Test System Configuration
| Test System | |
|---|---|
| Motherboard | Asus P4T-E - Intel 850 Chipset |
| CPU | Pentium 4a 1.6 GHz - Northwood Core - Retail Box |
| Memory | 2 - 256 MB PC800 Rambus - Samsung |
| Graphics Card | NVidia GeForce4 4600ti - 128 MB |
| Hard Drives | IBM - IC35L040AVER07 - 41 GB - ATA-100 - 7200 RPMWestern Digital - WD800JB - 80 GB - ATA-100 - 7200 RPM |
| Sound Card | Turtle Beach Santa Cruz Sound Card |
| Network Card | 3Com 3C905C-TX-M NIC |
| DVD Player | Asus DVD-616 - 16X DVD / 48X CD-ROM |
| Case | Antec SX-1000 Mid-Tower Case |
| Power Supply | Enermax EG365P-VE Power Supply |
| OS | Microsoft Windows XP Professional - All Patches & Updates Applied |
| Media | TDK High Speed CDRW Media Used For CDRW TestsVerbatim Super AZO 24X CDR Media used for all CDR Tests |
The Challenge Revealed More Than We Hoped For !
In order to challenge our four writers, we selected four original commercial CDs to use in our testing. As you can see in the picture below, we covered the titles on the discs. This was done to satisfy the software publishers, since we would have expected some of them to complain if we revealed the entire disc. This compromise should keep everyone happy. We will refer to the original test discs as disc 1, disc 2, disc 3, and disc 4. Here is a breakdown of the copy protection schemes used on each of our test discs.
- Disc 1 - Safedisc 2 - Game
- Disc 2 - Safedisc 2.51 - Game
- Disc 3 - TAGES - Game
- Disc 4 - Cactus Data Shield - Audio CD
We used Post-It notes to indicate which disc was which. We also wanted to cover up the majority of the name on each disc. We did not show the full disc because some companies have lawyers who don’t like such things. At any rate, by looking at the picture, we think that you’ll get the idea.
To determine whether using CloneCD or Blindread/ Blindwrite would make a difference, we tested with each of them.
