Hi sifus, my friend will be doing his master's in architecture and is planning to get a new rig. He's gotten some quotes from lowyat, and this is the best suggested rig by the sales assistant:

Intel i5-4570
Gigabyte H87-D3H
Kingston 4GB 1333 x2
Xigmatek Tauro 600W
Sapphire 7850 2GB
Seagate 750GB
LG DVD-RW 24x
Cooler Master Elite 311
AOC E2351FH 23in monitor

Total RM2790

Just wondering if the rig is good enough for his needs, and if the hardware is as good as the staff says they are - we're both noobs when it comes to hardware and PSUs.

He can push his max budget to around 2.9-3k. He'll be reusing his peripherals to save up some cash, so the max budget can be used entirely for the rig.

Thanks in advance!

Thanks for the suggestion

Can the GPU and Xeon processor also handle games on high settings? There will be some gaming from time to time. The 650 is quite an old card right? I'm completely not familiar with Intel Xeon processors

Basically more on RPGs. Plus my friend mentioned that hyper-threading and the GPU can help with lowering rendering times, so he wouldn't mind paying more for better hardware.

How does the 650 compare to the 7850?

Ahh okay. Think I'll stick with the Radeon then. Slightly cheaper too. Thanks!