In all honesty, the game runs great for me.
CPU 2500k @ 3.3GHz
6870 @ stock
Settings Ultra
AA off (using FXAA instead) AFx16

Outside
around 80~100+FPS. Might get to the 70 range in crazy battles.

Inside
.... 100+ FPS. Let's leave it at that.

Cities
Busy cities get me down to 50~60+FPS
And ofcourse depending on day, angle and amount of people in the city, it might get to around 47fps.

My computer runs the game abysmally around NPC's, getting to as low as 25fps in Whiterun on a GTX560ti and an AMD Phenom II 720 OC'ed at 3.2ghz.
However my brother's computer, which is running a GTX 260 and an AMD Phenom II 955 @ stock clocks has no issues with performance whatsoever at Ultra settings.

Not really a solution. I have a Core i7 2600 @ 4.2Ghz and 2 x GTX 580 (SLI Mode). The game runs like [censored].

AMD Athlon 2 630
8 Gig DDR2 Ram
Radeon 6850 1 Gig

Got my setting somewhere between High and Ultra- more closer to ultra then High
8xaa
16xaf
1600x900
Set AA method in AMD CCC to Multi Sample, cause Super Sample kills performance big time in this game

FPS:
30-40 in towns
40-50 outside of towns
60 in dungeons

Apart from the crashes, it runs well. I get some FPS drops when I'm aimed towards certain things, animations most likely. I run everything on high with 2x AA and Anti (when it is on 8x, I get weird FPS problems after about an hour or two). I can probably run in Ultra to be honest, but I think the game looks great as it is.

I run at a solid 60FPS with these specs:

Intel core i5 CPU @ 2.67GHz
Ati Radeon HD 4650
4gb ram
windows 7

It's surprising, my rig isn't that great yet i can run on medium-high!

AMD Phenom II X6
XFX Radeon HD5850 Black Edition
4GB RAM
Windows XP SP3

No problems, runs on Ultra without a hitch. If you have problems, it's you and your hardware/Windows, not the game.

Well, disable your SLI, the game doesn't know that thing. )

A lot of the problems people have been having is because they refuse to lower the settings at all. Yes, your 1500 dollar rig should be able to run the game smoothly on ultra. It doesn't. Get over it and play on High. Just leave it on high! Don't insist on moving everything over after that. Unless there is some other unique problem, I guarantee you will have a good experience with a nice rig on High.

When patches and mods come out later, you'll be able to appreciate it anew with better graphics and settings.

Uhm.

So I got A Phenom Quad II X4 965 3,4GHz, GTX460 OC and 4 GB Ram and I am running from 20fps to 40fps.

Something is quite wrong here. I am using the latest beta drivers from NV. My PC is "clean", I know my sh-t and am experienced with hard/software as well.

Im rnning the game in 1920x1080 with NO AA from the launcher settings. Everything else is maxed out. Some tweaks.

I do, but only because my new PC is rather powerful, getting 50-60 fps with everything maxed (22" screen)

Well, do you know what difference is between high and ultra settings ? Pics ?

Ultra settings with tweaked ini, shadows on High though, just FPS eater. Also got SSAO running through Nvidia driver control. Running on 60-80 FPS outside. About 40-50 in cities, that's alright.

I'm getting excellent performance.

Win 7 64-bit
Intel Core 2 Quad 9650 3ghz
GeForce 560Ti 4GB
8GB DDR2 RAM

All settings maxed out on 1680x1050, 4x AA, 16 x AF, VSync forced off. I'm getting between 50 and 70 FPS.

I'm not happy right now though, I've got this horrible bug where the same sound keeps playing over and over. I think it is related to the Elemental Fury bug (http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Bugs_(Skyrim)) but I didn't cast that spell, I think it happened because I did Ice Form once.

I7 950 @ 4.2GHz
5870(x2)
6GB RAM
W7

Ultra+
1920x1200



I've been fine with it so far, even more so now that AMD released the 11.11 drivers. Though, Crossfire still degrades my experience rather than improve it.

I was getting mostly 42-60 FPS with 1 GPU. Average about 52 FPS. I'd get the same with 2, but it would introduce hitching. Uuuhg, I hate hitching!!! My GPUs were also reading 650/900 rather than 850/1200.

After the 11.11 release I'm now getting 850/1200 with higher FPS and it feels smoother overall with 1 card. The lows aren't so bad. I'm more solidly in the 50's were I was in the 40's before.

I intend to do some graphical tweaking in the ini to see if adding detail bogs it down any. I'm already using the following with little effect..

bTreesReceiveShadows=1
bDrawLandShadows=1

Everything on Ultra at 60fps in 1080p, just waiting on the fix for the stuttering problem that plagues Bethesda games at launch. When it's not stuttering it's a thing of beauty.

XP, only 2GB ram, GeForce 9600GT 516mb but fps is 25-35-70 on hight/ultra settings, not great compare to Oblivion and Fallout but pretty much playable

1280x1024

(gone switch to medium/hight)

Running exceptionally well considering....

Specs:

Motherboard: Asus P6X58D Premium 1366
CPU: Intel i7 930 2.8ghz @ 3.8ghz 200mhz FSB
RAM: Patriot Viper Extreme II 2000mhz 24GB @ 1660mhz 1T command rate Tight timings
Video: 2x HD5770 1GB GDDR5 @ Stock, crossfire Disabled until fix is provided
Audio: Realtek HD Audio 889 Digital Out via Coax
Hardrive: 2x OCZ Vertex 3 120gb Raid 0 Trim disabled V2.15 Firmware on SATA II 3gbps ICH10R
Display: 3x 27" Asus VE278Q 1080p Monitors setup in Eyefinity portrait mode 3240x1920 (equivalent to a 50" display)
OS: Windows 7 x64 Professional SP1 Fully Updated

Virtual Memory/Page File/swap file is completely disabled/set to 0/turned off to prevent unnecessary thrashing and to force use of the available physical ram.

Intel Rapid Storage Controller Drivers version 1.6.0.1022 (latest)
Intel INF UPDATE Utility Drivers (latest)
ATI/AMD Catalyst 11.11 Drivers with CAP 11.11 version 1 (latest)
Realtek HD 2.66 Drivers (latest)

Using the LAA Fix on Skyrim allowing it full access to 4GB of ram

Set ULTRA settings using the launchers options, saved exited, modified the INI with resolution and heavily modified for higher quality/increased clouds and tree/foliage range, increased cell grid and maximized the buffer and memory to their suggested maximum.
Using 2x FSAA, NOT using FXAA, NOT using Floatingpointrendertarget (this option increases level of detail in shader effects, however at a huge HUGE massive cost to frame rate even on top of the line cards...). additionally FPS limit is set to 0 to prevent fps locking or limiter

V-SYNC disabled, no 3rd party programs used to effect crossfire/profiles/3d settings in any manner using default CCC settings....

Averaging about 30fps with the single ATI Radeon HD5770 @ 3240x1920
Highs in the 60fps (rare.... usually don't see anything higher than 35-40fps) with lows in the 20fps range (rarer for below 25)
Using the Crossfire quick key trick (which only works temporarily) results in a sustained 30fps regardless of where i go, seeing averages in and around the 40-50fps mark highest exceeding 60fps (managed 120fps in a few cases)

Skyrim is not new. It uses a 2006 game engine. BTW, it runs poorly on "killer rigs".

So do about 80% of the other new games out there.

I just get little baby hiccups when i quick save or take a SS. No other performance issues. All on max settings, 1080p.

This is my build EXACTLY. I have a GTX 470 at stock though. My fps drops horrifically in cities but it runs at 60 fps in dense forests and dungeons easily. From what I can tell, any large building with its own lighting+npcs seems to be killing my fps. There can be 7 human npcs out in the open in dense forests on ultra and i might drop to 55 fps but as soon as npcs come within range of certain structures or some structures by themselves (Fort Anol) fps drops 20-30 frames easily... even on low...

Tom's hardware did a comparison I believe. You can probably google it. The findings were that Ultra provided very little in the way of graphical fidelity over the other settings. Moreover, many of the textures were nearly identical from Medium to Ultra.

Settings on ultra and getting 35+ everywhere...although I ain't been to this markarth place yet I don't think.

I'd say that's pretty damn good...

Those with SSD like myself don't even experience a stutter or hiccup or anything when taking screenshots or even video..... i know i used to even with a massive raid 0 array combining 6 fast hardrives together .... still would get that studder when hitting a screenshot or starting a recording...