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I´m about to buy a new notebook, and I´m trying to get a quiet fast system for 3D drawing. How much difference could I expect with a 7200 rpm instead of 5400? I´m talking about speed and reduce battery life. Is it worth the extra money and/or less capacity?
Btw any experiences on the Intel Turbo Memory? Thanks

If it were me I'd get the 7200 rpm HDD. The speed is substantial, and the extra noise is minimal.

BTW
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Thanks.

DO NOT get a 5400 unless you like waiting forever for a boot up. I would not get anything less than a 7200rpm. Also ensure your RAM is maxed out.
And Yes, it is worth the extra money. If you have to choose between more ram and a faster HD, go with more RAM first.

Just put a 7200 rpm HDD in my notebook and it doesn't miss a beat. It's very fast and doesn't make much noise at all. So if i was you go the 7200 rpm HDD.

I seriously thought this was a trick question.

Thank you guys, I´ll definitely go for the 7200, seems it´s worth the extra money.

btw: faster HDs eat more battery power -- prioritize your needs

but with more ram he will be using his HD less. extra does more than speeding up your system in a laptop - it also decreases page swapping which in turn eats battery life by running the HD more often.

Higher RPM drive will only improve the Rotational Delay by 0.75 (5400/7200).
However, the biggest factor in HD performance is the Seek Time which is 10x
slower than the R.D. Yes it all matters, especially when aggregated over long
time periods, but the HD doesn't stop, rev-up, read and the stop spining --
it spins continuously DRAINING the laptop battery all the while.

Like I said, prioritizing your needs is important for a laptop choice
eg: Battery life, graphic rendering speed, raw compute power, storage capacity
and memory.

Top on the list of evey purchase is RAM and HD capacity and other factors fall
in line thereafter.