Our friends from CDRLabs have taken a look at the latest CD-RW drive from LG, the GCE-8480B. With some of the fastest reading and writing speeds currently available, the GCE-8480B is the first drive of LG to feature 16x rewriting speeds and 48x CAV writing.
The GCE-8480B features SuperLink buffer underrun protection and Optimum Write Speed Control technology. Unfortunately the drives' overall performance wasn't really impressive. It also has some issues with the writing quality.
Part of conclusion:
Last but not least you have the GCE-8480B's features. Since support for Mt. Rainier never made it onto LG's 40x writer, I was a little surprised to see that this feature was disabled on our GCE-8480B due to some issues with the bundled Roxio software. Those of you in Europe and Asia should not have this problem since the GCE-8480B is bundled with Nero in those parts of the world. The GCE-8480B's 2048KB buffer was also a little smaller than what we're used to seeing on LG's writers. Fortunately, it's backed up by LG's SuperLink buffer underrun protection so you shouldn't have any problems with coasters.
If you must get a CD-RW from LG, the GCE-8480B is it. Even if you already own their 40x writer, the GCE-8480B brings faster writing and rewriting speeds to the table. However, if you're looking for a drive that will write at 48x with whatever media you throw at it and has some of the fastest DAE speeds available, the TDK veloCD might be a better choice. Or, if you're more concerned with writing quality, you might want to consider the Plextor PX-W4824TA, at least until LG can smooth out some of the GCE-8480B's rough edges
For all the details on this drive you should read the entire review of CDRlabs here.
Source: CDRlabs.com
