Design of one part too different from another?

I'm am trying to decide whether or not to change the design of our forum to somthing different from the rest of the site. I wanted to create a bigger contrast between the forums and the rest of the site. But I'm afraid it may have gone to far.

Since this is on a testing server, I can't upload it. Here are two screen shots. (56k warning)

This is the design of the main page and most of the site

This is the posible design of the new forums

Thanks for taking the time to look at these. Let me know if you feel the two design are too different from eachother.

By keeping the same scheme with the forum and the rest of the site, the users will naturally relate the two together. You want to keep continuity across the whole site.

Personally, I'd make them more similar.

I agree. You don't want the user to think that they have left your site and gone to another.