Now that all the tests and done and the results posted, its time to take a look at things as a whole. First, the performance of a drive can be greatly impacted by its compatibility with the media. Even though the drive and media may be certified for a specific speed, the combination of the two may limit performance. If you have a drive and it appears to be running slower than it should, try another brand of media at the same speed, it may fix the problem.
Based on the tests, there are two drives that stand out from the rest. First, there is the Plextor PX-760A. This drive has good overall performance regardless of the media. In addition, it comes back with a strong warranty and has some of the lowest CPU usage among all the drives. The other drive is the LGE GSA-4167B. This is a lower cost drive that doesn't have as many features but offers very competitive performance while supporting 5x DVD-RAM media.
There were also two large disappointments based on the testing. The first is the BenQ DW1655 drive. While the drive did well when reading the media, it failed to properly burn three different types of media. This is highly unacceptable level of quality. The other is the Plextor PX-750A. Even though it comes from a highly reputable DVD manufacturer, its performance was consistently near the bottom in all of the tests. Both of these drives should be avoided when considering one for your computer.
