After spending about a couple weeks with this drive, I really started to fall in love with it, more so than their previous PX-504UF drive that I still use in my day to day operations. Going from a 4x DVD burner to an 8x DVD burner is like going from a farm tractor to a supped up sports car. I don't even want to bring up my previous 2x DVD burner that took a good hour to burn a full DVD. Even with the 4x burner, it still took 12 to 15 minutes to burn a full disk. That's acceptable, but what can we do with an 8x DVD burner? We are about to find out!

     To test some of the drives capabilities, I'll be using Nero CD Speed. It doesn't show you everything, but it well help when comparing your drive's results to mine.

Audio CD Read

     CD Speed gave the DAE run a perfect 10 in Digital Audio Extraction Quality. Average speed was rated at 27.17 with the disc starting at 17.03 and ending at 33.25. Random seek times were clocked at 80ms with full bore times recorded at 144ms. CPU usage was WAY LOW at 1x:1% / 2x:2% 4X:3% and 8x:7%.

Data CD Read

     Data discs also have pretty impressive results. The Plextor PX-504UF has a rating of 40x CD read speed and it hits it well before the "80 minute mark" of the loaded Benchmark CD.

Data DVD-RW Read

Data DVD+R Read

     Reading a DVD-RW data disc started out a little slow at first, but it wasn't long before it was hitting 6x and 7x. Not quite it's rated 12x speed, but then again, this is a homemade DVD-RW. DVD+R faired about the same.

Burn Time & Conclusion

     I've shown you how this drive reads several different types of media, but when it comes down to burning a DVD, doing the real thing is the only way to prove a drive's capabilities. Writings speeds were very much dead on to the ratings with the Plextor PX-708UF, spitting out an 8x DVD+R disk in just minutes. The burn was completed without errors and didn't take up all of my system's resources to burn the disk. I was even able to surf the web, edit this review and play music all at the same time. Of course I have an overclocked 3.2GHz P4 with 1gig of DDR too, but it still proves just how stable this burner is.

     Sadly, only one DVD blank came with the drive, and the DVD blanks I have on hand are only rated at 2.5x, so one time at 8x was all I could do for now. This brings me to my next point, cost of 8x media. 8x media is not only scarce, but expensive as well. The PX-708UF automatically senses the type and speed of the media and adjusts accordingly. Therefore, you will need 8x certified media to burn at a full 8x. If 8x media is not readily available, 4x media will work just fine and will take approximately 13 minutes to burn a full DVD disk. My 2.5x disks worked great too, if you have about 20 to 30 minutes of your life to waste... Even then, the drive burned full DVD backups flawlessly.

     As far as the software package goes, it just doesn't get any more complete than this! Plextor has really gone out of their way to offer you the best software package available. I really love Easy CD Creator 6. This version has been simplified over previous versions and now it's much easier to use. In fact, I've dumped Nero in favor for Easy CD Creator 6.

     Overall, I really love what the PX-708UF. It is extremely portable, user friendly, reliable, and compatible with any system that has a Firewire or USB 2.0 port. Installation is pretty much nonexistent, which is a big plus when transporting this drive home to office. When it comes to cost, Plextor drives do cost a little more, but they are worth every cent.

CLUB OVERCLOCKER RECOMMENDED!