As we can see here, not surprisingly, the latest and fastest drive won the benchmarks, but not by as much as we expected. The 10X Pioneer DVD's are top performers, but the Toshiba and Pioneer 6X drives were very close behind in the CD tests.

CPU utilization is pretty solid around the board, less than 10% in all cases at the fastest each of the drives can go, not too shabby at all. No drive really shined as the less CPU dependant model, the numbers are pretty much as we expected.

What we didn't expect is how poorly the Sony 6x drive performed in relation to the other 6x drives. We checked and double checked all the settings on the drive to make sure we weren't mismarking, but after three complete test runs, the same results were provided. It looks like this aging drive is finally showing some wrinkles in comparison to some of the newer 6x drives. That's a shame too, since Sony consistently puts out fabulous products.

After using all these DVD drives and through all the tests, these slot-loading DVD's have won over my approval. They tested the fastest, have a sleek look, and the slot-loading technology is just plain cool to use. If you're still insistent on a tray-loading DVD, the 10X Pioneer Tray loading and 6X Toshiba both are top-performing drives as well.."