Well I destroyed my laptop completely. And im getting a desktop because I need one. Is it a bad idea to get one now since im waiting on skyrim or will it still be possible to play it on my computer. With a limit of like 1000 dollars.

Definitely. Ask in the community section if you want advice on what parts to choose, there's always people happy to help over there.

It might be beneficial to wait a couple of months to allow the prices to potentially drop a bit on the new Intel processors. That said, for $1000, a box you build today, which could play similar games today, will be able to play Skyrim at the end of the year.

I'm 99% sure a 1000 bucks desktop will be able to play skyrim. Propably not on ultramegahigh, but im sure you can reach medium, given what we've seen so far.

Dont forget though, gets expensive as you also have to buy a screen, mouse (possibly) a kryboard and some speakers

Seeing as skyrim is only 9 months away, i dont think theres going to be any major price drops and graphical enhancements.

Ill get the screen and speakers seaperately I just need to machine itself.

I'm 99% sure that a 1000 bucks desktp will be able to play Skyrim at Ultra settings, high resolution and with AA / AF activated.

Come on, games aren't that graphically heavy nowadays.

Eeeeeh, sort of. For $1000 you'll get a kickass machine that won't struggle at all with skyrim, or likely any other game for the next year, but on the other hand, 3-11 is quite a way off, and by the time it gets here components will be cheaper and you'll get more for your buck.

However, this is /always/ the case. If you need a desktop, buy it now, you don't have much of a choice and it won't particularly negatively impact your Skyrim Experience.

Any idea on what site to get in from and exactly what to get?

But there could be sales around Aug-Sep. So there could be potential savings.

Depends on where you live. If you are in USA, go to: http://www.newegg.com/

I don't know about any other country sorry... I live in Brazil, and I am using Mercado Livre which is like the "brazilian" version of eBay.

There will be plenty of price drops in that time. The price of PC hardware is always changing. That said, I doubt a $1000 PC bought now will have any trouble playing Skyrim on max settings if you buy the right parts.

Well can someone direct me to a place where it will build the pc for me? I've made the mistake of trying to build one myself and ended up building 900 dollars worth of crap. Im no hardware genius.

I'd definitely suggest you build it yourself. Sounds more like you picked the wrong parts than didn't put it together correctly. And even if that is the case, it's very, very easy if you can follow instructions.

Here's what I would suggest for $1000-ish. More money can be shaved off, but I wouldn't suggest it. It's a solid build now, but with room to upgrade by adding a second GPU in the future (hence the 850W PSU). And I did it pretty quick, so I didn't really dig too deep for combos, but combos can always reduce the price more, and they change with time.

http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/7263/1000build.png

Right now is a great time to buy a desktop in general. And there's plenty more out there to play than just Skyrim.

In my opinion 850 W is a bit overkill, as the increase from 2 GPU's has never been huge. Though if you think you want to do 2 GPU's some time in the future it does offer some future proofing advantages. The only other problem for that build is it didn't include any peripherals (mouse, keyboard, a monitor, or an operating system.


Out of curiosity is Seasonic the company that basically makes all PSU's? I remember there was a company that pretty much everybody (Corsair, etc..) bought from, I just don't remember the name.

It's always a bad idea to buy a new computer, half a year later you get a better computer for the same amount of money. Yet we do it anyway

Im going to incorporate my want for a computer with my senior experience project for school. Building a high end gaming desktop on a budget and learning about each piece specifically. So now what's my next step what website do I order the parts from and which parts?

http://www.newegg.com or http://www.tigerdirect.com or http://www.ebay.com or http://www.amazon.com
Visit the tech thread for more info on what to buy exactly. Good luck, hope your project isn't a disaster.

Skyrim is being developed for current gen consoles, which means that if you have a computer now that's roughly as powerfull or more so than a 360, you should be fine, in theory anyway. You shouldn't have much trouble beating a 360 with 1000 dollars though. I'll be getting it on PC for the mods, right now my main computer is a fairly good laptop, so we'll see how it runs on that, it'll probably work alright, it runs New Vegas well enough and I don't really care about the graphics that much.

if your going to get a new system, look on tiger direct and newegg for barebone kits, these usually come with a mobo processor case motherboard and sometimes memory and a hard drive, then buy your video cards audio cards and anything else you want separate, with this i got a system for my brother with (if i remember correctly) a 3.0ghz core i7, 500gb 7.5krpm seagate hdd, 8 gigs ddr2 800mhz memory, a higher end ati card (above a 4650 but cost under 90$) and a kick ass case with 2 120mm fans, and a smaller fan on the side of the case as well as a 600watt psu all for 440$, and it beats the hell out of my completely custom 800$ system that i built about 2 years ago

Case: coolmaster stormscout sgc 2000
Processor: amd phenomenon II X4 965 black edition
disk drive: lite one blu ray...or something
Motherboard: asus m4a79xtd evo
Graphics card: xfx hd raedon 5850
Oh and 8 gigs of ram
Besides the hard drive and peripherals what else do I need and is this a good choice. The price comes out to be about 715 so far.

How much do you actually want to spend total? I'd suggest the 6870 over the 5850 in that GPU price range, and the 690 II over the Stormscout. The X4 is a good CPU choice for your price range, but whether it's a good choice depends on if that's the most you want to spend. And 8GB of RAM is overkill. 4GB is all you need.

Im not sure how much ill have in the end to spend im just brainstorming right now. Does it really matter which case I get? Im kinda new to this.

Get one with at least 4 fans built in. GPUs may have a built in fan but the cooler you keep everything the better it will run.

EDIT: and last longer

What is a liquid cooling system and can I install it to any case? Also how much are they?
also over time I can just keep upgrading my same system right changing parts as new products come out and what not?

Liquid cooling uses liquid to transfer heat from the things that need cooling (CPU & GPU mostly) to a radiator elsewhere. It's more expensive, can leak, and doesn't cool any better than a good air cooling system unless you spend a significant amount on air cooling. It's only real advantage is that it can cool with less fan noise.