I'm getting a laptop college.

[PCNoob2]

It's a Dell XPS M1530.

I have all my parts selected except for the hard drive. One of the options is a 340 gig 5400 rpm hard drive and the other option is a 250 gig 7200 rpm hard drive.

I don't do a whole lot of things like video editing, photoshop, graphics, etc but the extra speed on the 7200 would be nice for opening and loading my large music and picture folders.

Which should i go with? the 5400 is cheaper despite the larger size.

anyways, thanks

 

[borat_sagdiyev]

the 7200. faster. you wont need 340gb on a laptop...

 

[PCNoob2]

thanks, that's sort of what i was thinking.

250 gigs is more than sufficient for my needs and i can always add an external hard drive later if i really need one for storage. even my 4 gig flash drive can hold a lot of pictures and stuff.

thanks man, my minds decided

 

[muz]

yer get the 250gb one the extra speed will deff be worth it and you can always put things on an external if you need it

 

[PCNoob2]

although ive been wondering, will the 7200 make the laptop run hotter? what will its effect be on battery life?

 

[Prodigy146]

The difference in battery life is negligible. Barefeats.com did a comparison not long ago. Go for the 7200 rpm drive.

Basically, battery life changes by 5-10 minutes, but boot time, applications opening and read/write are all greatly improved.

 

[PCNoob2]

im also starting to wonder about the processor i should choose...

should i get a 2.4 intel core 2 duo processor with a 3 mb cache

or a 2.5 intel core 2 duo processor with a 6 mb cache.

obviously the 6 mb cache is more expensive and its larger but im wondering if its worth it.

3 mb cache already seems plenty large.

any thoughts?

thanks

 

[mattr1]

I would get the:
2.4 Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 3MB cache.