MSI is placed pretty well in the computer industry, and what gives MSI their reputation is the quality and the variety of their products, from motherboards to graphic cards, optical drives, and small form factor PCs.

What we can say about a burner these days? Well they are pretty much all the same. The only thing that changes is the burn speed, and even now, this hasn't gone up past 52x. Most drives have some form of buffer-underrun protection, but other than that, most drives are similar.

Today I will be reviewing the MSI X48-A 48x24x48x+16x DVD Combo drive. What this product targets is people who use both a CD burner and dedicated DVD drive. This piece of hardware interested me personally because I have a lack of space due to the radiator of my water-cooling kit that takes up 3 of my drive bays, leaving me with just one left. I needed something that would allow me to burn CDs and watch DVDs. The problem with DVD burners is that the CD burning speeds tend to be quite slow, and since I still burn more CDs than DVDs, speed is important. The 16x DVD portion is good in that 16x is pretty much the standard for DVD-ROMs.

Specifications

Features changeable multi-face panel with easy on and off installation. ABS Technology absorbs shock and reduces vibrations, making reading and writing of discs more accurate. With SoftBurn mechanism the writer generates less noise when it operates, which helps to build a silence PC. The short body shape enables convenient installation. This also reserves more space inside a PC, helping to decrease heat levels. This safety protection structure can avoid disc break-out when running with a poor quality disc at high speed. The convenient way to update drive firmware through Internet under Windows® environment. The firmware update helps increase the disc compatibility and performance of the drive.  Specifications  • 48x CD-R Writing / 24x CD-RW Rewriting/ 48x CD-ROM Reading /    16x DVD-ROM reading • SuperLink™ prevents buffer underrun and minimizes recording    failures • Supported Mount Rainier technology • Supported over-burn feature • Supported 99 (870MB) or 90min (800MB) CD-R disc • Supported 8cm or 12cm disc diameter • 2MB internal buffer • Enhanced IDE/ATAPI interface • PIO Mode 4, DMA Mode 2 and UDMA Mode 2 • Horizontal and vertical operation • Supported optimum power control • Supported CD-R write speed at 2x, 4x, 8x, 12x, 16x, 20x, 24x, 32x,    40x and 48x • Supported CD-RW write speed at 2x, 4x, 6x, 8x, 10x, 12x, 16x, 20x    and 24x • CD-UDF compatible • Writing Modes: Disc-at-Once, Track-at-Once, Session-at-Once,    Multisession, Packet Writing, RAW Mode  Front Panel ActivePanel, Emergency Eject Hole and Eject Button  Rear Panel Digital Audio Connector, Analog Audio Connector, Configuration Jumper, IDE Interface Connector, +5 and +12 DC Volt Input Power Connector and Self-Test Jumper  Dimensions 145.8(W) x 41.4(H) x 170.8(D)mm w/o bezel  Mass Weight 0.94kg  Operating Conditions Temperature: 5 ~ 45°C Temperature Gradient: 10°C/hr Relative Humidity: 8 ~ 80% Absolute Humidity: 30g/m3 @ wet bulb temp Altitude: 0 ~ 10,000ft No Condensation  X48 Retail Package  Item Quantity X48 Writer 1 ActivePanel: Blue x1, Black x1 2 Multilanguage Quick Installation Guide 1 Ahead Nero Burning ROM Software CD 1 CyberLink PowerDVD 5.0 Software CD 1 Multilanguage Nero 5 Brief Instructions 1 Audio Cable 1 Screws 4  Minimum System Requirements  • IBM® PC compatible Pentium® 400MHz or faster. • 64MB system memory. • 1GB free hard disc space for image recording, and 700MB for    installing recording software. • Windows® XP/2000/Me/98SE system.

The MSI X48-A 48x24x48x+16x DVD COMBO Writer

I know of one other company that makes combo CD-RW/DVD-ROM drives but this one caught my attention because what is better than a combo drive? Hmm... how about a combo drive that look damn nice! Alright, it doesn't look like much now, but we'll get into that a little later. The drive itself measures 170.8mm long without the bezel. This is fairly short, and will increase the physical compatibility of SFF PCs that are so popular these days.

As it stands, the bundle consists of 2 face plates, made up of 2 parts each (which means you can make up to four combinations), one audio cable, 4 screws, 3 manuals (one on the specs of the burner, one for Nero and one for the DVD), Nero CD burning software, and PowerDVD software. The bundle that came with the drive is decent, but the addition of a few more items would have been very nice, such as an IDE cable and at least 1 CD-R and 1 CD-RW.

As with most burners or DVDs, you have a pin hole to manually eject a disc if the eject button doesn't work. This is still standard function but really nice to have in the event of an emergency. You'll also notice some pin holes on the tray bezel, and on the front of the chassis. These are present so that you can attach the face plates included to customize the drive's appearance.

On the back, you have your IDE connection, your audio cable connection (cable is included), jumper settings, and the power connection. Note that an IDE cable is not included. This has been the case with all MSI CD burners. I'm sure most of you have extra IDE cables, and while we're not sure why MSI skipped on it, we feel it would have been good of MSI to have included one in the package.

Above is another shot of the customizable face plate. Notice the pins on both parts. These snap right into the aforementioned pin holes on the CD drive.

On this device, there is only one button for stopping and ejecting the disk. There is no skip button, so if you planned to change your songs through your front panel, you're out of luck here.

As with their recent drives, the inside tray is colored black. The theory behind it is a black tray absorbs reflected light better than a standard beige or white tray. This increases reliability of the burn process. The bezel of the tray is also reinforced. Should you spin low quality (or cracked) media at high speeds, there is the possibility the disc could literally explode, and the reinforcements should provide some safety.

MSI Flash Eyes

By default, the drive reads at 40x, but by pressing the eject button for 3 seconds, you enable 48x read speed. The drive reverts to 40x once the disc is ejected.

The eject button also lights up blue when a disc is inserted, so you won't need to eject to see if there's a disc in there.

DVD Reading The button flashes light blue while drive is reading DVD data.	CD Reading The button flashes blue while drive is reading CD data.	CD Writing The button flashes green while drive is writing data.

Disc is Loaded The button lights up blue or light blue when a CD or DVD disc is on standby for processing, which helps check if the disc is on the tray and the disc type without opening the door.

Full Speed The default drive CD reading speed is 40x. To increase reading speed to 48x you press the button for 3 seconds. The default speed is restored when the disc is ejected.

Looking closer at the LED button, this is a really nice feature that defines each type of operation your drive is performing. For each operation the LED will have a different color or action. This can prevent accidental opening if it is a family computer.

Media support is typical of most drives, but one thing that did catch our attention was support for 99 (870MB) or 90min (800MB) CD-R discs. Though I don't have any of these discs handy, if you like to pirate backup any DVDs to VCD, this will be useful since most movies tend to end at about the 90 minute mark.

There is a 2MB buffer, which is a tad on the small side of things, but the CR52-M does offer Super Link buffer-underrun protection. Though it is still possible to create coasters, you're more likely to cause errors due to user error, rather than the drive itself. Another measure to prevent coasters is ABS (Anti-Bumping System) Technology. What this does is absorb shock and reduce vibration of spinning discs, which should mean reads and writes are more reliable. This is especially handy with unevenly weighted media spinning at 32x and up.

Test Setup

ABIT NF7-S nForce2: AMD Barton 2500+, 2 x 256MB OCZ 3200 Platinum, FIC Radeon 9600 Pro, 80GB Maxtor 7200RPM, Windows XP SP1.

We used CD Speed (packaged with Nero) to test the read speeds of the MSI X48-A. The test media will be a commercially pressed NHL99.

MSI X48-A @ 48X

NHL99 fills up the whole CD, so we can see that the MSI X48-A got close to its maximum rated performance. It tops out at about 46.82x, and averages 35.53x throughout the disc. You'll have to understand that given the nature of CAV technology, the maximum rated speed is reached only at the outer portion of the disc.

CD-R Tests & CDRW Tests

I have burned a backup copy of Splinter Cell to a CD-R. The data CD created worked fine on the X48-A, and I tested it on a Yamaha and an AOpen as well. The burning process was done at a speed of 48X.

For the CDRW tests, I backed up the same data on to some 24x CDRW media. We tested burn speeds at a maximum speed of 24X, and as before, compatibility with the tested drives worked fine as well.

SuperLink Testing

Since SuperLink is a major component of the MSI X48-A, we thought it would be a good idea to make sure it works. Using the same media, we burned the same data used in our test speed at 48x. During the burn process, I proceeded to defrag the drive the data was being retrieved from. As expected, burn times got a lot higher but we didn't have any errors.

Final Words

Not the fastest burner on the market, and some compromises had to be made in order to integrate the DVD reader into it. The DVD itself reads at 16x, which is as fast as it gets. The key here is the drive takes up one slot, rather than two, which would be the case for the majority of the market who are running dual drive setups. At 50$ USD, the price is certainly attractive, and cheaper than a couple dedicated drives.

One thing not addressed was the noise. At 48X, the drive does make quite a whir, but not too horrible. The SoftBurn technology does a good job of keeping the volume down, especially as we burn at lower speeds... the drive is near silent. The buffer-underrun protection works as advertised, and the LEDs are useful in letting you know the status of the drive.

There are a few items we want to point out though. For one thing, MSI should work on getting a skip button integrated into the device. An IDE cable, as we've always complained about in the past, is still missing (again). We know these aren't expensive, and most people have extra ones, but on the off chance a user does not, I guess they'll have to make a trip to the PC store. Finally, this drive came with no blank media. Again, no big deal, but like the IDE cable argument, including a CD-R and CDRW will save somebody a trip if they want to quickly get started.

The inclusion of PowerDVD and Nero were good choices by MSI, as both software packages are our personal favorites. The customizable face plates allow you to give the drive a unique look as well. Too bad they didn't include silver for us silver aluminum case owners.

Pros: Solid construction, great features, good software bundle.

Cons: No IDE cable or blank media. No skip button.

Bottom Line: With some great hardware features, and a customizable look, it's pretty tough for me to pick another drive over this one, especially given it's price.

If you have any comments, be sure to hit us up in our forums.

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