MSI X48 combo drive review @ CDRLabs.com

MSI has obviously put a lot of effort into
their new combination CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive. The X48 not only looks good, it
offers a good blend of features, performance and value that many will
appreciate. When reading CD's, MSI's new combo drive performed pretty
well. With its speed control feature enabled, the X48 was able to read
pressed and CD-R discs at 48x and CD-RW media at 40x. The drive also had
some fairly low seek times, no matter what media was used. For a combo
drive, the X48 also did pretty well when it came time to rip audio CD's,
reaching DAE speeds as high as 41x.

When it came time to read DVD's, the X48 did surprisingly well. In our
tests the drive read single layer DVD-ROM's at 16x, single layer DVD
videos at 12x and dual layer discs at 8x. Here too, its seek times were
pretty good. Recordable media wasn't a problem for the X48 either. The
drive was able to read DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW media at 8x and DVD-RAM discs
at 4x. While 4x doesn't sound fast, this is one of the fastest DVD-RAM
read speeds I've seen.

Last but definitely not least you have the features. The X48 is easily
one of the most feature packed combo drives I've tested. With MSI's new
ActivePanel technology, you quickly and easily change the look of the
drive to match your case or your mood. To prevent buffer underruns, the
X48 has a 2MB buffer that is backed up by Super Link technology. While the
buffer was a little smaller than we'd like, this system worked very well
to prevent coasters. The features don't stop their either. MSI has also
given their new combo drive features like their SoftBurn, MiniForm and ABS
technologies as well as support for the Mt. Rainier format.