- Joined
- Jan 25, 2008
Hello All! First time poster, long, long time reader.
Lets start with the first things first. My old system has officially died on me (Well, the MB anyway). The old system was:
System:
Athlon 2500+ Mobile at 2.83ghz (236x12)
A7n8x-e Deluxe WiFi motherboard
Geforce 5900 Ultra
1GB Corsair XMS 2-2-2
2x 36GB WD Raptors in Raid 0
Cooling:
DD Maze 3 Waterblock
Homebrewed block on the Vid Card
BIX Extremer (With Mechtronics 120mm fan... louder than my vacuum, wired with an on / off switch)
1/2 clearflex tubing
BI Pro (dual 120mm, forgot the actual name)
2x Ehiem 1250s in Series
When I built this system in late 2003, I was working with my parent's computer business and I was actually designing all of the systems we sold. We had recently done a pair of quotes for 2 school districts, so I could cherry pick my MB out of 210 candidates. Most of the systems were all quoted with Durons, however, so I only had my choice of about 30 procs.
The system was getting pretty old in the tooth (though, honestly, it feelt faster than my work machine which is a 2.2ghz conroe... probably the HDDs considering I mostly e-mail and write perl scripts at work) and I was debating an upgrade anyway, but 3 weeks ago the system just up and died -- BSOD and now not even a POST. I'm now using my storage server as my primary system -- I moved the Vid card over to it checks out fine, so its either the CPU or MB thats dead, either is possible.
So, the first order of busines is, what do I do for a cooling system? I know the Maze 3 and vid block is done for -- but what about the pumps and the rads? Will that pair of rads be fine for say SLI + CPU, or is it time to upgrade? The Thermochill 120.3 looks nice (I remember reading the threads with Cathar, Marci, and possibly BillA) about the development of that rad. and I could probably downgrade to some quieter fans as well.
Regading the pumps, I've heard about the D5s, but have no idea what they are like in comparison to my Ehiems. The pumps have been going pretty much non stop for 4 years now and I have no idea if they are on thier last legs, or will go another 4 years, and I like the 1250s for being somewhat quiet and they push quite a bit of water. Is it time to upgrade the pumps, or are they good to go for another system?
And what about blocks? When I last looked at anything watercooling related, Cathar's G4 / G5 series was king of the hill, but now I see that Swiftech doesn't even sell the G4s anymore. I also see that Cathar seems to have dropped off the face of the planet.
Next, any suggestions on what's good for the actual system (or should I direct that to other parts of this forum?). I'm thinking a quad core penryn, but since I'm not working for a system integrator anymore I don't have the inside scoop like I used to on what rocks and what sucks. I'll primarly be gaming and photoshop on the system, but I may also loan it to my wife for her to do some of her Doctoral Work on (she'll be running the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System and can use all the CPU I can give her).
Hopefully thats not too much of a first post, but I like to get it all out there at once. Thanks in advance!
Lets start with the first things first. My old system has officially died on me (Well, the MB anyway). The old system was:
System:
Athlon 2500+ Mobile at 2.83ghz (236x12)
A7n8x-e Deluxe WiFi motherboard
Geforce 5900 Ultra
1GB Corsair XMS 2-2-2
2x 36GB WD Raptors in Raid 0
Cooling:
DD Maze 3 Waterblock
Homebrewed block on the Vid Card
BIX Extremer (With Mechtronics 120mm fan... louder than my vacuum, wired with an on / off switch)
1/2 clearflex tubing
BI Pro (dual 120mm, forgot the actual name)
2x Ehiem 1250s in Series
When I built this system in late 2003, I was working with my parent's computer business and I was actually designing all of the systems we sold. We had recently done a pair of quotes for 2 school districts, so I could cherry pick my MB out of 210 candidates. Most of the systems were all quoted with Durons, however, so I only had my choice of about 30 procs.
The system was getting pretty old in the tooth (though, honestly, it feelt faster than my work machine which is a 2.2ghz conroe... probably the HDDs considering I mostly e-mail and write perl scripts at work) and I was debating an upgrade anyway, but 3 weeks ago the system just up and died -- BSOD and now not even a POST. I'm now using my storage server as my primary system -- I moved the Vid card over to it checks out fine, so its either the CPU or MB thats dead, either is possible.
So, the first order of busines is, what do I do for a cooling system? I know the Maze 3 and vid block is done for -- but what about the pumps and the rads? Will that pair of rads be fine for say SLI + CPU, or is it time to upgrade? The Thermochill 120.3 looks nice (I remember reading the threads with Cathar, Marci, and possibly BillA) about the development of that rad. and I could probably downgrade to some quieter fans as well.
Regading the pumps, I've heard about the D5s, but have no idea what they are like in comparison to my Ehiems. The pumps have been going pretty much non stop for 4 years now and I have no idea if they are on thier last legs, or will go another 4 years, and I like the 1250s for being somewhat quiet and they push quite a bit of water. Is it time to upgrade the pumps, or are they good to go for another system?
And what about blocks? When I last looked at anything watercooling related, Cathar's G4 / G5 series was king of the hill, but now I see that Swiftech doesn't even sell the G4s anymore. I also see that Cathar seems to have dropped off the face of the planet.
Next, any suggestions on what's good for the actual system (or should I direct that to other parts of this forum?). I'm thinking a quad core penryn, but since I'm not working for a system integrator anymore I don't have the inside scoop like I used to on what rocks and what sucks. I'll primarly be gaming and photoshop on the system, but I may also loan it to my wife for her to do some of her Doctoral Work on (she'll be running the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System and can use all the CPU I can give her).
Hopefully thats not too much of a first post, but I like to get it all out there at once. Thanks in advance!