anyone know if its fine to use 8x burn ?

it was my understanding a few years ago, that for HQ audio burns, you wanted a 1x burn speed, but when i udgraded to new CD arch, it only allows me 8x as minumum (with same hardware as before) ? thats fine as long as still same HQ.

also, i believe there WAS a CD Drive tweak option in the Burn window, which is gone now, i guess no longer needed?

also, after years, i still cant get CDArc to burn (if i dont render i get errors and cd's become toaster-coasters) without FIRST rendering the audio (if it has Envs, FX) -is this normal? i thought it was due to my old (slower) sys?

thanks

system:

Win XP Pro-Intel 4 / 3.2gb
Asus MB
1Gig Ram
300gb HD