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| All Im saying is it's not enough of a bang for the buck for me..and maybe someone else as well. I run the games I can now with the card I have now to my satisfaction. When I cannot do that. Then and ONLY then will I spend another $150 for the upgraded card. I buy what I need to do what I need to do TODAY...not tomorrow. I will buy that tomorrow when in all cases its less expensive to do so. |
Then our opinions are not that different. Chalk it up to communication error somewhere. If you're happy with the 5200, great! (I mean that sincerely), but it is not the best choice in the world for gaming anymore. But then, the Radeon 8500 in my dual athlon system isn't cutting edge anymore either. It does what I need it to just fine. I just wanted to make sure that erik (and anyone else reading this thread) wouldn't buy a notebook with a GeForce FX expecting to play HalfLife 2 (which will never come out, but that's another story) at 2048x1536 in 32 bit color at maximum detail with 8x FSAA and 8x Aniso filtering enabled at 300,000,000fps. It just isn't gonna happen.
About the cars:
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| I also know why one drives a MB, BMW, RR, Porche, Jag and it has little to do with technology...I live in that world. |
Yeah, a lot of people drive them because it makes their egos feel good. I drive a 'Benz because I like it. I can't help it. I've been around them since I was a little kid. My grandparents have had a ton of them, my parents bought one when I was 4 or so, my first car was one, etc. But there are certainly a LOT of people that drive expensive cars because of the image it projects about them.
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| I almost bought a 580sec w/90K for $12,000 a year ago..A friend who is a mechanic on all forign makes talked me into a Toyota instead. He said MB now a days is a glorified Chrysler! And the vacuum issues in an old MB can be horendous and expensive to deal with. Im not sure about that, but I do know the cost of parts and maintainance is only worth it to those who must stare down their hood and see the badge leading the way. |
Your friend knows what he's talking about, to an extent at least.
With the introduction of the japanese luxury cars in the very late '80s, early '90s, Mercedes started to feel a pressure that it had never had to deal with before- suddenly, people weren't content to pay insanely high prices for a car that was as close to perfect as you could get, when you could get a car that was 90% as good for 75% of the price.
It was too late to change the W140 S-class, which came out in 1992, to deal with the Japanese cars, so it had to wait until the newer W220. In the meantime, the E-class was re-designed, the C-class came out, and the M-class was introduced.
Because they have to compete with the Japanese cars, today's Mercedes are not as good as they used to be. My grandparents' latest car is a 2003 S600. It's a gorgeous car. 362hp, sport package with AMG wheels, sued headliner and dashboard, 4-zone climate control, heated and cooled power front and rear seats, etc. etc., but it's missing something that my 1986 560SEL has. It's not something tangible, it's just a feeling of quality that the 560 has and the 600 doesn't.
The 600 has also been more trouble than the 560 has been in the same time period.
So your friend is right that Mercedes' quality is not what it once was. I wouldn't go so far as to say that they're a glorified Chrysler, though, especially since there are no Chrysler parts in any Mercedes (although the new Crossfire is essentially a rebadged SLK).
Your friend was not quite right about the vacuum issues on the 560SECs, though (I assume you meant the 560, since there was no 580, and 8 is closer to 6 than it is to 0
). I drive a 560SEL, and the cars are essentially identical, mechanically speaking. I do a lot of the work on it myself, and most of the problems on my car are electrical. The 560s have a couple of known issues- the valve guides wear out and need replacing at about 120,000 miles, the 560's V8 is just about all the transmission can handle, so the transmissions aren't usually expected to last more than about 100,000 miles, and the timing chain should be replaced around 120,000 miles, but other than that, they don't have too many issues.
Your friend is right about some stuff being insanely expensive to fix, though. If you do it yourself, most maintenance isn't any more expensive than on other cars, but some parts are very, very expensive.
