This component, unlike many of the others, really doesn't matter much. Almost any CD-ROM sold these days will suffice you with enough speed and features; however, if you want to get a CD-ROM that's above the others, make sure to get one that's made by a recognizable brand. The difference between the good ones and great ones? The main thing is sustained speed. Many CD-ROM makers claim that their CD-ROMs can go up to, for example, 52X, but not all of these 52X CD-ROMs will transfer data at 52X all the time. Most will stay at around half of that speed, while the good ones will reach about 3/4 of that speed. Other factors to take into consideration? If you use CD-R's and CD-RW's, some CD-ROMs have trouble reading certain brands of recordable CD's; this, however, is unavoidable. The best you can do to avoid this is to purchase a drive made by a reputable manufacturer such as Panasonic, Toshiba or Kenwood (Kenwood makes a really nice CD-ROM that uses multiple laser beams to support speeds of up to 72X, with sustained transfers of close to the maximum rate-if conditions are right). Expect around $10 difference between the different brands (except for the Kenwood drive mentioned above, which will set you back about twice as much).

Then we have the question, do you really need DVD? Even after a few years on the market, DVD hasn't really caught up in the computer industry; however, it's just starting to gain acceptance. DVD drives are about twice as costly as a CD-ROM drive, and, if you have the extra money to spend, do spend it on the DVD drive. With a DVD-ROM drive, you can now play high-quality DVD movies on your computer (most computers these days don't require a hardware DVD decoder to play the movies, as the processing power on the CPU and video card is powerful enough to do it in software mode) and play the newest games without having to swap CD after CD of video clips. (Hint, hint! If you play a lot of new games such as Diablo II, which also comes with a DVD version of it, you'll appreciate the extra storage of DVD media over CD's.) Once again, if you can afford it, or would like to play some high-quality movies on your computer (through high-quality speakers, hopefully!), then opt for a DVD player over a CD-ROM.

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