Building New Water Cooled System With X2 3800, Need Suggestions.

[CoBRaXT]

I'm planning to upgrade my current air cooled Athlon 64 3000+ with an X2 3800. I'm thinking of cooling that as well as a Nvidia 6800 with water.

I looked around a bit and saw that I could either buy individual kits (brackets, waterblocks, etc) to put it a case or I could just buy a case (Koolance or the like) that has a water system built in. I'm going to need a new case anyway, so I was thinking the latter might be a better choice but I'm not an expert so I don't really know.

Should I just get a decent case and then add on parts (if so, which kit(s) do you guys recommend?) or just buy a case with it all ready to go?

And one last quesiton, I'll be running the X2 3800, a water cooling system, 6800, 2 Hard Drives, 2 Optical Drives, and 1GB ram.

I currently am running on a 450w Coolmax PSU (+3.3V: 30A, +5V: 45A, +12V: 22A). Do you think that would hold up with the new chip, etc? If not, what PSU's would you recommend for this setup?

Thanks for your help.

David

Edit: Budget is around $400-$500 for the case, water cooling, and PSU.

 

[LxMxFxD3]

sounds cool. YOUR PSU should be fine. I have an x2 3800 with way more stuff in my case and the only diff in our ps is my +12v is 26A I believe. GL

 

[NotquiteanooB]

Check out Corsair Cool Kit or Swiftech. Corsair is a bit less expensive, but basically a clone of the Swiftech. The Corsair Cool kits I installed were easy to install and do a great job cooling OC'd P4 CPU's, and my Barton CPU's.

 

[imported_clover]

Tell me more of this integrated case solution you speak of

(I'm not so much interested in a power supply though)

 

[CoBRaXT]

I only know of a few, but Xoxide has some here http://www.xoxide.com/koolance3.html

A bit pricey though since you need to purchase waterblocks for your CPU and/or GPU as well, but something to be expected with water cooling as I found out.