You say I have a poor understanding of hardware when your mixing a Q9450 with a 5970? I'm not saying they are the same, they still vary. I guess I could change it to a 9600 GSO or something like that to bring it a bit closer.
DDR 2 is all you need for basic gaming, obviously you would go DDR 3 if you want a proper enthusiast machine. We are talking a console port here, not crysis or something like that.

THESE ARE GUIDELINES. Wait for the official requirements to actually purchase an upgrade. Edit : Cleaned up a bit

I know the official requirement's are not out yet, but I have seen a couple of threads about people asking about their systems and if they will play skyrim or not. Plus, I'm bored and felt like doing this. I expect skyrim to be DirectX 10. It wouldnt be 9, thats the same as oblivion, and its not a graphically AMAZING game, like lets say metro 2033 or crysis, so it shouldn't be DX 11, although I could be wrong, bethesda might do a really good quality port. These are rough estimates based on my experience with similar looking games in the past, although we have yet to see pure PC gameplay footage, then I may edit this thread.

For those who are wondering about the specs, this is what I think, all judged by the gameplay trailer. The resolution i'll be using for the following judgements is 1400x900. Bear in mind that the trailer was done with the 360, texture resolution will be a bit higher on the PC, and there will be anti aliasing 4x is all you need to get rid of the jaggies.
HDD : Hard to estimate, could see it going up to 8-12gb

For those who a cheap machine to play smoothly on, as in, minimum/low specs, you want :
CPU : Any dual core. Cheapest of which is the lowest spec AMD Athlon II x2.
RAM : 1GB, 800+mhz DDR2.
GPU : Nvidia 8600GT / 7800GT / 9500GT / GT 220 / GT 240 / ATI 4670 / 3870

The ATI 5670 sits in between here.

For those who want to play the game on Medium/Highish graphics, Im talking about max texture detail, lowish shadows, near max view distance :
CPU : Again, any dual core. You dont need quad core for gaming unless you want to max out every game, with all the console ports out there.
RAM : 2GB, 800+mhz DDR2.
GPU : Nvidia 9800GT / GTS 450 / GTS 250 / GTX 260 / ATI 5750 / 4850 / 4870 / 3870x2 (dual gpu chip)

The ATI 5770 and the GTX 260 sits in between the GTX 460 and the GTS 450. These should run it very near max graphics but not sure about max.

For those you want to play tip top graphics.
CPU : A good dual core. A higher spec Intel I3 / Lower spec Intel I5 / AMD Phenom II x2 / Any intel wolfdale's. If you want lots of mods, a quad core is reccomended. A Phenom II x4 or a higher spec Intel I5 or a 1155 socket I5 are all ideal quad cores for gaming.
RAM : 2GB, any speed DDR3.
GPU : Nvidia GTX 460 1GB / GTX 470 / GTX 560 / ATI 5830 / 5850 / 4890 / 6850

If you play at a 1024x1024 resolution, then advised graphics to play decently are : Nvidia 6800GT / 6600 / ATI 4630 / 5570 / 3850 / 5450 etc.

And here's some more advice. In 8 months time, I don't think my estimated specs will have changed, however, hardware will (not maybe, WILL) be cheaper. So don't go buying skyrim upgrades now, wait half a year.

If you feel I am wrong/have a different opinion about this, feel free to voice it although I'd like to avoid any hostility.
Feel free to PM me if you have any questions, or put them in the thread.

If your in America, the best place to buy computer parts or a ready made computer (by a long shot) is newegg.com
If you in the UK like me, PCspecialist.co.uk is a fantastic website where you can build a PC exactly to spec.
Pixmania.co.uk is also good for individual parts.

If you play at a 1024x1024 resolution, then advised graphics to play decently are : Nvidia 6800GT / 6600 / ATI 4630 / 5570 / 3850 / 5450 etc.

You don't put DDR2 in a new machine. It doesn't even save money to do so. DDR3 is cheaper. There is no intelligent reason to get a new rig with DDR2.

Pairing a Q9450 with a HD5970 is not a problem. [If you really knew your stuff, you wouldn't of said anything about it] My CPU is OC'd and runs comparable with i7. When looking at the benchmarks on the first link, notice that the Penryn beats the i7 for minimum FPS a lot and that Penryn has only 6MB L2 cache compared to the Q9450's 12MB cache. I am also completely GPU dependent on my higher than 1080p monitor.


Here is some reading for you about CPUs and gaming:

http://alienbabeltech.com/main/core-i7-vs-penryn-vs-phenom-ii-with-hd-4870-x2-trifire?all=1

http://alienbabeltech.com/main/intel-e6850-bottleneck-investigation

With the information from Todd Howard in IGN's latest (Mar. 31) http://pc.ign.com/articles/115/1158651p1.html regarding The Creation Engine and middleware, as well as his "yes, but" comments on DirectX 11 support, would you (all) change any of your recommended/assumed specs for running Skyrim on near-max or "max" levels? I did notice a few threads (and through them "the" DirectX 11 thread which I just read) on his DirectX 11 comment through the search function, but thought this thread more appropriate for my question.

I myself am researching so I can more intelligently choose parts for my new computer which I need to have sometime this month, and intend to have for at least five or six years (taking upgradeability into account), which is not solely "for Skyrim" — in fact, I had been haphazardly planning a build (looking around on Newegg) for months, but when Skyrim was announced went "Oh, crap - I'll need to make this a bit higher-grade" as I wasn't planning on other PC-gaming with games newer than, say, Oblivion.

I figured this thread should be "bumped" with respect to the new info, anyway! I appreciate all the links (AnandTech, Tom's Hardware, Overclock.net, GPUReview, AlienBabelTech), but they will undoubtedly take a while to navigate and read through thoroughly.

Right now to play the game well I'd go with:

i5 2500K
4GB (if possibly 6GB or 8GB if you use lots of mods) DDR3 1600Mhz
GTX 560 Ti or a 6950
Win 7 64 bits (well obviously to take full advantage of RAM)

So i have taken your advice Supadonkey and i have found 2 different gtx 470 in close to my budget. The problem is, i dont know which one is the best. its between the KFA2 GeForce GTX470
or the Zotac GeForce GTX470. The Zotac in cheaper (where im buying) and the KFA2 costs more. I know more about Zotac so i probably buy the zotac. but still whats the best one?

Btw while browsing the store page i saw new things they have got and one thing i thought was weird i found some RAM memory cards for 160$. it is 16 gb of memory cards 4x4. thought it was cheap^^ but maybe those memory cards svcks. The link is in swedish but the information about them is english.
http://www.webhallen.com/hardvara/132549-corsair_xms3_vengeance_16gb_ddr3_pc3-12800_1600mhz

it really depends on the manufacturer as the card specs should be about the same. they might also vary in the onboard cooling they have which can make a huge difference in stability. see if you can find some sites with user reviews of each card.

5770 should be upper end. It can almost max Crysis at 1080p with only a few settings on high, with everything else on ultra high or very high. TES isn't going to be Crysis.

Though this is on a quad-core system, which Crysis takes more advantage of.

My cheap build specs:

$90: ATI 5770
$100: Athlon II X4 Propus 3.0Ghz
$100: Windows 7 Premium OEM
$40: CoolerMaster case
$40: 4 gigs DDR3 @1333 Mhz
$35: 400 W (rated at 625 W) Xigmatek PSU
$70: Some ASUS mobo
$50: 1 Tb 7200RPM Spinpoint F3 HDD
$0: DVD drive

Total: $515 and runs almost everything near or at max at 30+ FPS at 1080p res. It will be able to handle Skyrim easily.

At Max: Bioshock 2, Mass Effect 1/2, Oblivion, Fallout 3, Medal of Honor, Far Cry 2, Batman:AA, Prince of Persia
Almost (shadows and particle effects down one level, 2X AA): Crysis, Bad Company 2

Get building.

Edit: The Witcher 2 released its specs today; Skyrim is probably going to have similar specs. What I have above is more than enough to handle the Rec settings, so anything close will probably be able to do it.

Thought i'd give the thread a bump for old times sake, just so people can check out this thread again.

good idea.

currently tinkering with the idea of 2 5770's in xfire.

Nice work, I think this should be stickied given the number of 'can my PC run Skyrim?' threads that crop up.

/signed

Could moderators please sticky this? Thanks.