7200 hdd or 4 gig ram?

i have 2 gigs ram
5400 hdd

would more speed improvements (rendering, gaming) come from a 7200 hdd or an upgrade to 4 gigs ram? (im running a 8600 gt w.128 and i think it shares with the ram quite a bit)
i have no idea because games like Half Life Orange Box play off of the hdd... but 4 gigs is quite a bit.

(it would be the one upgrading it)

Thank you!

Personally I don't see you getting a ton of speed improvement as far as gaming is concerned with either of these options. Your load times for levels would maybe improve a small number of seconds, but that's about it. 2 GB RAM is more than enough to run any number of today's games. The only way you're going to NOTICE a ton of difference is by increasing your GPU's ram, which would involve installing a whole new card...rendering this option impossible if you're dealing with a portable.

Another way to get a noticeable increase in performance would be to get rid of any background processes before you start your game. This isn't necessarily because of their memory requirements, but more the CPU cycles they're occupying...quit iTunes, Safari, etc. before you start Half Life or what have you.

Report back, let us know what works.

thank you, and i will!

You would likely notice more of an improvement from upgrading to the 7200 RPM hard drive, but pay careful attention to the amount of cache on the drive. The biggest "bang for the buck" will come if you get one with lots of cache (8 MB or more).

Once you have the faster hard drive under your feet, you will notice that applications may launch a little faster and things may generally run a bit faster, but like snoslicer said, you are already well situated for RAM, which is the item that normally makes the biggest improvement.

i ended most processes, btu am still unable to run anti-ailesing (spelling) well.