Are Cheap DVD Burners Worth the Trouble?

Feature Table

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Header Cell - Column 0 LG GSA-H42L Pioneer DVD-112 Samsung SH-S182 Samsung SH-S183 Sony/NEC (Optiarc) AD-7170S
Interface UltraATA UltraATA UltraATA SATA SATA
Write Speed
DVD+R 18 18 18 18 18
DVD-R 18 18 18 18 18
DVD+R DL 10 10 8 8 8
DVD-R DL 10 10 8 8 6
DVD+RW 8 8 8 8 8
DVD-RW 6 6 6 6 6
DVD-RAM 12 10 12 12 12
CD-R 48 40 48 48 48
CD-RW 32 32 32 32 32
Labeling LightScribe None LightScribe lightScribe none

Test Setup

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System Hardware
Socket 775 Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 (Conroe 65 nm, 2.93 GHz, 4 MB L2 Cache)
Motherboard MSI 975X Platinum PowerUp EditionChipset : Intel 975X, BIOS : 2007-01-24
Common Hardware
RAM 2x 1024 MB DDR2-8000 (CL 4.0-4-4-12)Corsair CM2X1024-6400C3 XMS6403v1.1
Graphics Card HIS X1900XTX IceQ3GPU : ATI Radeon X1900XTX (650 MHz)RAM : 512 MB GDDR3 (1550 MHz)
Hard Drive 150 GB 10,000 RPM, 8 MB Cache, SATA/150Western Digital WD1500ADFD
DVD-ROM Gigabyte GO-D1600C (16x)
Software
Graphics Driver ATI Catalyst Suite 7.2
Platform Drivers Intel INF-Treiber 8.1.1.1010
DirectX Version : 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)

Benchmarks And Settings

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Benchmarks and Settings
iTunes 7 Version : 7.1.1.5
Nero CD-DVD Speed Version : 4.7.0.4
DVD Decrypter Version : 3.5.4.0ISO WriteISO Read
Patrick Schmid
Editor-in-Chief (2005-2006)

Patrick Schmid was the editor-in-chief for Tom's Hardware from 2005 to 2006. He wrote numerous articles on a wide range of hardware topics, including storage, CPUs, and system builds.