Does it matter what DVD ROM drive I buy?

[Zot]

I'm looking at the HP 9900ci CDRW/DVD combo, and the Toshiba 1502 DVD, bit I'm open to others. After rebates, the HP is pretty close in price, but 8X DVD vs. 16X DVD for the Toshiba. I've already got a CD burner, (HP 9600si) so having an extra is icing. I'm really looking for a great DVD drive. I've already got some horsepower, so I don't think a h/w decoder card is needed. Also, SCSI vs IDE; any advantages (mainly for ripping,not viewing).

PIII 1GHz
512MB RAM
3DFX 3500

Thanks!

[Beavis]

Stay away from combo drives. Beyond that, as long as it's not too noisy, etc. you'll probably never know the difference between different DVD-ROMs. Some drives are region-free right out of the box and with most others you'll have to hunt down a hack on the net if you care about that. Look at cdspeed2000.com. Will an average read speed of 11.5X vs. 9.0X really make a difference?