Nah, he probably could at low settings, but an upgrade would be so worth.
so from having friends playing AAA games on 470's and 480's right now I kinda feel you all are blowing things a little out of proportion on the return on the longevity of graphics cards relevance. Especially at 1080p where everything in the current gen of cards $200 or more can get 100fps or close to in most games on high or ultra settings.
Maybe try this: just nail down everything else, storage, network, the rest of the tower... and after that look what you can afford.