So I know nothing about computers and was wondering what kind of computer to possibly look at buying regarding playing Skyrim (primarily) and other games say 5 years down the line at a very high quality.
What should I be looking at?
How much am I looking at spending? (answers in Sterling (￡) would be most appreciated)

5 years? impossible, well possible if you have like 2.500 pounds.

Better is like 3 years for a third of it.

Decent and cheap is AMD/ATI, good and expensive is Intel/Nvidia.

Go for an SSD/HDD configure where SSD is your C:/

Get the newest motherboard, and hexacores are not much more expensive.

My rig is: (october 2011)
CPU: AMD Phenom II 6-core 3.200Mhz 1090T Black Box Edition
MOBO: Asus Crosshair V Formula 990FX mobo 1333
GPU: Sapphire ATI HD6950 2048MB DDR5
RAM: Corsair 8GB DDR3 RAM 1333
Primary: Corsair Force 3 90GB SSD 550/500
Secundary: WD 1TB 8.9/64/7200
PS: OCZ 700W

All together without monitor that is 1.000 euro.

Hope that helps.

Any high end hardware will work in 5 years, but there's no way to say you will be able to play on highest service or near it in 5 years. I'd recommend going to a pc hardware specific sites forums and start asking there. This is the technical support for skyrim, not really geared towards "build a pc". Find a place where that's the top discussion, you'll get way better input.

@ Praedator

You can not honestly recommend an AMD CPU atm for a PC that is supposed to run games for years. A Phenom is barely adequate atm, it will only get worse. Right now an Intel I5 2500K offers by far the most for your money. Add to that the potential for overclocking and the CPU will run games for a long time to come. The rest of your recommended components looks quite good.

@ Count Crow


You probably will have to update your graphics card around 2 years from now when the new consoles come out in order to keep up. Other than that the PC should run games for years.

5 years is a stretch but you can certainly build (or have built) a quality rig that'll have enough raw power to last a few cycles.

That is why there is this phrase:
Decent and cheap is AMD/ATI, good and expensive is Intel/Nvidia.

As opinions on that differ as long as both exist

Also I said for 3 years, after that you want to upgrade something at least. I tend to buy a complete new rig then.

Well this is tricky to say the least.
For 5 years I can only offer some goals to reach.

With game development there are VERY FEW developers that focus on PC only gaming. So as long as your rig is better than a consul then you are fine. In short the current (next) generation of Consul is going to be the baseline. As is +90% of all games will use DirectX 9.
CPU: quad core 3.0 GHZ at a minimum (more GHz the better)
RAM you will need at least 6 gigs of RAM.
Hard drive: This is tricky as you have MANY options. you can go for a standard 7200 RPM drive, a 10,000 or 15,000 RPM drive, a SSD or a RAID 0 configuration. Considering Raid 0 has high bandwidth but virtually no marine for error for long term hard drive I would recommend SSD or a single 72,000/10,000/15,000 RPM drive
GPU (single or two in tandem): My option is find a modern GPU with a lot of V-RAM. 1 gig as BARE minimum, 2gigs (and more) of V-RAM is 5x better.

Gaming rigs aren't typically built to last five years without upgrading. I regularly (every 6-12 months) pick a part and upgrade it. The CPU/MB upgrade is a major and so is only done every 3 years or so.

If you wait five years, you'll find you can't upgrade to the latest and greatest part, since that part probably won't blend with the rest of your hardware anymore. Not only that, a 5 year old gaming rig won't run new games like you'd want. You will find you need to replace pretty much the entire machine at one whack if you go over five years. The only downside to frequent part upgrades is that you find you spend more as you are keeping your rig "in the green" for playing new games.

With regards to ATI/NVidia - ATI is better bang for the buck, but their drivers are often quirky. NVidia is much more expensive, but has better driver support (and far more often). I would not buy an AMD CPU right now, stick with the i7.

My CPU+mobo+ram is 4 years old (E8500). My videocard is 3.5 years old (gtx260). I can run Skyrim reasonably fine. (25-60fps, ultra settings, 4xAA, 1920x1200). I think you can buy a PC today that will still be valuable in 3-4 years. 5 Years might be stretching it a little. So your goal should be to buy a system that is reasonably high performance, but not at the highest price. Just a notch or two below the top. That is where you get the most value for your pounds.

Do you have a PC currently ? If so, you can reuse parts. Like the monitor (big expense, say 130 pound). The case (~50 pounds). The PowerSUpply (PSU). And the Operating System (I suppose anything but Windows7 would be a bad choice today). Maybe even the HardDisk (HDD).

The gaming performance (the fps) of your computer will mainly depend on 4 items.
1) The CPU. Get an Intel i5-2500k. 160 pounds.
2) The Videocard. Get a Nvidia gtx560ti (note the ti at the end). (Or a AMD 6950 if you want an AMD/ATI videocard). 190 pounds. But worth the money.
3) Motherboard. Anyone based on the Z68 chipset will do. I like the ASRock brand. Roughly 85 pounds.
4) RAM. 4GB is still enough, and I expect will still be enough for most games in the next 3 years. 35 pounds. Type should be DDR-3-12800.

Prices are based on what I saw in the cheapest/best Dutch webshops. UK webshops should have comparable prices.

Total price: 470 pounds.

That's the price for the core of your system. Not cheap, but really worth the money. You'll get high framerates at high settings in most games. You will need to get other components for your old computer, or buy them anew. That will make the difference. Monitor 130 pounds, case 50, PSU 35, HDD 60+. Maybe mouse and keyboard even. Could add up to another 200-300 pounds. (Monitors are expensive )
Anyway, I hope this gives you some indication on how much you'll have to spend for a nice gaming PC.

General Hardware threads belong in Community Discussion, I will move this now.

Ok learning a lot here already!
My main focus would be to play Skyrim at a high quality. That is to say better than the recommended requirements.
Maybe 5 years was also a stretch- let's say I just want to play Skyrim.
How much?