[smithsmith]

(Original post by just george)
Drivers you really ought to keep up to date anyway, whoever built the pc in the first place. Future gpu upgrades shouldnt be a problem, they are all compatible with each other

no i mean if i build it myself how will i find the drivers and the good drivers, and what type of motherboard would i need to do a future sli or upgrade the gpu instead

[just george]

(Original post by smithsmith)
no i mean if i build it myself how will i find the drivers and the good drivers, and what type of motherboard would i need to do a future sli or upgrade the gpu instead

You get the mobo drivers on a disk with it, so you install them first. then you just download the latest gpu drivers from the amd or nvidia website..

For sli/crossfire you would need a motherboard with 2+ pci-e slots (pci-e = pci-express). sli=2+nvidia cards, crossfire=2+ amd cards. The motherboard specs would tell you which one it supports.
If you just upgrade the gpu, then any motherboard will still support it. Although make sure its atleast pci-e 2.0 (if you get 3.0 even better, as it has more bandwidth so will be more future proof for new graphics cards (2.0 would still be compatible just might very slightly restrict the performance )) - dont think you'd find a mobo with anything less than 2.0 now anyway

Id probably say better to just stick with upgrading the gpu though rather than going for sli/crossfire. By the time you need the extra performance of multiple cards, a later generation of graphics cards will have come out that would use less power than sli and give better performance, for the same price as the extra card

[smithsmith]

(Original post by just george)
"2+ pci-e slots"

thanks. what would be the function of the pci-e slots, will i be able to upgrade with 2 slots or would i need more or what

[just george]

the pci-e slot is the socket the gpu plugs into



So if you have one, you stick in a gpu. if you then want to upgrade, you take it out and stick in a new one
If you have two, you can run sli/crossfire, or just use one of the slots

[NuclearFusion]

(Original post by burgergetsbored)
ah tbh I just priced up a few of the same components as you put in the top build and it came out at around £800 so not much cheaper really.

Mind if I got that right that graphics card came up at around £330?! Pretty expensive seeing as a £200- £250 card will run pretty much all the latest games out on high at the moment?

A GTX 570 shouldn't be £330, you were probably mistaken for the GTX 580 (which is around £320 upwards atm), 570's are more like £210-£300 (£300 for a highly overclocked 2.5Gb version)