Opinion on potential upgrade

[DarkStar]

Hi, all

My brother needs to upgrade his PC at the moment, and I've built together a budget list of components.

He uses his PC to game casually. He plays the odd adventure of Skyrim, and plays LoL very often.
Important note: He games usually at a max rez of 1024x768. (He has a 17" CRT screen).

What he current has:
AMD Athlon X2 6000+
2GB DDR2 800 RAM
(Not sure on motherboard).
No GFX card (Died)
No PSU (Also died).
320GB Seagate
1TB Samsung




Basically, I wanted to upgrade everything save his case and harddrives.

Intel Pentium G620: R580. (http://www.prophecy.co.za/intel-pentium ... 96635.html)
Gigabyte H61M-DS2: R530 (http://www.prophecy.co.za/gigabyte-h61m ... html#!tab1)
8GB Corsair RAM: R410 total (http://www.prophecy.co.za/corsair-cmv4g ... 96767.html)
Radeon HD6670 215MB GDDR5: R850 (http://www.prophecy.co.za/sapphire-rade ... 91458.html)
Gigabyte Odin 585W PSU: R600 (http://www.prophecy.co.za/gigabyte-odin ... 31569.html)


In total the price comes to R2900.

My concern is mainly the graphics card. For exactly the same price, I can get the Radeon HD6670 1GB GDDR3.
What would be better? The 6670 512MB GDDR5, or the 1GB GDDR3? (I'm leaning towards the 512MB card).

In addition, would his PC suffice with just the PSU and graphics card? (For now, at least) and we can upgrade at a later stage?


And one last question, related to my own PC. I have a Core2 E6300, 8GB DDR3 RAM and a GeForce 9400GT 1GB. My screen has a rez of 1440x900. Would said Radeon (6670 512MB) suffice on my computer? (Playing games like Skyrim).


Thanks.

[DarkStar]

Small bump.

No opinions on this, please?

[StarBound]

All depends on how you run the game. eg I run 40-60+ fps at max detail with even more added detail. My card is used 99% according to MSI AB and up to 1480mb used. I would recommend a 6770 or 5770 instead of the 6670. Just that much more power.

[StarBound]

Mr DS

Today is your lucky day. This is what you can expect from that setup.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pen ... ,3140.html

Sticking to my oppinion, it won't cut it in my books. But atleast he/you can know what to expect now.

[DarkStar]

Not good enough, you say?

Actually, those figures reveal that the DDR3 card will be perfect for my brother - and I intend on getting him the GDDR5 variant.

Also - keep in mind that we're on a VERY tight budget. I believe that even R820 is a little more than what we can technically afford at the moment - hence why we're not considering the 5770 etc. etc.

Thanks

[D3PART3D]

In that case, why are you considering 8gb of ram? You don't need it.

[DarkStar]

My brother is very techno-retarded.

8GB of RAM will a) be future proofing and b) make head-way for whatever carp he decides to install on his PC.

[StarBound]

No no no... That logic is a misguidedly hopeful at best. But on the other hand I don't think 4GB will be that much less expensive. However fooling yourself into future proofing with either that board or cpu or even gfx is a sad sad deal. But as you said your so limited to budget that it is be happy with what you get.

Have you considered an xbox or ps3?

[DarkStar]

Yes.

And I can't afford it.

Spending R3000 on the console, fair enough. Then I have to pay R700 for every game thereafter.

I'd much rather get my games on Steam, at discount, thank you very much.