I'll want to be able to play with top graphics and mods, and have it run totally smoothly. How much will this cost me?

do you already have a monitor or 1080p TV?

Mine is 4700, but if I got it without the SSD it'd only be 2700.

Ya, I've got an HD T.V that I was actually planning on hooking t up to... if I could figure out how...

Probably around $600-800 USD

Can I really get an awesome one for that little?!

If you can spend around $700-800, you should be able to build a system that will run vanilla Skyrim very well at 1920x1080. HDMI ports are standard on any decent video card, so it will be no problem to use HDMI to connect to your TV.

If you end up ultimately installing hundreds of mods - in particular if the textures in vanilla Skyrim are such poor resolution that you have to use a hi res 2048x2048 texture pack created by a modder - then your $700-800 system should still run the game well, but the load times might grow to be unbearably long unless you buy an SSD.

CPU $200 - 300
motherboard $150 - 250
DX11 GPU $150 - 200
RAM $80
PSU $50-100
Case $50 - 100
Heatsink $50
HDMI cable $10
7200RPM HDD $70

Well you can get a good computer, not an awesome one.

Cool, do you know where I might be able to buy this, or at least get more information?

This.

That doesn't include nearly everything :rolleyes:

http://www.newegg.com has pretty good prices for most components

here is a step by step guide that explains how to assemble it yourself
http://techreport.com/articles.x/13671?__sf=1303342434

after you have an idea of which components you want, you can post in this thread to get some feedback from other forum members
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1188969-the-community-tech-thread-no-100/

If you can wait a while before buying, you might see prices for both Intel and AMD processors drop after AMD Bulldozer CPUs are released

Think of it this way: Skyrim is being made for the 360, PS3 and PC, and all three versions will be basically identical. Those consoles were also the ones that Oblivion was made for, meaning if the PC can run Oblivion, it should not have to be much better at all to run Skyrim, since both games take advantage of the same hardware. This means that the computer could be about 5 years old (like mine) and should run the game pretty well (I'm currently running OB and 100+ mods with no lag).

Also, I highly recommend you build the computer instead of buy it if that's possible (my dad built the computer I'm using). I'll let someone a bit more knowledgeable tell you what parts to get and where to get them, though.

They do indeed have cheap prices, great place to buy if you can understand what you're getting.

I was going to say 700, this is pretty accurate.

If you want a really good one that gets great framerates and max graphics, you're looking at over 2000 (US) dollars.

lol, sure.

Unless you mean an SLI/X-fire setup with SSDs in raid, which is really not necessary, at all, to have for most people. In other words if you want to waste a ton of money for the heck of it and for bragging rights, spend 2k on a PC.

???

For Skyrim? I doubt you'll need anything over $800. This game isn't exactly taking advantage of the newest PC hardware.

I was actually thinking about buying the Tianhe-1A instead. Thoughts? Too cheap?

IMO you'd want a better graphics card then $100-200. I'd look for one in the $350ish range, not the top dog but the ones right under it. If your going to have a lot of graphics mods this will run them all fine for years to come. So in my opinion:

Edit:if you have an old pc your replacing you can think about reusing parts from it to save $.
Keyboard/mouse, DVD drive, card reader, hdd, maybe the case if it's a good one. Btw, what is your pc now? Could you just upgrade off of that? Maybe you only need a new CPU or gpu/psu?

CPU:$250
4gb ram:$100-$130
Motherboard:150-225$
Hdd:50-80
Psu:100-130
Heatsinck if you overclock:30-80
Case:50-100
DVD:30
Card reader:? If you want one
Hdmi cable:30-100
Gpu:300-350
Keyboard mouse:?

Ps: most graphics cards come with adapters for Hdmi cables if they have dvi, I know evga does for the gtx570. It also has a mini display port and adapter for Hdmi.

Exactly this.

I spent $750 for mine, and I am running every game from the older stuff, to the newer/high end stuff (Crysis 1/Warhead/2, Witcher 2, etc) at maxed settings at 1600x900 resolution, with 50+ FPS.

There's no reason you'd HAVE to spend over $850 at max, unless you want to. Multiple HDDs/SSDs, SLI/Crossfire (or Tri/Quad SLI/Crossfire), Liquid Cooling, etc, will run you a few thousand dollars easy though, and systems like that are generally used for people playing in 2580x1600+ resolution and/or multi-monitor setups (and just because they can as well for some).

What Madaras Zore said. You could get a good one, but a truly awesome gaming PC is at least $1500.

Unfortunately :sadvaultboy:

I'm buying one for this game and BF3, running around 2000usd, with the GTX590, i7 3.4 processor, and 16GB ram (I'm going to use it as an editing PC also, that's why I need a lot of RAM) but it's being built to run BF3 to the max, if you want to run Skyrim in the Highest settings I think a PC with any of the GTX500 series will do. That's probable around 800 1000 usd.