Raptor 74 or 150

I know the 150 is more money but it is a better preformer as well.

Depends on your storage capacity needs....

A Raptors' speeds are impressive, but the recent SATA 150 Barracudas are no slouches either, and might be less money, since you said budget was a factor...

If you can live without a Raptors' blazing speeds, one can usually find 200-250GB 7200/16 meg cache Maxtors on sale at CompUSA for around $59 about once a month....

For a $100 savings, I'll live with my games taking 3-5 seconds longer to load...! :-)

According to a review I read recently, the 74 gig Raptor is more optimized for single user/desktop performance. The new 150 gig is optimized more towards enterprise/raid setups. I would go for the cheaper alternative - the new 16 meg buffer Maxtor's, they are plenty fast and much cheaper.

To get any benefit from the raptors, you should be looking @ 3 * the size of data you plan to put on it.
Above a 1/3 usage, the newer larger drives will give better perf. For example, the inner lanes of a raptor run at 3925 inches per minute, while the center of a 300 gig 7200 rpm drive travel at 5892 inches per minute. The 300 gig drive would be faster.

8O Wow i think Im playin game 24hrs hehehe
it is already 1:18, Moring!!!

like other opinion, 8) If you have Enough money to buy HDD go for 150 10k Raptors
fast and more space, but if ur on a budget pick 7200RPM HDD with 120GB cheaper, not too fast like raptor, and more space. I think you will never used all the 500GB space for gaming only, so the 120~160GB is though.
about the 74GB RAP i think its ok, but too small..  

The 150! Because: bigger is always better--and faster is always better--so bigger and faster would be best, right?