Just got my first CD-RW and it is a 32x / 12x / 40x drive. What is the best speed media to get? Does it have to be 32x compatible? ;)

There are 3 different ratings on CD-RW discs '1x - 4x, 4x - 10x and 12x..
On CDRs there are all sorts, most are 8x, 12x, 16x and 24x.
Your burner and software will determine the maximum burn speed on any disc. I have successfully burned some 8x rated discs at 12x on my Plexy.

You don't have to use high speed rated discs but your burn speed may be reduced if you choose a lower speed rated disc.

The 4X-10X CD-RWs are compatible for 12X writing at least with the new LiteON 40X burner. I just confirmed this as I surf, burning a 650MB test disk using CloneCD on-the-fly on a 4X-10X Verbatim CD-RW in exactly 6:15s (that's 11.94X).

Thanks for the information.

Hey 83bj60 how the hell did you burn a 650mb cd that fast i have the 32x lite-on and i'm using 16x max hp cdrs,but when i go to select burn speed it shows up to 24x and then after that it says max.and it takes me that long at that speed,what can be wrong my speed

Hard to say from your posting. Is DMA turned on for your drive? You should be able to burn a CD in 3:45 or so with your speed. I did a 700MB compilation from the hard drive in 3:30 after defrag, 3:45 before. And that was with my old 4.3GB, 5400 RPM HD...

I used CloneCD to copy a CD to CDR on my new system and was amazed when after about 5 minutes both trays popped out and the process had finished !

My old system would have taken about 20 minutes.