[Harry Leon]

CPU, please.

[Alkira rose Nankivell]

Whoops sorry, it's Intel Core 3rd generation i7-3770 processor 3.40 GHz

[Tanika O'Connell]

Mediumish with the 640, may do a little better with the 7770.

Also, you may need to overhaul the Dell. It's case may be a bit small and you may need more power.

[Dale Johnson]

How about an iBuyPower PC?

"Gamer Supreme Desktop"
3rd Gen i7-3770K processor at 3.5 GHz
Windows 7 64bit
16GB DDR3 SDRAM
1TB SATA III hard drive
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 2GB

[Carys]

Build it yourself. Whatever you're paying is a lot more than it should cost. In which case, please see this thread: http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1376885-the-community-tech-thread-no-115/

[Nicole Coucopoulos]

Cool, thanks!

[Reven Lord]

No, the i5 will be better. All FX processors, even the 8-cores, offer the same Skyrim performance as an old Phenom II, which is about the same as a second-gen i3. Processors with more cores than four are a wasteful buy for gaming performance since the game will not actually run on more than two or three threads at a time.

Hey, I saw there is Windows hotfix forAMD multicore CPU's. Does it increase FPS in Skyrim ?

Further, will HD 7770 1GB run Skyrim on High with lower resolution?

Will theese suffice for about 5 years for gaming purposes:
Core i5 2380
HD 7770
4 GB RAM 1333Mhz

Is it better to get 2GB GPU, I mean is it gameplay with Skyrim more stable due to high VRAM demands ?

[Ridhwan Hemsome]

The Windows "fix" for the FX processor doesn't affect their gaming performance. What's important for games like Skyrim performance-per-core, and when AMD made the FX processors they focused on multithreaded performance, which is multiple cores working together on tasks that can use all threads, such as video encoding. Good processors, but if your goal is gaming you don't need to buy anything better than the FX-4170.

A 7770 will run Skyrim on high comfortably.

There's no way to know what will be sufficient for 5 years from now. Games could get worlds more demanding or they could move almost entirely to mobile platforms, keeping their hardware demands relatively the same. But an i5, 4gb of RAM, and an HD 7770 should be able to play any game coming out soon comfortably on high, maybe medium if it's really crazy.

1gb vs 2gb memory on a video card makes very little difference on a single HD monitor. My 6950 isn't bottlenecked at all by its 1gb. The reason cards like the HD 7850 come with 2gb instead of 1gb is for two reasons:

-Triple-monitor gaming with Eyefinity and such require more than 1gb of memory for smooth performance, even on high settings
-So when you Crossfire/SLI you won't bottleneck performance (1gb may not bottleneck a $300 card, but it will two $300 cards)
-It sounds better

SLI/Crossfire mirrors the memory between the two cards, so you still have the same amount of memory as using just one.

[Michael Russ]

Hey,what about
AMD FX 6200
HD 7770
4 GB RAM 1333Mhz

FX 6200 is about50 $ cheaper in my country. Will this suffice for 5 years gaming on high (with lower resolution) ?
How does FX 6200 perform in Sykrim vs Core i5 ?

[Chavala]

Same as above on the 5 years question, you never know. AMD's FX processors aren't as good as an i5 for gaming, however, so if your concern is lasting usefulness get the i5.

Also, if your concern is gaming, don't buy a hex-core CPU. Games will only use one or two threads, so even a quad-core is overdoing it. You don't gain anything from adding more cores. If you want an inexpensive gaming CPU, buy the FX-4170.

The only difference between an FX and an i5 for Skyrim is that maximum settings won't be smooth on an FX processor, whereas the i5 can handle max settings on any game. The video card, however, needs to be able to play at those settings as well, so with an HD 7770 there will be very little difference between an FX and an i5.

Lastly, these questions don't belong in this thread anymore since they no longer pertain to an existing computer's Skyrim performance. If you have more to ask, post it in the Community Tech Thread, where I also visit:
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1376885-the-community-tech-thread-no-115/page__p__20884488__fromsearch__1#entry20884488

[MR.BIGG]

Msi 870A-G46 mobo
AMD Phenom II X4 965 BE 3.4Ghz(overclocked to 3.8GHz)
ASUS GTX560 Ti 900mhz(overclocked to 975mhz)
8GB of Gskill RAM at 1600mhz
17" monitor at 1440X900

what do you think my settings should be at?

[Dalley hussain]

ultra

[Farrah Lee]

Hey all , basically im bored of vanilla skyrims constant freezing and bugging and want mods so im going PC but i wanted to make sure all my specs were fine before I spent anything , these are my specs

I have all the min requirements

• Vista
  
• Intel? Core ?2 cpu 6420 @ 2.13GHz
  
• 2GB RAM
  
• More than enough disk space
  
• Radeon x1600 Series , approx total memory : 1278 MB
  
• Steam access

So can anyone tell me if my computer will run skyrim, i'm nearly sure it can but my main concern is with those specs how smoothly will it play ? will it be smooth as butter on normal setting with a few mods or will it be clunky and laggy just like the console ?

[Tiffany Holmes]

Low at best on vanilla. Though, I'm not too familiar with that GPU.

[Amy Cooper]

Hey all , basically im bored of vanilla skyrims constant freezing and bugging and want mods so im going PC but i wanted to make sure all my specs were fine before I spent anything , these are my specs

I have all the min requirements

• Vista
  
• Intel? Core ?2 cpu 6420 @ 2.13GHz
  
• 2GB RAM
  
• More than enough disk space
  
• Radeon x1600 Series , approx total memory : 1278 MB
  
• Steam access

So can anyone tell me if my computer will run skyrim, i'm nearly sure it can but my main concern is with those specs how smoothly will it play ? will it be smooth as butter on normal setting with a few mods or will it be clunky and laggy just like the console ?

My opinion is that CPU is too slow for good, smooth play. Beyond that, the Radeon X1600 graphics cards are well over six years old. They were current when Oblivion was new, and were badly overshadowed in most games that year by the Geforce 7600s. The Vanilla X1600 was almost too slow for Oblivion, right at bare minimum. The X1600 Pro performed well enough, and the X1600 XT performed better than that. But Skyrim is less GPU bound and more CPU bound than Oblivion was.

[Ladymorphine]

My opinion is that CPU is too slow for good, smooth play. Beyond that, the Radeon X1600 graphics cards are well over six years old. They were current when Oblivion was new, and were badly overshadowed in most games that year by the Geforce 7600s. The Vanilla X1600 was almost too slow for Oblivion, right at bare minimum. The X1600 Pro performed well enough, and the X1600 XT performed better than that. But Skyrim is less GPU bound and more CPU bound than Oblivion was.

damn well lets just say I play it on lowest setting and have maybe one or two small mods on like werewolves at night and carry a lantern , would that be slow and laggy at times ? basically , is it worth my time switching to pc from console ?

and if i were to make it run would i have to upgrade the CPU , Graphics card and RAM for smooth play ? or just one ? probably naive questions but Im graspin at straws here

[Mario Alcantar]

Last week, Newegg was selling a Radeon HD 6570 for $40-something, after rebate. If that X1600 is a PCI-e card, just replace it with whatever games-supporting card Newegg has a deal on this week.

They don't seem to have as good a deal going now. This is $60 after rebate:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161374

[Tom]

Make sure your PSU is sufficient before adding a video card. If the computer is store-bought, chances are it's not.

[мistrєss]

Compared to full-power enthusiast grade video graphics cards, AMD's HD 4670, HD 5670, and HD 6570 have all been very efficient for their performance level, running nicely on reasonably good quality 300 watt PSUs without any hesitation at all (Geforce cards of equivalent performance levels generally have been less efficient since the GT 200 generation, requiring more power, and generating more waste heat by comparison). I'll bet that if I spent some time with Price Grabber (the member I've offered advice to should do that), I could find a Radeon HD 6570 somewhere that still has the better rebate amount in force.

[DeeD]

I wouldn't use any video card on a low-quality PSU.

[adame]

I'm not looking for fanciness, just looking for about the same graphics as the console has.

lenovo IdeaPad Z570 (10249BU) Notebook Intel Core i5 2410M(2.30GHz) 15.6" 4GB Memory DDR3 1333 500GB HDD 5400rpm DVD±R/RW NVIDIA GeForce GT 520M (1gig v ram)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834246156

I installed 8 gigs of Memory into it btw.

[Megan Stabler]

IMO, the GT 520 is worse than the GPU built into an Xbox360. It's quite bad for a computer -- intended for business, not for games.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-520M.43104.0.html

[Jessica Raven]

What would you suggest as a replacement?

[Jerry Jr. Ortiz]

Laptops are a one way street to a dead end. You get what you start with, and are stuck with your poor choices; no upgrades to video are available. Sorry.

[Big mike]

IMO get a laptop that can attain smooth gameplay at the lowest cost with an HDMI-out, I'd say for $600 or less, then save up and put your serious hardware into a desktop.