Apple 7200rpm vs. 5400 + external FW800?

The MacBook Pro 17" can either come with a 120GB 5400rpm drive, or the 100GB 7200rpm drive. A store (Comp USA...housed in the USA, go figure) is offering 24 months no interest with their credit card, so it's looking mighty tempting to get one. They don't seem to offer the BTO options, so it would have the be the 5400 drive, if I went this way. I would use the MBP for EVERYTHING (everything from email and web browsing to World of Warcraft to Photoshop and Final Cut Pro...

I would get an external firewire 800 drive to use to store the video files (Nothing else, because I would want to be able to do everything else on the road, without needing the drive). Would the 5400rpm drive be that much of a drop in performance? Should I wait a couple months til I can afford just buying it outright?

 

I have a 5400 (10gb) that I use sometimes for swapping files and it is painfully slow. Load times arent too bad but it is definately noticable when you've been useing 7200 drives. And if you have a raid setup in your main rig you'll feel the burn even more.

 

i would honestly recommend going with the 7200RPM drive.