Fast CD/DVD Burner Advice

[NightWolf_8800]

Hey everyone

Im looking for a fast CD/DVD drive that can also burn. The CD drive is to go in a gaming rig, so i want fast speed for both CD and DVD. Also i want to be able to burn all the DVD formats such as DL, +-RW, etc.

Im looking at the Pioneer A09XLB, the Benq DW1640, DW1620 Pro, SONY DRU720A, Liteon SOHW-1693S or any other drive in a simmilar price range preferably with 48+ CD speed.

Also how much does Access Time affect the performance of the drive?
Whats the main difference between the pioneer and the liteon?

Some advice would be a great help.

Thanks

[larva]

Any modern CD-R drive is pretty darn fast, even if it is only (horrors) rated at 40X. This is a max rate, the drives only achieve it for a tiny fraction of the burn event. For most of the disk, they are going at ~24X. Don't get hung up on this number.

Drives do vary quite a lot in their DVD burn quality and speed, though. If the performance on single layer DVD media is of primary concern, I recommend the LG Electronics GSA-4163B. It's the most capable on single layer DVD media, and trust me, is a good CD-R drive even though it only says "40X" on the side of the box.

If performance on dual layer media is of more concern, consider the NEC ND-3540a. It's a good single layer drive too, but not quite the equal of the LG.

The BenQ 1640 would be my third choice. It's a good performing drive also, but BenQ is Acer, and my experience has been overwhelming negative with the durability of Acer optical drives. These are licenced Philips designs, and Philips has proven in my experience to be inherently the least reliable optical drive family. The NEC 3540 is far preferable in my estimation, providing the same feature set and performance (and probably better burn quality) along with a very good chance it will last until you get tired of it, and longer.