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yup

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no hdmi? weak! ;)

I got the Phenom 955 BE and it's sexy. :drool: With the motherboard/CPU combo, it was only ~$225 for the pair with free shipping! I bought an HDMI cable too though so my total was $237 shipped, the processor had a special going on so I am getting a $10 gift card for newegg too. :cool:

I upgraded from an older AMD X2 2.6ghz, so similar to what you've got there. My windows 7 experience score went from 5.2 to 7.2 for the processor. :eek:

I'm reusing ddr2 800 ram though, you've definitely got me beat there (well if you're actually overclocking yours to 1200 :p).

My biggest bottleneck is my WD green hard drive. When SSD becomes more affordable I might look into going that route.
 
Redlineracer12 said:
no hdmi? weak! ;)

I got the Phenom 955 BE and it's sexy. :drool: With the motherboard/CPU combo, it was only ~$225 for the pair with free shipping! I bought an HDMI cable too though so my total was $237 shipped, the processor had a special going on so I am getting a $10 gift card for newegg too. :cool:

I upgraded from an older AMD X2 2.6ghz, so similar to what you've got there. My windows 7 experience score went from 5.2 to 7.2 for the processor. :eek:

I'm reusing ddr2 800 ram though, you've definitely got me beat there (well if you're actually overclocking yours to 1200 :p).

My biggest bottleneck is my WD green hard drive. When SSD becomes more affordable I might look into going that route.
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Yeah I could have gotten a 1.9 quad core for I wanted to spend right away, but figured this would be better in the short run until I get that 3.0 phenom in about 6 months. I am not overclocking it yet, too lazy to go into the bios and set it up lol! But I should tonight and see how it goes. My harddrive is the next thing that needs to be upgraded baaaaaaad. Debating between a SSD or a 150000 RPM drive for the main one.
 
Yeah the 2.9 dual would be better than 1.9 quad in my opinion. I rarely get to use all 4 cores on a single application so the higher clock speed is better for me. Maybe someday in the future when more applications can take advantage of multiple cores. I've noticed my Windows Live Movie Maker uses all 4, but not much else does :laugh: And even using all 4 cores, the bottleneck is the read/writes on the hard drive, my CPU runs at like 50% the entire time.

Oh and I was thinking SSD, I've heard the 15k ones aren't that much faster than the WD "Black" series. I think the SSD would make a much bigger difference, plus it'd be quieter and use less power :cool: Now just gotta wait until a decent sized one is affordable :laugh:
 
anybody know where i can find an 04-05 Duratec with less than about 35k miles on it for around 500 or less within about 150 miles max from Paynesville, MN zip 56362?

i have been keeping an eye on car-part.com but not really sure where else to look and i know there are some CEGers around my area pretty heavy into the 3L swaps. there is one on there for 550 with under 40k but earlier in the fall there were alot better deals on there... like one with 12k for 450... wish i would have known my plans for my sable before then.

any help would be great guys, just some leads or web sites i can check out.

just thought, should this belong in classifieds? if so i will move it.
 
Sable23 said:
anybody know where i can find an 04-05 Duratec with less than about 35k miles on it for around 500 or less within about 150 miles max from Paynesville, MN zip 56362?

i have been keeping an eye on car-part.com but not really sure where else to look and i know there are some CEGers around my area pretty heavy into the 3L swaps. there is one on there for 550 with under 40k but earlier in the fall there were alot better deals on there... like one with 12k for 450... wish i would have known my plans for my sable before then.

any help would be great guys, just some leads or web sites i can check out.

just thought, should this belong in classifieds? if so i will move it.
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Most MN places have been picked clean partially due to us. You'll have to go out of state to find a decent deal or find a place that isn't listing them on car-parts. You can sometimes find a decent deal including shipping for under $500 coming from out of state.
 
Brought my wife's MKX in for service already. I'd like to further announce how bad NORTH COUNTRY FORD is! The car was leaking trans fluid which is very common on the Escapes and MKX's, which I read about on the forums, so I was watching for it. It means it needs new transfer case seals or possibly a new transfer case. I guess they have gone through a lot of revisions to try to fix this issue. The heated passenger seat isn't functioning correctly (very front of the seat bottom works but nothing else). It's covered under warranty but still we've had the car for a week. WTF?

Other items we complained about but I didn't think they'd touch because it's used: There was also some bubbling paint on the driver's side exterior mirror, cracked interior trim panel (not very noticeable) and broken trim around the rear passenger exterior door handle. It also seems to pull slightly to the left a on the highway. The service guy said all of that should be fixed before it goes out on the lot so they will take care of it. That was one nice thing that's come from that dealer so far but I suppose I should wait to see if they actually fix that stuff.

I asked them for an inspection record before we bought it and they said while they do a 300+ point inspection they don't have a copy of it for me. :rolleyes: I thought it was odd at the time. Who the doesn't notice fluid leaking out of the transfer case especially when it's the biggest issue with that vehicle. Dealer inspections are crap. You know they might test drive the used car to make sure there isn't any glaring issues but for the most part they mark it up and put it out on the lot.

I think I'm going to post on every MN car forum about this crap. If I can get people to avoid that dealer or at least avoid that salesman and watch for the random fees it will be worth it.
 
Jerks! :nonono: I'd be impressed if they fixed ANY of those things you mentioned. Dealerships seem to pull that "Oh yeah we'll take care of that..." crap all the time.

As far as dealer feedback, I have been VERY happy with my truck that I got from New Brighton Ford. :) Other than the usual scare tactics:

"Oh we have had lots of interest in this vehicle lately" or
"Oh you need the extended warranty because repairs are very expensive" or
"What do I need to do to get you to sign something today?"

The first day I went there to see the truck I called and made sure they had it. The salesman says yep we still got it and took down my info. I get to the dealer and find this guy and he can't find the truck, but he has a set of keys for it. :crazy: Apparently they let someone who was having their truck serviced take it home for the day, because they had sold one of their loaner trucks? The next day though they had it back, so I checked it out then. Other than having to drive out there twice to see the truck I had a great experience with them and the Truck has been perfect. :cool:
 
Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
 Processor: AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 925 Processor (4 CPUs), ~3.5GHz
 Memory: 4094MB RAM DDR3
 Hard Drive: 61 GB & 320 WB
 Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250
 Monitor: WestingHouse 24in WideScreen
 Sound Card: X-Fi Xtreme Audio Fatal1ty Edition
 Speakers/Headphones: Razor Barracuda
 Keyboard: Dell
 Mouse: g5
 Mouse Surface: 5L Steel Mat
 Operating System: Windows Vista™ Home Premium (6.0, Build 6002) Service Pack 2 (6002.vistasp2_gdr.090803-2339)
 Motherboard: Gigabyte DS3

Just built this about a month ago.

 
Built this system about a year ago:

Case: Cooler Master Cosmos
Motherboard: Asus P6T Deluxe
CPU: Intel Core i7 920
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master V8
RAM: Corsair XMS 6Gb (2Gb x 3) DDR3 1600
Video Card: Asus HD 4870 1GB Dark Night
Hard Drives: 2 x WD 74GB Raptors in a Raid 0
OS: Windows 7 Professional

I wish I would have went with a smaller case. That coolermaster case is stupid big. I really don't use it much though so it was probably a waste of money. I play WOW on it quite a bit lately but I didn't use it for the last 8 months because my laptop was more convenient and plays everything as well. Here is the build thread I had on NECO last year: http://www.newcougar.org/forums/lounge/132039-new-pc.html
 
^ that's pretty similar to what I planned on buying (couldn't decide between the regular P6T (not the deluxe) and a similar EVGA motherboard) and a 920, but I cheaped out and went with the AMD :laugh:

I couldn't convince myself to spend ~$230 for a motherboard and another ~$230 for the 920 when I could buy both the AMD motherboard (with pretty solid built in graphics) and processor for the $230 and reuse my old RAM instead of shelling out $150 for a 6GB DDR3 kit :eek:
 
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