagine the add on card based on it would as well.

SithTracy wrote:If you take away the fact that it does not scan... My favorite is the Samsung SH-S203B... Several others here pointed it out to me and it is outstanding even at high speeds. Not sure the IDE version SH-S202x lives up to the same reputation as the SATA S203B...

Just got the 203 yesterday and impressed to the fact that it burn my crappy TDK 16X DVD+R CMC code stuff at 16X with good results but it'll not burn them right at 6X or 8X like the 112D which it replaced.

Any chance of a review of Samsung SH-S203B coming soon?

Mine showed up tuesday, first burns were fair at max speeds of 18. Updated the firmware to sb001 and its quite a bit better but still not godlike. It's hooked up externally of the ports on my an8 sli deluxe so still playing with it before I slap it in the stacker somewhere.
By the way, I had to put it on port 3 of the sil 3114 raid SATA ports as 2 conflicted with the LG62l That's on it as well.
The one burn at 20 was 4:45 long on MCC004 media, that only did 18x with original FW, most of my many 16x mids will do 18x with either FW.

I have two of the Samsung SH-S203B's... I have one in my Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe as well, but the drive is on the nForce SATA connectors... the burns are outstanding there as well... I think my BIOS rev is 1805... can't recall right now.

The burns aren't bad at reasonable speeds, just not the 50 PIF I was hopping for so far Might have to try it on the main controller as well and see how it does, it is way better then my 182d is so far anyways and it seems to love mcc004 media at normal burn speeds, seems to do OK so far with everything as long as it isn't max speed. I'll play some more and tweak things, I think it's a keeper anyways.
No 2 drives are the same, just like systems.

What I found is this drive doesn't like to burn 16X media lower than 16x, tried some crappy TDK 16X DVD+R CMC code...coasters if burnt at 6-8X but at 16X they're ok same apply to TDK 16X DVD-R TTH code. With Kodak 16X DVD+R Optodisc R16 code burnt at 16X, they are real nice...haven't try the better stuff yet.

Very promising drive.

How does it do with equivalent Verbatim or Taiyo Yuden media?

SkaarjMaster wrote:How does it do with equivalent Verbatim or Taiyo Yuden media?

If you mean the SH-S203B... That is all I burn. Very happy with the results. I mostly burn Verbatim MCC 004 and people get mixed bag results, but mine are outstanding quality. Some people are getting YUDEN000-T02 media to burn @ 20x with outstanding results too... Got to RIMA.com an order of those soon.

I only use Verbatim for DVDs (DVD-R single and DVD+R doubles) and am still working on a stack of Taiyo Yuden CD-Rs (bought before they flaked out a little). Yep it's those silver ones from Rima.

I think this Samsung is high on my list right now for DVD burners to consider for my new system in 2008, but I'm sure something else better will be out by then......who knows...we'll see........