Hi there. As we all know by now, Skyrim recommends a quad core at least for processing power if you want to play it on PC. Ok, great, but what about Dual core? I know that satisfies the minimum, but my question is HOW does a dual core (AMD 2 X2 220 2.8Gh) efffect gameplay?

Right now, I have a pretty good video card. It's a GTX 550Ti by EVGA. I also have 5 gigs of RAM running Windows 7 on an x64 system plus oodles of space left on my rig. According to the specs, everything here is gravy and then some. EXCEPT that processor.

As a test, I played a demo of ARMA 2 that demands a quad core, and I had no probles playing it a full-tilt. I know, it's only a demo, so there might be differences from the full release, but anyway, what does a lesser processor do to stunt gameplay? Would I expect lag, or poor textures? Would it be blurry or would the animations look like a Gumby stop-motion cartoon?

I figured I probably would not get to run this on ultra, and that's all right, but I would like to get as close to high settings as possible, especially since I'm paying 60 bucks for this. Not really a big graphics fiend, but I really care about performance.

Any gurus out there know what I could expect with this? Remember, good video card and RAM, but a shaky dual core, with above-recommended gigahertz.

I'm in virtually the same boat except my processor is lightly faster (3.2Ghz). Would like to know!

It will play nice. But consider your CPU a bottleneck, and think about upgrading it.
However, bear in mind AMD's have lower performance-per-cycle than Intel's

You can probably expect longer loading times and draw distance

i have CoreE8500 3.16ghz
4gigs of ram
560GTX Gygabite
Win 7 64bit
what abbout me ?

Hey, nice is good enough for me! SOLD!

But, yeah. It's like, now that I have a great card, my PROCESSOR is going dino! Heh, you can never win, eh?

I think the PC system specs assumes there is a bunch of apps running in the background along with Anti-Virus hogging a large chunk of the system resources.

If Oblivion and Fallout run fine on your system, it's probably a good bet Skyrim will too.

Pretty much everything that is not graphic related is run on the CPU. I.E: AI, damage, dice rolls, etc.

This will cause your FPS to drop randomly during intense battles and such.

Loading time is memory related so it won't be affected.

Best of luck mate

here's my system
Core2Duo E8400 3.0ghz
4GB DDR2 Ram
460GTX 1GB black edition
Win 7 64Bit

I really hope I can run it as I want to buy it this weekend

Yeah, I can run anything (so far) by Bethesda on full-jack. This, I probably cannot, but like I said, just want it to look and play nice, it doesn't need to be Ultra. Thanks for the feedback guys!

quad cores are not technically needed in the majority of games BC2 is a very CPU intensive game and I could play it with a old GPU and even more ancient CPU (1.8ghz!) and ran fine.

Skyrim you should be on medium at least if your card is decent enough

i want max not medium

Ok, I hear a lot of complaint.
This are my specs and I know (unless they messed up BIG TIME with thread optimization, like in OB) It'll play smooth on medium.
C2D E7500 OC@2.9GHz
4GB DDR2 RAM
GeForce GT 240 1GB VRAM
Win7 64x

And this is the system I'm getting in January, which I know will max it out.

CPU: AMD Phenom II x6 1055T
GPU: ATI Radeon HD6870 1GB VRAM
RAM: 4GB DDR3 1333

PD: For console supremacists, my new PC is going to cost me just 50€ more than a new XBOX360

Both of those CPU's ("Wolfdale") were cream of the crop back in 2008, and for gaming were a better choice over the early quad-core Q6600. I don't think either you will get bottlenecked by your CPU's. Try it on high and if the framerates get bad, just drop it to medium. It will also depend on your screen resolution.

As for OP, the AMD X2 220 is a lower-end dual-core, but again shouldn't be a bottleneck with your 550 GPU. Try it on high or medium and drop it down if necessary.

When gaming companies say "quad-core recommended", it's really just in a general sence. They simply can't cover every CPU out there.

Lol your rig is actually a lot better than his

OK, if you have a great/good video card, heaps of RAM and only a dual-core processor, it matters not. The game defaulted on high for my dual core (GTX 550Ti 3.2 gb VRAM). So, don't fear if you only have dual core. Plays great., looks great Loving it!