So I'm in the market for a PC. I only have this little crappy laptop (girlfriends) and I really want to play Morrowind modded with MGE and all the nice graphic mods and I want to play Skyrim on at least higher settings.

So how expensive would it be to get a computer than could accomplish these two things? I'm really only interested in playing these two games plus maybe WoW (but WoW isn't hard to run at all so that isn't a factor). So how much would a rig that can do this run? I'm hoping I can do it for less than a grand.

I'm not looking for specifics, other than a nice CPU and GPU. Anything else is pretty much like what can I do to get by to meet those requirements (morrowind MGE mods+Skyrim)

I'm really not a tech person so any advice would be beneficial.

Easily. A powerful GPU and CPU should only cost you around $300-$400 total, and the rest is cheaper than those parts (With the exception of the monitor).

Morrowind is a pretty CPU intensive game right? so i figure getting a good Cpu is the way to go to run MGE (Morrowind Graphics Extender). Plus a good GPU for the high res textures.

Yes, I would say Morrowind is heavier on the CPU than anything else, especially if you're wanting extra NPC mods and a long visual distance in MGE. You'll need a strong graphics card if you want the fancy filters with "god rays", super reflective water, and to run Skyrim on high settings, though.

If you want my recommendation on the CPU, I'd say an i5 2500K is all you'll ever need for a while. Graphics cards, on the other hand, are upgraded more frequently than CPUs, and while I may have recommended, say, a 560 ti many months ago, there's likely a better card for the same price by now.

Yep, that's why I need an expert to help me with deciding a nice build and a nice GPu. I have known the i5 2500k CPU is great, but I have no idea what GPu I would need for my needs.

Ok, I apologize for not contributing, but I must ask this now. Is the i5 better than the i7? I'm using an i7 2600 at 3.4 with some sort of turbo boost hokus pokus, which I thought was really good, but a lot of people with expensive GPU/HD/RAM setups have i5 CPUs. Can someone educate me on this?

The i5 gives more bang for your buck.

If you really want some top quality help, go post this request in the Community Tech Thread. Multiple people over there that post all the time and give out high quality advice.

The i7 series is more powerful than the i5 series, but it is just not worth the cost difference to get an i7, as a good i5 (like an i5-2500k) will be more than enough for any modern game for awhile yet.

And for the OP, If all you need is the ability to play skyrim, a $600 rig would easily suffice.. but if you want it to last a few more years you can spend a bit more. I think the 7850 is a great bang for your buck, you can get one ~$200 and it can easily max out skyrim.. Similarly, a ~$200 CPU like an i5-3750k is again more than enough. You don't need more than 8gb ram.

You could easily go lower than either of these, but there is no reason at all to go higher if all you need to play is skyrim/morrowind.

No it's not. It's exactly as powerful, it's just better at distributing that power for processes that are multi-threaded. The only difference is hyperthreading.

Yeah, I guess "power" was a bad word to use... I should have just said "better"

The i7-2600k is about $80 more at newegg compared to the i5-3570k ($229 vs 309).

If you will primarily be using your PC for gaming, I doubt you'll see much difference at all in performance for games, other than CPU-dependent strategy games, perhaps very slight improvement in a few non-strategy games that are more CPU-bound as well.

On the other hand, if you will use a lot of apps that benefit from hyper threading, like video editing, creative suite apps, etc., it could be worth the additional $80.

Oh, ok. That makes sense. I didn't build this computer, I just ordered it. It was cheaper than to order the exact same loose parts from what I gathered. I probably could have made a better computer for the same price, though. (skipping out on the i7 & 2tb etc for a better graphics & ram).

The computer did arrive at my house in less than 16 hours, though, and I paid for standard 14 day shipping.