I'm done with consoles. I want a gaming pc and Skyrim is what inspired me to buy one. My problem is I haven't bought a pc in years. I don't want one I'll have to do any upgrading with for a while. Need help choosing a nice computer. Not sure how much it'll even be or what to get.

I'm really interested in playing Skyrim and Oblivion with mods.

Any help would be great. Thanks.

More a site for the UK but it gives you an idea of how you can customise your own build rather than a well known OEM because they tend to charge your a lot for a crap spec. http://www.scan.co.uk/value-systems?_s_icmp=wSLgUI8x

Whats your budget and screen size?

i7 2600k, geforce 560ti, 8gb ram. Done.

if overclocked, 2600k is the best cpu now without a question. 560ti is very sufficient. expect to dish out like .. 900euro. Thing is, a gpu is easier to upgrade than a cpu. And GPUs get obsolete very fast. So its pointless to spend money here. But you cant change CPU sockets easily( or should i say, for cheap) The next gpu is coming in march i think and is like 50% faster than the currently available fastest completely overpriced stuff.

See my sig, i have 60fps in 1280x720, 0xAA, 16xAF

Great news.

Budget, location and Laptop/PC preference?

Also it helps if you tells us know now, how comfortable you are with overclocking, since there are many parts that are ideal to get since they perform great beyond their stock settings while saving you money compared to a higher model. However if you know you won't overclock, it's better to buy higher end parts and pay for that, so you don't have to overclock.

you do not need an i7 2600k when an i5 2500k is just as good and alot cheaper. iirc i7 has hyper threading and i5 doesn't, so you wont even be using hyper threading most likely unless you do heavy video editing or things like that where the program actually utilizes hyper threading.

i5 2500k is great for gaming, you wont be sorry

core i5 2500k + third party cooler + overclock
pretty much any p67 or z68 or z77 motherboard
a reputable PSU between 400-500W with good amperage on the 12V rail
nVidia 560 or higher or AMD 6870 or higher
any 4gb of ram
any 7200rpm hard drive 320gb or higher
any DVD player
windows 7 x64 home premium (or pro/ultimate)
any case
any monitor capable of 1920x1080 and a real input lag less than about 25ms.

i5 2500k is nice too, although it has 6MB cache ( vs i7 8MB). And everything loves cache, cant upgrade that too.

i have i5 2500k which is a bit overclocked, i overclocked it 0.3ghz and the temp only went up 5 degrese, im thinking of getting a new fan so i can overclock it even further and save myself some money in the process,
im using Radeon HD 6900 series with 8gb ram i run battlefield maxed out at 40-50 fps, it only costed me 6000skr ~ 580 euro for a complete computer (this was almost a year ago)
I think you could get my computer for as low as 450-500 euro, which is really a hell of a computer for that amount of money

If you are intressted i can post my specs a bit more detailed here

I'm looking to spend about 1500 us dollars. Not sure if I can get eveythjng I want. I'm not sure what any of the computer lingo means so I should probably buy from a company. I was looking at a alienware for 2199. They say it's an awesome gaming computer. Not sure though. I know if I built my own I can probably get a lot more for that price but I know it says it has 12 gb ram and looks cool as hell.

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1316509-unofficial-will-my-pc-run-skyrim-thread-56-w-hardware-guide/

There's a sticky on this

Alienware is grossly overpriced and not needed. seriously they may have great components but you can get a PC that is not overkill for around ￡800 that will play anything just fine on 60fps +

over here in the UK when i bought mine it cost me ￡550 (at the time aroud $890) and it still plays Skyrim just fine this was about 3years ago? not 100% sure basically crisis etc all run fine on 60fps they eye cant see faster than 30fps anyway no matter what people tell you it is scientifically proven.

basically buy a cheaper PC Tower preferably without office etc as thats a waste of space. make sure it has an up-to-date processor, Graphics card/video card and is well ventilated with wire management.

that should set you back about $800 $1200 with a good mouse/keyboard and screen. you could even find it cheaper to be honest.

so many people think ''oh man i need a new pc to run this'' and that is mostly un-true sometimes ofcourse its cheaper to buy a new PC than buy the components but for example you can pick up an up to date graphics card for $60-100 (￡30-60) and have no problem running anything whatsoever shove a few more ram sticks in and it is literally as easy as open and click in.

dont egt ripped off stay away from alienware and instead for the price difference get a nice keyboard and a nice comfortable mouse.

ebay / amazon have great deals and all have warranties and return polices.


here is a great example:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Gateway-FX6803-25-Core-i7-930-9-GB-1-5TB-HD-Gaming-Computer-Desktop-PC-/270890220295?pt=Desktop_PCs&hash=item3f1250bb07

spend more if you wish but that should run whatever just about fine. the graphics card is two years old but you can easily buy a newer one for $60 in mint condition.

mines pretty simulary specced and runs crisis and skyrim on ultra although i choose to run things on medium as i hate the idea of over-using cards ive already brunt two out haha but that wa when i played around 8hours a day now im down to 2....if that.

Whatever you do dont buy an alienware.. its like buying a MAC for gaming, overpriced and not needed :/
i have a list here.. i can tell you everything i got when i brought mine:

Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD3 REV B3
500GB Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD502HJ
Corsair 8GB (2x4096MB) 1600MHz XMS3
Intel Core i5 2500K 3,3GHz
PowerColor Radeon HD6950 2GB
Cooler Master Elite 430
Corsair CX 600W V2 80+
Samsung SH-222AB, SATA Svart OEM
~ 1 096 dollar
And that was 9-10 months ago, we also got pretty high VAT in Sweden..
This computer maxes skyrim, it has about 40-50 fps in BF3 maxed out (minor overclocking)

This.

If you have money to spare, consider getting 8gb ram and a gefore 560 ti instead of the 6870, but it isn't necessary. You can assemble it yourself, it isn't very hard at all.

If you do get a pre-built computer, Dell is actually pretty good. Take a look at what your local shops offer as well. I would suggest posting the specs here or on another board just to make sure that they aren't cutting corners.
If you have LOTS of money to spend, http://www.falcon-nw.com/ is the best out there. They have been around for a long time, and their customer service is amazing. If you are going to spend 1200+ you might as well get the best money can buy, and that isn't Alienware.

Edit: The numbers game...

No game made yet uses more than 6gb ram.
Video cards that have 2gb of ram or more are for multiple monitors. They don't make anything faster if you are just gaming at 1080p.
Likewise, most games don't benefit from more than 4 cores, so i7's are almost pointless (They are slightly faster and have better cache, but benchmarks comparing the i5 2500k to the i7s are almost identical for gaming.)

I heard that it is wise to pair Intel/Nvidia and Ati/AMD. Does anydody have this configuration to confirm it works stable ?

Works perfect for me,no crashes and all games flows perfect

I have a stable intel 2500k and AMD 4870. Doesn't seem like chip architecture has much effect on video cards.

You heard wrong. All configurations are as stable as each other. The best value for money in Skyrim would be Intel CPU and AMD GPU.

See I have a computer that I built through dell about 4 or 5 years ago. I spent around 2100 usd. I got the best sound and graphics card. I'm wondering if I can use that and just upgrade for cheaper than buying a new computer. Right now it's not working. I need to do a reformat but it ran great until 6 months ago. Not sure if I should do something with that.

It's a inspiron 531.

If you have the motherboard from http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/inspd531/en/om/appendix.htm, then yeah you can probably upgrade it...

AMD is pretty backwards compatible so you could get a newer gaming processor like the Phenom II 965 BE, and there is a 16x pcie slot for a modern video card. I don't have much experience with AMD systems though, there may be serious drawbacks to using an older motherboard socket that I don't know about. Maybe someone else can weigh in on that

You will still need a power supply. Yours is 300 watts, which may not be enough, not to mention it is quite old and at risk of failing. Same with the hard drive, reliability plummets around the 5 year mark.

So in conclusion, you can upgrade, but you will still be replacing a lot of stuff and be stuck using some pretty gnarly old components.

Edit: haha... in fact the only parts you would have left from the old computer would be the case, ram, motherboard and cd drive. And you will need more ram if you don't already have 4gb.

Whatever you do, the more vram in whatever video card you end up with the better, Skyrim loves to eat vram and you will love to feed it that vram in the form of sweet lookin' high resolution 3rd party textures and other mods. A card(or cards in tandem) with 1GB(each) will quickly saturate that amount of vram with Skyrim once you start piling on the pretties. At this point I tend to recommend minimum 1.5GB vram to be a very happy camper (if you're into 3rd party mods and this is exactly the sort of game that loves them). Note on that tandem part: If you use a double GPU card or two cards the game only effectively sees the contents of one GPU's worth of vram since that's how the scaling works. More vram/GPU is indeed the rule for Skyrim.

Isnt skyrim more of a processorkiller?ive heard both shadows and lightningeffects are rendered trough the CPU

Oh its an 'everything' killer for sure, but the most assured hard-wall you'll meet first with an exceptional system is the vram of the video card. You can't just add more of the stuff so the card you buy's quantities are what you're stuck with if OP buys a 2500 or 2600K for instance that CPU consumption will be back-benched for sure, I've yet to see Skyrim consuming more then about 60% of the 8vcores and that's forcing it to try with silly things like fights involving over 100 NPCs

ED: Oh and to preempt the FUDspreaders 'but skyrim doesn't use all your CPU! lawls!' :
http://img849.imageshack.us/img849/6788/skythread03angrydrunks.jpg
Wuts this? all 8 being used for something? Yah, Skyrim uses the whole CPU it just often enough doesn't have to.

In gonna just buy new.

I want to get the best I can get for around 1500. That's for the screen keyboard and mouse. I think I can do it.

Personally

Should be able to do that VERY easily.

intel i5 2500 Socket 1155 CPU
Asus P8H67-M Evo Socket 1155 Motherboard
ATI Radeon 6950 2gb video card
Seagate Momentus XT 7200 500gb hardrive
2x4gb Patriot DDR3-1600mhz Dual channel ram
Coolermaster 700watt/Corsair 700watt Power Supply
Pioneer/ASUS Blu-ray/dvd/cd RW drive SATA
Coolermaster 690 II Advanced Rev 3.0 Case
Asus 27" VE278Q 1920x1080 Monitor
Microsoft Erganomic 4000 Keyboard
Logitech G9 Mouse
Logitech Z323 2.1 Speakers
APC VA1000 UPS

If my website numbers work out right, that should put you right in the ballpark of 1500 USD