Random question about hard drive slowing down computer..

[Sell224]

I just recently built a computer with the following specs:

x1900xtx, 2 gigs ram, amd 3500+ 2.2 ghz, asus a8n sli deluxe. I canibalized the hard drive out of an old (maybe 7 years) dell. Its an 80 gig hard drive but its pretty damn old. I can't really find the exact specs on it because its a pretty generic dell hard drive.

Anyways.. my question is this: I might be playing video games or using this computer for some more computing intensive stuff. Will this hard drive significantly slow down the computer? I know I didn't really give exact specs on the hard drive, I am just more asking a general question of.. can a hard drive significantly hinder a computer's capability to perform well (especially in video games). Everything else in the computer is nice and good enough to cope with most every video game out right now (minus crysis maybe).

It seems like loading of programs goes a bit slower.

 

[bomberboysk]

Im Guessing that the hard drive isnt going to hinder performance a heck of a lot, but its going to be noticeably slower than say, a new 7200 rpm sata drive. A 7+ Year old hard drive, i dont know how much i would trust that for keeping anything important along the lines of data if its had alot of use. Best to prolly just get a new 250gig Caviar or Barracuda. Actually newegg has a 160gig Barracuda for like $48 or so, would prolly increase load times in games and whatnot too.