hey, i have decided to eventually buy Skyrim for my PC. i know that i need a bigger RAM in order to meet minimum requirements on the PC that i already have, but i do not want to play on the bare minimum. so my question to all of you is, what is your gaming PC setup? i am just looking to see what everybody has, what their thoughts are on how well their setup works, and i'm also looking to go cheap, without dropping the quality. if you guys could post what your setup is, it would be greatly appreciated. whatever is inside your PC that helps your game run quick, and smooth while keeping great graphic quality. oh, and if the computer screen itself helps at all, i'll take suggestions on that as well.

don't need to say the price of everything, or what everything is/how to get it. if you just write down what your PC uses, i'll google it myself. if anybody responds to this, then thanks for all the help.

Uh, that's going to be a long list. An easier way is to just check this thread's list: http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1369386-unofficial-will-my-pc-run-skyrim-thread-59-w-hardware-guide/

yeah, i already checked that out. i barely meet the minimum requirements, and my pc is 7 years old. i'm just looking for a new setup to run games, and i'm wondering what everybody uses, and what their thoughts are on it.

My specs are in my sig.

What price range are you looking at? We can help suggest parts if you would like.

What you are looking for is not the best option. The best option is to refer to that list for suggestions. There's way too many configurations one can have.

Better yet, put up your current specs (Everything, not just "2gb ram, etc") and how much you want to spend. With that we can see what it is you have worth keeping and what we can suggest you upgrade to improve your quality of play.

Best bang for the buck:

Intel i5-3570K cpu. $200.
Any z77 motherboard. Cheap is fine, as long as it's from a decent vendor. ASRock, Asus, Gigabyte or MSI. $100.
8 GB of DDR3 ram. $50.
A good videocard. If you can afford it, a gtx670 for $400 is awesome. Else a AMD 7000 series or a gtx560ti ($200+).
A decent PowerSupply. $50.
A total of $600.

All the other components hardly matter for your gaming performance.
Case, HDD, dvd-writer are necessary, but don't matter.
Monitor, keyboard, mouse depend on your personal preferences.

Look at the Skyrim PC forum. There are many other posts about this subject.

i'm willing to spend what i have to in order to get the best quality i can have, but as of right now, i don't get paid much, so i would hope under $1000 (keep in mind i'm not buying everything needed at once, i will save money slowly and buy what i can asap. so i am willing to spend more if neccessary.)

really? $600? that's it? i honestly thought it would cost alot more than that. i've talked to a few people, and i was told that in order to get a decent, ok kind of PC that runs smooth, but not the best, it would cost about $700 - $800. that's insane

Read my sig.

It two years after my big upgrade but still dose the job.

If you going to use your old keyboard, monitor and mouse all you need is the tower with the goodies inside. The saves you up to $800 already.

Don't cheap-out on the PSU, it is like the heart of the system - buy good name brand, not "Ultra." Recommend Corsair, Seasonic, and there are other good brands out there too. A marginally bad PSU can cause problems that appear to be mobo, CPU, gfx, HDDs, etc.

$50 for PSU? Are you crazy? You cant find any decent brands at decent wattages for $50.

Also the total is more looking to be about $700+. You undervalues the motherboard, and need to include tax and any applicable shipping.

Hard drive can indeed effect performance. They can greatly effect loading speeds, and since Skyrim needs to load things on the fly in the world, stutter lag can be noticed if your hard drive is having to call up information.

^ +1

Note that:
a) this is just the price for the "backbone" of your PC. The cpu, motherboard, ram and videocard. Those 4 components are the most important components for any gamer.
these prices are just an indication. you didn't say in which country you live, so we can only guess.
c) I have no idea about taxes in the US. what I've seen so far is that if something is $100 without taxes in the US, it costs 100 euros with taxes in my country.
d) check an online webshop (like Newegg.com) for exact prices.

The point is: you can build your own PC. You can even upgrade components individually. Although you have to upgrade cpu+motherboard+ram at the same time. There are requirements that might not allow you to upgrade other parts separately, but we can't say without more info. E.g. if you upgrade your videocard, there's a 99% chance you'll need to have a proper PSU immediately. You can't upgrade your videocard if your old motherboard doesn't have a PCI-E slot. Etc. That's why I mentioned those 5 components first. The other ones (monitor, mouse, keyboard, dvd, even HDD) can be upgraded later.

I might have estimated prices a little too low.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&N=-1&isNodeId=1&Description=i5-3570k+3.4ghz
The i5-3750k (which is 210 euro in my country, including taxes) is $239 on Newegg.com.
I thought it was shipping for $220 2 weeks ago.

OK, you're right.
I found the Cooler Master GX-Lite 600W for 50 euros. But most 550W-700W cost up to 70 euros. Some people do like to exaggerate about PSUs, and think only 1 brand makes decent ones, and that you always need a 900W cpu for a regular system.

Buying anything but the cheapest Z77 motherboard (of a decent brand) is a waste of money for most people. An ASRock Z77 Pro3 costs 95 euros. An ASRock Z77 Extreme-6 costs 175 euros. For the regular gamer (non-SLI/CF, no extreme overclocking) the Extreme-6 has no real benefits at all. So yes, for 95 euros you can have a decent motherboard.

The OP is on a budget.
Yes, buying a SSD would improve loading times. (I got one myself).
But if you want to invest your limited budget in a smart way, it's much better to spend that extra $100 on a faster videocard+regular HDD, than on a slower videocard+SSD.
And again, the $700 is only an indication for cpu+mobo+ram+videocard+psu. A $200 videocard is the cheapest videocard I would recommend to any gamer. For exact prices: check your preferred local webshop.

The whole point is:
a) you can buy your own system, and save a lot of money on prices of components
you might be able to reuse some components from your old PC (monitor especially)
c) it doesn't need to be as expensive as some people will make you believe.

My entire game is on a HDD incl save games and my load times are about 3-5sec. That said, I do have (premium) WD Blacks. But my point is the HDD makes little difference when you are on a budget, put the money toward better CPU/gfx and don't worry about the HDD, except: I've noticed by looking at customer reviews it looks like non-WD HDDs have a much greater failure rate. You can see this yourself on sellers customer reviews, it helps when you have the site categorizing percentages of each rating review, like Newegg does - and don't consider the statistics to be significant unless there are >20 or so total reviews, more meaning more significant results. FYI.

There is no understating the importance of a good PSU. Nowdays, I recommend at least 750 watt or better. Anything less will severely limit future upgrades.

Ah, you are talking in euros. Should probably not use the dollar sign then. Euros changes the pricing a lot.

And for [censored] and giggles, I did a mock up list of what you said (opting for the GTX560Ti). Taking into consideration brand and good reviews, we are talking $700 minimum base price.

ZOTAC AMP! GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1GB - $210
CORSAIR TX650 650W PSU - $90 <--- Cheapest at that wattage with a good brand.
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) - $47
GIGABYTE GA-Z77 Motherboard - $120
Intel Core i5-3570K - $240

+$51 in tax and $10 shipping for where I live.

Grand total of $768

if you purchase a Desktop computer that costs $900.00 or higher, it should be able to run Skyrim, I recommend that you purchase a Desktop or Laptop computer that costs $1,400.00 at least!

Cost doesnt really mean much. You could easily spend $1000 on a "gaming" computer, and have the internal components perform terribly. What matters more is what the internal components are. Of course that does affect the cost, but its not wise to go on cost alone.

I agree to a point. But I have 550w PSU since 2009 and it did not give me any trouble. If it can run ATI HD4870 it can sure run this card I have now.

Don't be so cheap with the PSU. That's your live blood of your system. You will be getting shorts to hard crashes that is no good for your pc. I been through that. Spend between $100 to $200 for your PSU and research.

Indeed. Ive had a 600W for a while and it could power a 560Ti if I wanted, but a GTX280, not a chance in hell. Graphics cards have been getting super power efficient. Unless you are going bleeding edge, you would never need over 700W

$70 minimum, as long as its a good brand. My current 600W PSU is Rosewill brand,and i got it for $70 and have not had a single problem with it in over 3 years.

If I was on a tight budget, but wanted to upgrade later: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/8LAs

If I wasnt on a budget and wanted to look ahead 5 years(upgrade path, overclocking), and had money: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/8Lvm

If I had more money than is probably healthy for my ego: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/8LC4

same as others said... look at my specs below... if you can get better than my specs then your set.. i can run skyrim max settings without any problems.

will this barebones kit be sufficient (when i add a graphics card), and is it a good PC for gaming at that price? i have the monitor (a 19inch HD tv) and i will buy the keyboard, mouse and a graphics card)
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2580503&Sku=B69-1414
can anyone reccomend a good video card to add to this? should i get a better PSU to support the video card? (the kit has a 600w)

personally i'd get a 650-700w psu and use the 600w as a backup incase.. as for gfx card? depends on how much you want to spend