Holiday Shopping Roundup: Eight Dual Format Recordable DVD Drives

Gigabyte GO-W0404A

Gigabyte has been in the DVDR business since about September of this year, but their units have been slightly hard to find. Our Gigabyte GO-W0404A is pretty much your standard dual format burner; it comes with a decent software package, including Sonic MyDVD, and retails for about $160 or less.

Gigabyte GO-W0404A
Interface	IDE
CD Write Speed	40X, 32X, 24X (CAV) 16X, 12X, 8X, 4X (CLV)
CD Rewrite Speed	24X, 16X (CAV) 12X, 8X, 4X (CLV)
CD Read Speed	40X Max (CAV)
DVD-R Write Speed	4X, 2X, 1X (CLV)
DVD-RW Rewrite Speed	2X, 1X (CLV)
DVD+R Write Speed	4X, 2X (CLV)
DVD+RW Rewrite Speed	4X, 2.4X (CLV)
DVD Read Speed	12X Max (CAV)
Supported Modes	DAO / DAO-RAW 16 & 96 TAO SAO / SAO 16 & 96 Packet Write Multi-Session
Supported Formats	DVD+R (DAO, incremental, seq) DVD+RW (random) DVD-R (DAO, incremental, seq) DVD-RW (random) CD-R, CD-RW, CD-ROM, CD-DA, CD-ROM XA, Mixed Mode, CD Extra Photo CD, CD Text, Bootable CD, UDF
Access Time	CD: 130ms DVD: 130ms
Buffer	2MB

The GO-W0404A has higher access times than the Nu Tech DDW-081 and cannot burn 8X DVD+R. The GO-W0404A is based on MediaTek's MT181E chipset (similar to LiteOn's weapon of choice).

Our initial benchmarks on the drive have been quite favorable. Media compatibility is great and actual burn speed is right on the money. It is somewhat of a shame that the drive is hard to find, but most likely, this drive will become a prelude of Gigabyte's next generation recordable DVD drive, which should be coming down the pipeline any day.