7200rpm vs 5400rpm notebook drives

[[C]]

This is a question targeted more towards laptop gamers. I know obviously there is going to be a performance increase using a 7200rpm drive than that of a 5400rpm drive like using a desktop, but how noticeble is that performance increase going to be when running on a laptop? Specifically I am looking at purchasing the new XPS M170 and am debating the 100gb 5400 vs the 7200 drive for 300 dollars more. what I am thinking is if the 5400 would suffice a few months from now i could purchase an even larger 7200rpm drive for less still if the 5400 would do alright, but I am concerned it would be a bottle neck for achieving the best performance possible out of the system right now.

What are your thoughts?

[Johnmcl7]

What is the difference in price between the two?

My XPS 2 currently has a 60GB 5,400rpm hard drive and my XtremeCT has the 100GB 7,200rpm drive - to be honest I've been disappointed, levels load slightly faster but the difference was nowehere near as large as I expected.

Your mileage may vary though
John

[[C]]

as stated the difference in price is 300 dollars between the 100gb 5400rpm drive and the 7200rpm drive. its kind of a toss up. if i simply had the money to throw around it would be a hands down decision however 300 dollars IS a good chunk of coin if the rest of the laptops architecture's bandiwdth is not going to utilize that extra 1800rpm in the first place.

[talldude]

$300? ***! Not Worth It.

[Johnmcl7]

I assumed I had misread it the 300 dollars figure - no way is it worth that, you could take the 100GB 5,400rpm and buy another 100GB 7,200rpm drive for 300 dollars.

It's not really a question of laptop architecture/bandwidth(!), the faster the hard drive, the faster you can get the data off it and faster you can write to it...for gaming this is mainly going to be slower lower loading times.

John

[[C]]

that is what I was thinking but I wanted to gather a little extra input incase anyone had run a 7200rpm drive in a laptop and thought it was worth it. I never have so I have nothing to do by. I will avoid the 7200rpm then and save my money.

thank you.

[freedon]

I feel my Dell Latitude D810 kinda slow for some things. (Pentium M 2 Ghz (bahias), 512MB x2, 60GB 5,400rpm (cache no idea) I notice my desktop is faster overall. Athlon XP 2500+, 512MB x2, 120GB 7200rpm 8mg cache.

I notice it a lot specially when I play WoW and go to windows and surf SharkyForums. It takes IE a long time to open but on my desktop it's normall, as if WoW wasn't open.

I regret not paying the $80 difference for a 7200rpm. Thogh on your situation, $300 I wouldn't even consider it.

[Johnmcl7]

I have the 60GB 5,400rpm drive - it's definitely not as fast as my desktop drives but I have to say I don't see that much of a difference with my 100GB 7200rpm, little disappointed with it in that sense.

The 1.8inch 4,200rpm drive on my TX is horrible though, it's not helped by the amount of crap Sony put on the device in the first place but even allowing for that, the machine is sluggish during startup/shutdown.

John

[coolqf]

I use to have the Inspiron 9300 w/ the 7200 rpm and currently have the 700M with a 5400rpm HD.
Gaming aside, I see NO speed difference. I did notice something interesting.... With a clean install I was noticing that upgrading from 512 to 1gb would have made the rig faster.

[JakeDeez]

it will also burn up the battery faster running at 7.2k, if that matters to you...

[Hammerstein]

I use a T43 with a 5400 rpm drive and, I know it's not too scientific, but I'm still amazed at how fast it responds, even though the drive is allegedly "slow". I'm not convinced $300 is totally worth it - after all, laptops at best are never the best gaming machines.

[kent1146]

If you only really care about gaming performance, save the $300 and get the 5400rpm hard drive.

[Chuck232]

My Seagate 80GB 5400RPM drive feels pretty good. A lot faster than a 4200RPM drive I played around with. Full out transfer speeds aren't as good as a desktop 7200RPM though.

But for $300, it's not worth it. You could upgrade a hell of a lot of other components that would make more of a difference than the hard drive upgrade alone.

[coolqf]

My Seagate 80GB 5400RPM drive feels pretty good. A lot faster than a 4200RPM drive I played around with. Full out transfer speeds aren't as good as a desktop 7200RPM though.

But for $300, it's not worth it. You could upgrade a hell of a lot of other components that would make more of a difference than the hard drive upgrade alone.

Like upgrading the CPU