Graphics card upgrade for Skyrim

So I was going to wait to get Skyrim until after getting a new computer, but it looks like that will be a while now and all my friends were talking about how awesome it is last night during D&D.

I looked at the system reqs and I believe all I need is a new graphics card, and maybe a power supply to support it.

I have:
2x Intel Pentium 4
4GB RAM
a PCI-e x16 port (NOT PCI-e 2.0)
305W power supply
NVIDIA GeForce 7300le graphics card

I need:
Dual Core 2.0GHz (min), Quad Core Intel (recommended)
4GB RAM (recommended)
Direct X 9.0c compliant video card with 512 MB of RAM (min), DirectX 9.0c compatible NVIDIA or AMD ATI video card with 1GB of RAM (recommended)


I have been looking at these cards:
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My questions are:
1. would any of these cards run Skyrim decently, and if so which one would be best?
2. would I need to also get a new power supply? (The card I have says it needs 350W minimum, but my 305W supply has had no problems with it, and the ones I have looked at mostly say 300W minimum.)

Both of those cards are pretty bad. The 520 is outperformed by the 220, and is about even with the really old 9500GT. A 430 will actually perform about twice as good as the 520, and is cheaper on newegg than either of the cards you posted. And you can see in this benchmark at Toms Hardware that the 430 will run Skyrim decently.

I fact, I might would even go with this 240. Video card pricing is always strange, and Newegg has the 240 for about the same price as the 430, and the 240 is a better performer. XFX is a solid brand as well. The 240 does want a 350W power supply though. You might would be fine with your 305, but if you got a new one I would recommend going with Corsair for excellent quality and good performance.

Will those cards still perform well enough in a PCI-e 1.0 port instead of a 2.0?

isiz wrote:Will those cards still perform well enough in a PCI-e 1.0 port instead of a 2.0?

Top end video cards lose less than 5% dropping from a x16 to a x8 slot (x8 2.0 = x16 1.0). Low end cards would lose even less.