How much of a difference does hard drive rpm make?

[Rayz]

When it comes to watching videos, using programs, playing games and...well pretty much everything... how big of a difference does having a HDD with a bigger rpm make?

Such as 5400rpm vs 7200rpm.

[stroyal]

It depends on how much memory you have.
If you have enough memory, the only time the hard drive is used is when you are booting or loading a program.

[Rayz]

Memory is 4GB. (1GB for video card memory)
So the rpm mainly just effects the boot up and loading time?

[thephilosophizer]

Hard drives affect how long it takes for things to load.
Once a program is loaded, or a file accessed, it goes into the ram. Hard drive speed also affects how long it takes to copy file/folders, as well as how long to takes to compress and decompress files.

[Steve R Jones]

If this is a laptop pc - the 7200 rpm drive will generate more heat and eat up more battery life....