Plextor PX-712SA, MSI XA52P (SATA-Drives)

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[...] As our pages have shown, the Serial ATA/150 drives do not boast any huge performance gains over Ultra ATA optical drives. The Plextor PX-712A shows solid performance boosts simply due to its higher rated speeds, not because of the new interface. The MSI XA52P put up numbers on par with other 52x class CD-RW/DVD combo drives. Connector performance should not be a factor when considering a Serial ATA optical drive, cable flexibility and ease of use should be.

Unfortunately, as our comparability chart on the fourth page shows, Serial ATA optical drives have a long way to go in order to match Ultra ATA optical drives in terms of seamless integration with today’s systems. Before you purchase a Serial ATA drive, you’ve got to make sure your motherboard chipset or controller supports ATAPI operation, otherwise you’ll be left with an optical drive which can’t talk correctly to the rest of your system. This isn’t a huge problem now, since only skilled enthusiasts will be among those looking to purchase Serial ATA optical gear as of now. As the technology moves down to the mainstream levels though, there will be a lot of people who try to throw a Serial ATA burner in their old system, only to be disappointed with a glaring incompatibility issue. [...]