One of the really fun places to go shopping these days is Computer Geeks. They summarize it best on their website:
"ComputerGeeks.com, headquartered in Oceanside, CA, is a leading direct-to-consumer eCommerce site specializing in providing computer-related excess inventory, manufacturer-closeouts, high-demand and unusual computer components and peripherals at highly-discounted prices to tech-savvy, "Geeky" consumers-- you know who you are!"
Computer Geeks has sent over the KHypermedia 8x4x8 DVD+RW IDE Drive for BigBruin.Com to take a look at. I personally had never heard of KHypermedia before now so I made the assumption that this was probably a re-badged DVD burner. Below are front and back shots of the retail packaging showing specifications, compatibilities, and features.
 
The included accessories are standard for retail packaged optical drives; you get an audio cable, a simple how to install sheet, a 4 pack of screws, and some simple form of software. In this case, that software is Nero Express 6.0. There are some very good CD/DVD burning programs out in the market, but Nero has always been my favorite, and I am happy to see it as the included software.
 
The front of the drive lacks the headphone jack, volume button/wheel, and the play button that were common on optical drives until recently. I never use those functions and am glad to see them omitted. On the back is nothing out of the ordinary; with the 40-pin IDE connector, 4-pin power, master/slave/csel jumper, and both analog and digital audio outputs.
 
Slicing through the “warranty will be voided” sticker, I opened up the drive to get a look inside. There we see that the Nexperia PNX7850 chip by Philips controls this drive and in the lower corner the board shows DX082D. A little Internet searching reveals this player to indeed be re-badged. It is actually a DX082D Cyberdrive burner.
 
Below is the different speeds advertised for this drive:
• DVD+R Write: 8X
• DVD+RW Write: 4X
• CD-R Write: 32X
• CD-RW Write: 24X
• CD Read: 40X
• DVD Read: 12X
Installation:
Installation was a simple as removing my DVD player and putting the DX082D in its place. Device manager shows this drive as a DX082D but without any name associated with it. Tests were run with the drive on its own IDE channel and jumpered as Master.
 
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