Upgrade later?

[OliMarks]

I'm looking to buying a reasonably high specification Gaming PC but I have limited funds.
To limit the upfront cost, would it be possible to choose lower specification equipment, such as 8Gb of ram instead of 16Gb and 500Gb HDD instead of 1Tb and upgrade myself later?
Is it easy/possible to do this myself or do I risk invalidating the warranty or breaking my shiny new PC?

 

[Fear]

You will only need 8GB of ram for a gaming spec PC as even all that will not get used if you are on an extremely tight budget you could get 4GB and upgrade to 8GB at a later date, you can also as you have said buy a cheaper HDD and upgrade it yourself later and they are both easy to do and the only way you will void your warranty is if you actually break something when installing any new components also if the new compnents you fit are not from PCS and they cause a problem this can void the warranty too.

If you can post your budget and tell us exactly what you will be using it for ie. video/photo editing, gaming, general web browsing etc. then any extras you need monitor, mouse, keyboard etc. abd we can try and come up with some suggested specs for you.

 

[OliMarks]

Thanks for the reply!
My maximum budget is around £1400 but anywhere closer to £1000 is preferable.
I'm looking for a machine that will be able to cope with a range of processes, from gaming (Newest releases) to video editing and multi-tasking.
I'm thinking of duel Nvidia graphics cards (I'm thinking of buying 3 monitors when I have the money) but I don't know the best one for me.
I'm currently working from a laptop but have a Razor mamba gaming mouse, so I will need a keyboard and monitor.
I won't be doing any overclocking so that isn't an issue but I would like a PC that can handle anything I throw at it.

 

[Fear]

Well you have a plenty high enough budget to not need to worry about upgrades for quite a while unless you need to add more storage space and the new GTX680 will run 3 monitors on it's own.

Case
COOLERMASTER HAF 922 MID TOWER GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-2600 Quad Core (3.40GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z77-V: PCI-E 3.0 READY, WIFI, SLI, CROSSFIREX
Memory (RAM)
16GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (4 X 4GB)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 680 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1[SUP]st[/SUP] Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1[SUP]st[/SUP] DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£69)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE INTEL CPU COOLER (£19)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,361.00 including VAT and delivery.

 

[OliMarks]

Thanks for the help, but does that include 1 monitor to start with?

 

[Fear]

Thanks for the help, but does that include 1 monitor to start with?

Nope no monitors so you want 1 i will see what i can adjust to fit 1 in but before i do is there anything else you need as you had not said.

 

[Fear]

Scratch that i am going blind :whistling: you said monitor and keyboard my mistake

 

[OliMarks]

Don't worry! I could have highlighted what I wanted more

 

[Fear]

Right sorry about that and this is slightly over your max budget but would be worth the extra if you can manage it, i have dropped the ram to just 8GB but you can see how you go on with it and that is a very easy upgrade if you need to add another 8GB in at a later date and i also dropped the HDD down to a 750GB but this should be enough to keep you going for a good while and i only selected a cheap keyboard which tbh is all you need if you want a fancy backlit keyboard i would just buy 1 at a later date when you have the money for 1 as i would rather get the best spec i could afford and get any luxury addons later anyway seee what you think.

Case
COOLERMASTER HAF 922 MID TOWER GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-2600 Quad Core (3.40GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z77-V: PCI-E 3.0 READY, WIFI, SLI, CROSSFIREX
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 680 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1[SUP]st[/SUP] Hard Disk
750GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD7502AAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1[SUP]st[/SUP] DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£69)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE INTEL CPU COOLER (£19)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Monitor
IIYAMA E2273HDS 22" LED WIDESCREEN, HDMI/DVI-D 1920x1080 (£129)
Keyboard & Mouse
LOGITECH® K200 USB MEDIA KEYBOARD (£10)
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,436.00 including VAT and delivery.

 

[OliMarks]

Thank you for your help,
The GTX680 seems very expensive however, do you think that it would be better if I were to get duel 560ti 2GB's , would I get the same performance? better / worse?
because they are considerably cheaper together than the one itself?

 

[OliMarks]

Also should I get different sound card? I listen to quite allot of music and I like my quality, how bad is the inbuilt card?

 

[Fear]

I have not looked to compare the difference between the 2 but i would always reccomend 1 strong card over 2 lesser cards, if i remember correctly 2 GTX560Ti cards would perform better than a single GTX580 but the new GTX680 is quite a lot better than the GTX580 so you may find it better or around the same but i think the GTX680 will be better, also you have to remember that the Sli bonus does not always work out better on some games as some games do not have support for them or just don't work very well so in that case you will lose out drastically and remeber if 1 card goes you will either end up replacing it and pairing it with a card that has been running for however long and could be close to failing itself or just buying either a new top end card to replace them both or looking as you are now of getting 2 lesser cards, i hope i have not really baffled you with this i just want to make sure you are clear on what happens with either choice.

 

[keynes]

The GTX 680 should perform slightly better (just by checking some benchmarks) but the GTX 560 ti SLI would be hotter, louder and consume more power.

 

[Fear]

Also should I get different sound card? I listen to quite allot of music and I like my quality, how bad is the inbuilt card?

The majority of people are really happy with the onboard sounds that are out now but me personally i have to have a soundcard as i can tell the difference but i would not get a soundcard at the cost of another part of the build as this is another thing that you could easily add at a later date if you are not happy with onboard sound.

 

[OliMarks]

Thanks, I think I will go with the GTX 680, less confusing