Disaster - Water everywhere, what replacement parts?

[greenfrog]

Hello,
This the second part to the message which I posted previously. I thought I'd split the post to prevent it getting too big.

If you haven't read the first post, basically my watercooler leaked and now my PC is dead to the world. Sadly I only built the PC 6 months ago, so it looks like most replacement parts will have to be the same.

When I built the PC I had wanted to create a completely silent home theatre PC, powerfull enough to cope with hi-def decoding, but not so powerful as to make any noise. The watercooler I'm using is a Zalman Reserator, extremely quiet but not great cooling.

So I'm basically looking for some advice concerning whether I should buy the same parts again or if something better at a similar price. I know it's lazy to just ask you guys, but after having spent several weeks researching my purchase first time around I'm having some trouble motivating myself to start again.

The specs are below

Core 2 duo 6300
Gigabyte GA 965P-DQ6
Nvidia 7600GT
Creative X-fi Extreme OEM
Nova T-500 TV Card
1GB of some generic ram, can't remember which.


My main concern is the motherboard and graphics card. I'm tempted to upgrade to a 8800GTS as I've read that this has some new purevideo technology. As video is the main focus of this PC it's something that I don't mind spending more on, however only if the result is noticeable.

I can't remember the make of powersupply (I'm at work now so can't check), it was 430W though. What do you think I need to power a 8800GTS, any recomendations regarding a quiet model?


Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Lee

 

[greenfrog]

Hey guys any ideas?

 

[billdcat4]

For a quiet PSU you should look at Seasonic, Thermaltake, Silverstone, FSP, and Corsair.

My Favorites:

Corsair HX520 40a 520w (im getting one) for $115
Seasonic S12 550w Energy Plus for $130

The Cheapest PSU that can power your system: FSP 450w 29a for $55

Both are Practically SILENT, and will easily power an 8800GTS based rig.

Get the Kingston 2gb DDR2 667mhz 2x1gb Value Ram Kit for $107

What did you get your Conroe to before with the Reserator?

 

[MrCommunistGen]

I thought I'd split the post to prevent it getting too big.

Probably not the best idea. Some people don't like having to go find your other thread to figure out what the problem is. Plus, a lot of threads get to be long... so in the future don't do this

-mcg

 

[greenfrog]

Thanks Billdcat4 for the recommendation. I hadn't really spent much effort in overclocking the Conroe, the problem with the Reserator is that you need to leave it a few hours for the water to warm up before you get an impression of what temperatures its reaching. However I did overclock a bit, from memory I reached about 2.2ghz without a great amount of effort. But as the PC was a home theatre set-up it didn't require anything beyond stock performance.

Thanks MrCommunistgen for your constructive comments. I think though if you'd taken the time to read properly what I wrote then you'd have realised that I am looking for two answers to two very different and unrelated questions, hence the split. Furthermore I did actually say 'If you haven't read the first post' and then explained the problem, so there really was no need for you to search for the other post.

 

[truromeo4juliet]

if your harddrive isn't fried, I would repurchase the same motherboard to avoid the hassle of reinstalling windows and having to reconfigure everything the way you like it...

how badly did it leak?

 

[MrCommunistGen]

I'm sorry. As soon as I saw the "I split the thread" I assumed it was the same story as the vast majority of noobs who double post for the same problem and whatnot all the time. After that I stopped reading. My mistake.

-mcg

 

[greenfrog]

that's ok, I was probably over zealous in my retort

 

[billdcat4]

Can I ask why you bought a 680i based board and a watercooler if you were intending to keep the CPU at stock?

 

[tehrobzorz]

why not ? lol

for the ease of mind of not failing when recording your fav tv show or watvr..

 

[tehrobzorz]

for your video card i think the best way to go is to go with an ati card( x1900 series). they have the vivo feature and quite frankly .. i just think that theyre better for video decoding etc..
the pure video really isnt much better as ive read somewhere on thg. but in the end its up to you. the heat produced by the 8800 might become a problem in the future for your htpc case.

 

[greenfrog]

Well Billdcat4, the gigabyte board isn't based on the 680i, its a 965 board. As the M/B chipset can't rely on cooling from the CPU fan the M/B had to be tough enough to cope with slightly higher temperatures.
I purchased all the parts last night so by this Saturday should be up and running.
In the end I went for a 8600GT card, apprently it has the next generation of purevideo which allows for 100% of video decoding offloaded to the video card itself.
Thanks Billdcat4 for the advice concerning the PSU, I went for the Seasonic in the end, my supplier didn't stock the Corsair.

 

[billdcat4]

Well Billdcat4, the gigabyte board isn't based on the 680i, its a 965 board. As the M/B chipset can't rely on cooling from the CPU fan the M/B had to be tough enough to cope with slightly higher temperatures.
I purchased all the parts last night so by this Saturday should be up and running.
In the end I went for a 8600GT card, apprently it has the next generation of purevideo which allows for 100% of video decoding offloaded to the video card itself.
Thanks Billdcat4 for the advice concerning the PSU, I went for the Seasonic in the end, my supplier didn't stock the Corsair.

my bad, and ok'ely dok'ely

good luck