An update from advice given ref graphics card.UPDATE PURCHASED AND MORE ADVICE PLEASE

[Colinevan]

Well guys, first of all many thanks for all your help and advice given on the previous post. Here's what iv decided to do and why.

Id love a new pc, however for those that actually know me. Id prob spend a ridiculous amount of pennies and it would be abso overkill and monsterous. So iv decided to learn a little whilst having a go myself.

However please feel free to offer your opinions or advice.

Plan - as mentioned this was initially just upgrade the graphics card as it was cheap to do, however reading peoples opinions make me believe i also require a new power supply. So iv researched a lot over the past few days and like the idea of also saving money so im prob going to go down the route of a new or second hand gtx260/280 or a new card around £60.

regarding the power supply, i actually stripped my pc case apart and decided to spring clean it ( ie hoover all the cack out) and found out my existing one is 350watts. So i also need a better power supply.

I also researched about keeping things cool, and abso love the idea of a water cooled pc, so i then thought , hmm a new case, new psu, better cooling and overclock my q6600 as its quite popular to overclock and seems reliable with reasonable performance ( plus i already own this ). Please offer advice or opinions for this part

Speaking of temps, i thought id research at what its currently operating at

These are the results using speccy.

Operating System
MS Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit SP2
CPU
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.40GHz 49 °C
Kentsfield 65nm Technology
RAM
4.00 GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @ 332MHz (5-5-5-15)
Motherboard
Foxconn 9657MA (Socket 775) 40 °C
Graphics
HP w2207 (1680x1050@60Hz)
SAMSUNG (1920x1080@30Hz)
256MB GeForce 8300 GS (nVidia) 83 °C
Hard Drives
313GB Hitachi Hitachi HDT725032VLA360 ATA Device (SATA) 36 °C
Optical Drives
ATAPI DVD A DH16A1P SCSI CdRom Device
Audio
Realtek High Definition Audio

If you look , graphics card operates quite hot when watching a film on a hd tv. This deffo needs more cooling if i was to keep. and is obviously the week point on the setup at the moment.


Im going to upgrade to windows 7 at some point , so that speeds things up a little as well.

So back to advice now. I am on a budget esp as with kids and were expecting in june as well so if i cant stretch to water cooled ( only like the idea as its cool, seems a nice project to build and you can say that youv been there got the t shirt etc etc.

So i need some recommendations for either a new nice spec case circa £80 or a second hand case that might be water cooled spec approved. I appreciate i need to either super cool with plenty of heatsinks and fans or how much would i need to water cool things. It mght be good practise to keep things cool even when i can afford a new cpu. ( im led to believe that the news chips would run cooler than an overclocked q6600 anyways.)

I need a reasonable psu that's reliable , i'm budgeting around £70 new or second hand. If i Need to alter budgets though just advise please.

Graphics card i think im covered with, however if anyone knows any bargains i'm all ears.

Mother board. Now this is a grey area, how do i know if my current board is suitable fro overclocking and will handle everything else.

In the long term, but this may be quite a while off - just to give people want i want to do, i would upgrade processor - prob i7 or high end i5 , along with a sd bootable drive and keep my current drive and poss another one - something like 1tb or 2 tb.

Lastly am i being daft thinking of overclocking, i just saw it as a nice stop gap with a perforamance increase.

AS before thanks in advance. really is much appreciated.

Best regards

Col.