AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz
GTX 550 ti
Win 7 32 bit
4 GB RAM

I'm trying to run the HD Texture Pack.

I was told the combination of my GPU and OS wasn't good enough.

Would upgrading the GPU be enough? I thought a 550 ti was better than a 260 but obviously I was wrong. I know the 260 is old so what should I look for?

Or do I need to do both?

Upgrade your OS to a 64bit version, since 32bit can't http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAM_limit#32-bit_x86_RAM_limit more then 3GB of RAM.

To run HD textures well, you need a graphics card with more than 1 GB of VRAM. They will run on 1 GB cards, but you're likely to have problems such as stuttering, popping and missing textures.

OK, thank you for the reply!

Those are the problems I'm having: missing textures, stuttering and CTD's

Any recommendations? NVIDIA preferred...

Thanks again for the reply!

I'm running it fine on near Ultra settings at 1080p with a GTX 560 Ti that has 2 GB of VRAM. If you're going to upgrade your GPU, you'd probably want to go higher than that, to make the upgrade worthwhile. Just make sure the card you do select has more than 1 GB of VRAM.

Also, seriously consider upgrading to a 64-bit OS as previously recommended. A 32-bit OS can only address about 3.25 GB of system RAM. While Skyrim itself can't use any more than that, being able to go beyond 4 GB of RAM (which a 64-bit OS permits) allows Windows that much more room to load services and processes, and gives Skyrim and other games more RAM to use themselves.