Simple Video Card Question

[Militant]

A good friend of mine who basically knows next to nothing about the technical aspects, asked me to design a PC for him based on one of the options on the dell.com site. (I know, he could build a better PC for less money, but he said he doesn't have the cash to lay out, and dell has offered him financing to cover it thus making it affordable for him). Most of the choices have been pretty easy to make, but the one where I'm struggling at for him (being I don't know a whole lot about video cards) is the video card option. Right now I have it built with the ATI Radeon 5670, but for an additional 80 bucks, he can get the 5770. Simply put, is it worth the 80 bucks extra for the 5770? Thanks in advance. He wants to do some moderate gaming, along with the usual multimedia and browsing. He plays different FPS, and he did mention he likes the way FF14 is looking. Will the 5670 be sufficient, or should I get him to opt for the 5770?

[SaviorSelf]

Does he have any other options? Or he could just get the cheapest GPU option and buy the card separately...

Cheapest 5670 on newegg is 80, cheapest 5770 is 130. Either way he's getting ripped off, but the card is decent.

[Militant]

I suppose that would be an option, but as I stated he is not the most tech savvy guy. He's basically looking to open the box, set it up, and be set for a good year or two. This is what I have spec'd out so far:

PROCESSORS Intel® Core™ i7-860 processor(8MB Cache, 2.80GHz) edit
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64Bit, English edit
MEMORY 6GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz - 4 DIMMs edit
MONITOR 20" Dell ST2010 HD Widescreen Monitor edit
VIDEO CARD ATI Radeon HD 5670 1GB GDDR5 edit
HARD DRIVE 750GB - 7200RPM, SATA 3.0Gb/s, 16MB Cache edit

edit: Radeon 5770 was ordered.

[SaviorSelf]

How much for that?

I mean putting in a GPU doesn't require too much knowledge; it is just as simple as it looks in any video you could find of it. If you know what you're doing you could help him do it perhaps?

Here's a chart for reference:

Spoiler: show

# Radeon Ares HD5870X2 4GB
# Radeon HD5970 4GB
# Radeon HD5970 2GB
# Geforce GTX 480 1536MB
# Geforce GTX 295 1792MB
# Radeon HD4870X2 2GB
# Radeon HD5870 2GB
# Radeon HD5870 1GB
# Geforce GTX 470 1280MB
# Radeon HD5850 1GB
# Radeon HD4850X2 2GB
# Geforce GTX 285 2GB
# Geforce GTX285 1GB
# Geforce GTX 460 2GB
# Geforce GTX 460 1GB
# Geforce GTX 465 1GB
# Radeon HD4850X2 1GB
# Geforce GTX 460 768MB
# Radeon HD5830 1GB
# Geforce GTX 275 1792MB
# Radeon HD4890 2GB
# Geforce GTX 280 1GB
# Geforce 9800GX2 1GB
# Geforce GTX 275 896MB
# Radeon HD4890 1GB
# Geforce GTX 260-216 896MB
# Radeon HD4870 1GB
28. Radeon HD5770 1GB
# Radeon HD4870 512MB
# Geforce GTX 260 896MB
# Geforce GTS 450 1GB
# Radeon HD3870X2 1GB
# Radeon HD4860 1GB
# Radeon HD5750 1GB
# Geforce GTS 250 1GB
# Radeon HD4850 1GB
# Geforce 9800GTX+ 512MB/GTS250 512MB
# Geforce 8800Ultra 768MB
# Radeon HD4850 512MB
# Geforce 9800GTX 512MB
# Geforce 8800GTX 768MB
# Radeon HD4770 512MB
# Geforce 8800GTS 512MB (G92)
# Radeon HD4830 512MB
# Geforce 8800GT 1GB /9800GT 1GB
# Geforce 8800GT 512MB/9800GT 512MB/GTS240 512MB
48. Radeon HD5670 1GB

As you can see the jump is quite considerable, but you could get it cheaper if you bought the card separately. Currently the GTX 460 is the sweet spot for price/performance.

[Militant]

With the 5670 its like 1,150ish? IIRC. With the 5770 another 80 bucks. Yeah, I guess I could install it for him, and like you said, order it with the basic GPU.

[Adajer]

Only question is, will the PSU dell installs be strong enough for w/e card he buys. The 5770 is worth the 80 bucks, if you don't buy a separate card.

[Militant]

Ok I told him to go with the 5770. Thanks for that list/the other advice. He knows he could have saved a few dollars buying it through another source, but he was looking to open the box and have it basically ready. Otherwise, how do the other specs I posted above look? Should be a decent comp for SC2, FF14, and whatever else, no?

[Omniyoji]

Awww 4870X2 dropped to 6th I wonder where that crazy ASUS 3GPU 3850 falls on that chart?

[SaviorSelf]

Awww 4870X2 dropped to 6th I wonder where that crazy ASUS 3GPU 3850 falls on that chart?

http://www.overclock.net/graphics-ca...time-last.html

[Emirii]

Well I have a 5670 and it runs games very nice. FFXIV included.

That's my contribution to the thread XD other than (lolDell) but I won't get into that. Happy building.

[Omniyoji]

http://www.overclock.net/graphics-ca...time-last.html

The card's not on the list Actually I was referring to the standalone card against other single cards. Thanks tho it doesn't really matter, the card doesn't exist for us consumers~

I'll google the benchmark scores and compare w/ newer cards.