HDD question

Basically I'm looking into getting a laptop (Specifically its a dell xps 1530) for the upcoming school year since my desktop is mostly outdated by a couple years even though it holds up. What I was wondering is for games like garry's mod 10, (a hl2 mod) and any of the source engine games (hl2, team fortress 2, etc) get any difference in performance if I got a 5400 rpm hard drive compared to getting a 7200 rpm one. I know the processor I am going to choose with the graphics card it has inside can hold up these games, but I haven't ever used a 5400 rpm yet (as far as I know). (has maxed out 4 GB of ram inside it in case anyone's wondering)

Basically would it lag the game when running on a server. I'm trying to figure which is worth getting in case this machine will be used to play some games sometimes. the 5400 rpm one comes with 1 weird deal which is a 320 gb hdd, while probably won't ever get filled I could get a 160 or 250 GB 7200 rpm one, for about 150 or something more.

Basically I just need some help figuring out if it truly is that much slower that the game would lag when trying to get new information to the processor, compared to the 7200 rpm and if its that noticeable. Thanks in advance.

 

I'll sum it up for you. The 5400RPM 320gb WD Scorpio is about the same in performance as the 7200RPM 200GB due to data density.I would use that $150 or so to buy a few gaming accessories.

 

So basically it wouldn't matter which hdd I get, they would perform equal to each other is what your saying, meaning same amount of lag, or anything that would normally happen. IS that correct? Also thanks for a quick response, since after while of researching things I'm probably going to try ordering it soon.

 

That is correct. If youre gonna go 7200 RPM, honestly the only drive that youre gonna see a nice increase on is a 320gb 7200RPM drive and those are quite expensive now. I have a total of 3 5400rpm 320gb WD Scorpios and all 3 perform very nicely. The 320gb 5400 is the way to go.

 

Thanks a lot, seeing as all (well the only one) question(s) were answered. I'm going to take that suggestion and use the 320 gb 5400, that came in 1 of the deals they have on the main site. Which ends up being a lower price then the same 1530 set up on the schools purchase program. Going to put the order in once I get up tomorrow when the guy that helped me with most of it, gets in so he gets the commission from the order (which he deserves it. It wasn't one of those I really could care less operators that I tend to get on some places).

 

Cool! Good luck and enjoy your new toy!

PS- Have you seen some of the gmod videos on youtube? God, I laughed so hard I almost peed on a couple.

 

Some of them are pretty interesting, I'm used to building random contraptions in it, or creating different things like maps for the game. Once again Thanks for the help, I greatly appreciate it.