New graphics card for an old machine for tomorrow!

[Pinkeyes]

Help! - Its my daughters birthday tomorrow.
She loves Skyrim - or did until a couple of weeks ago and our aged Xbox 360 died.

I'm hoping to get Skyrim running on my old gaming PC for tomorrow night. I bought it on Steam with the hope it would cope and could play it. Its bordering on playable - but stutters and slows down far too often.

My spec is a Q6600 CPU, on a DP35DP Intel Motherboard and 4GB corsair RAM. 2
It has a 8800 GTX Graphics card. Skyrim tested it as "low settings" and I lowered the settings even further to run at the lowest resolution. It still lags a lot - There isn't much left I can do!

Is there a graphics card around the £100 price I could pick up tomorrow and make this game work for her on the above speced PC ?

I'm regretting not picking up a 2nd hand Xbox now, but I have already thrown the money for the game (and official guide + addons) at this, and if I could get this PC running well, she has my 83 game steam library to go at until we decide what to do next (next gen console, new PC etc)

Getting a bit desperate now. I've looked online at cards, but I'm a bit out of touch with gaming PCs and would really appreciate some help.

Thanks!

 

[VaderDSL]

What about a 7850? OcUK have one for £107 at the moment. http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-081-HS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=411

not sure if there's anything better?

Seems you can get OK frames with it according to http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2012/11/05/msi-radeon-hd-7850-1gb-review/5

Does it use 1 X 6pin PSU connector? If so maybe need to check the PSU as well.

 

[Pinkeyes]

Thank you! My PSU does have a 6 pin connector, so I should be ok.

 

[Sasahara]

If it can run a 8800 GTX then the HD 7850 will be no problem as it uses slightly less power. And a lot less on idle.

There is a down side though, as the 8800 GTX was good as a foot heater (if you have the pc by your feet).

 

[pumaz]

If you can afford a little extra a MSI HD 7850 2GB can be had for £123 which will give you double the memory

 

[Pinkeyes]

yes, agree with the foot heater comment, especially with winter approaching

Are the rest of my bits going to cope ok? Back when I built the PC every tiny upgrade brought about a new PC, so I expect I will very quickly have to upgrade the rest too ?