Sapphire HD5770 sketchup

[roomarch]

Hello,
I'm looking to upgrade my work PC and have two options:

Shell out £1500-2000 for a decent workstation PC (HP or Dell) or upgrade using existing case, PSU optical drives etc.

The upgrade route I was thinking of was Phenom II x6, M4A89GTD PRO MB, 8GB Ram and either a workstation GPU (Firepro v5800) or a mainstream card (Vapor-X HD5770)

I am an architect, I work mostly in 2d using Intellicad (to cheap for autocad) and I do most of my 3d work in sketchup with final renders in kerkythea. I run two monitors, I don't run anything to heavy like solidworks so my question is...

Is there likely to be any noticeable difference between the Firepro card and the HD5770? I run sketchup on an old GeForce FX 5900xt and it is just about bearable.

I'd rather not spend the cash unless the performance of the firepro is going to be WAY better.

Thanks in advance

 

[roomarch]

Sorry I should have added that I don't play games (bad coordination, never been good at them) and the only other things I do are general office type things (word, excel etc)

cheers

 

[wa1]

If you don't play games at all then a mainstream card like HD5770 is enough.
Work on Photoshop? CS4? You will gain more benefit from Nvidia card, like GTS 250 or even GTX460.

For your need, you will need a FAST CPU better than fast GPU, so your choice Phenom II x6 is good, 8GB of RAM are okay.

 

[roomarch]

Thanks wa1, I'll do a bit more research and see what I can come up with. I've had an offer from Dell for a precision workstation which is only around £200 more than the self build option so I might end up going for that.

Cheers