more like a $1000

LOL, no, a 600 dollar PC cannot run ESO on Ultra. Not even close. If you don't even include the screen, just a tower, minimum you could spend to run it smoothly on ultra 40+ fps is probably 900. That's including the OS.

well..'fine' is relative. some people consider medium settings at 25 fps "fine". and it is, if that's your subjective opinion. but you just said ultra smoothly, and a 600 dollar rig isn't running ESO on ultra smoothly. that is just not going to happen, and I would love for you try to prove me wrong.

Well you kind of need to specify a couple thing. Like are we talking a full package PC, Monitor, Keyboard, Speakers? You could find a package for 900-1200. New.

But if just a PC.

$100 for PSU

$200 - 300 Motherboard/CPU

$100 SSD

$100 Memory (you do not need more than 8GB ESO wont use it)

$150 gfx Card

$50 ATX Case

Approx $700 new you are on your own for an OS.

That would run Ultra depending on the GFX. Anything above GTX 560ti/Radeon 6870 will do ultra and that runs about 150ish for a 660ti

Do not be shy of used sites, so many geeks out there sell hardware/full pcs just have em show you it running or know what your buying.

1k to run it on ultra smoothly without a screen? yeah that's a pretty fair assessment. ESO is pretty top of the line graphically. it has a lot of really nice features to make the game look beautiful. ultra is hardcoe. so you need a pretty solid rig to do that. 1k seems about right. I would recommend an i5 though, no point whatsoever getting an i7. put that extra 200 into a nicer GPU or a better PSU. and overclocked i5 will put out more than enough processing power to run ESO on ultra, and an i7 is far superior and you just don't need that extra power. wasted money.

that is a custom build...i built this machine 2 years ago for around a $1000 (just the machine)

CPU: i7 2700k oc @4.4 ghz

h100 liquid cooler

Ram: 16gb DDR3 1600mhz

asus p8 p67pro MB

ocz 850w gold standard psu.

Geforce gtx 560ti sli

I am 100% positive you will get the job done with an i5, you don't even need to overclock it, but you can if you choose if you have a decent cooling system. i5 is fine, trust me.

people will tell you that's wrong, and that you need an i7, but that is seriously just future proofing. you can, if you want, but an upgrade from an i5 to an i7 will offer no performance enhancement in terms of video gaming.

There is 0 difference in an i5 and i7 for gaming. They have the same number of physical cores. In essence i7 Hyper threading (which is virtual CPU's using the physical cores) is used for multitasking or many high level processes. You are totally correct sir.

^ exactly. the difference in power is pointless because you're not going to make out the i5 anyway. so an upgrade is literally wasted money

Since nobody has played eso with true fullscreen, the specs needed for smooth ultra could be much lower than they currently are.

this machine is not just for playing games....its a for work aswell so that why its why the spec is a little higher...but a good i5 and 8gb of ram would be good enough for a highend gaming machine.

an i5 and 8 GB of ram is definitely enough, but the other side of the coin is your GPU..a fairly crucial piece of the puzzle..

Actually higher. Assuming anti-aliasing is then working which currently (or what we have seen) does not function. That will put demand on the GPU if you use it on Ultra.

You don't need an SSD to run ESO.
You dont need SLI to run ESO.

You can buy an ''Upgrade kit'' at webshops containing a proper Motherboard, a set of RAM and an decent processor for about 250,- Then get a GPU this doesn't have to be an high end 1000,- + GPU a 150,- will do fine.
Get a good HDD (ssd is not nessesairy) around 80-100,- ? get a proper keyboard and mouse 150,- which is optional though and an monitor 100-200

yep and that discussion could go on for another 10 pages.

Keep in mind that ESO is more processor focused than GPU focused in terms of large-scale PvP battles (only a few other games are like this), so going for an i7 would definitely not be a waste of your money.

I hardly know where to begin with that being false. Large pvp battle will not put strain on your CPU. ESO is not in anyway more focuses on CPU than GPU it is the other way around. What taxes your CPU in games is Physics mainly.

If you are interested download 3DMark by Futuremark and run it you can watch your CPU hardly being touched the whole time but when it ramps up the Physics tests it throttles your CPU to the max maintain FPS as high as possible. Even throttled in this manner an i5 and i7 would perform no different because they have the same number of physical cores and can only compute the same number in the same time. Hyperthreading lets the CPU manage the processes better but since there is only one process throttling the CPU(S) they perform the same.

You apparently don't understand CPU's with the advice you're giving. The i5 and i7 have virtually the same processing power if you're gaming. Literally the exact same. hyperthreading of the i7 is beneficial for people doing a massive amount of video or 3D editing in multiple programs, but it offers -no- performance increase in a video game. please get your facts straight before giving people advice on a forum.

Fullscreen offers best performance, I have never even heard of a game that would run better on borderless windowed.

Not to even mention enabling sli and cf.

Eso only uses 4 threads so the remaining 4 threads on an i7 do nothing, ergo the difference between i7 and i5 would be nonexistent.

Really the screen you run your games on defines the need your need for a video card. Most will run it on a 1080p screen a lot of them will be TVs. An upper mid range card will do quite well here.

I have to bite the bullet for a serious card to run my new 30" 2560x1600 Koren special, a wonderful thing. I'll order up a GTX 780 in a few hours.

I think it's been confirmed ESO will use only 4 threads max so an i5 will be just fine.

Taking my son's machine, which has a new GTX 750 from 2G to 6G of RAM made a big difference in smoothing gameplay.