I have seen few posts talking about how one must spend $3000+ on a PC to most likely run the game at almost full to full setting.

Now, I know there are many like me that build their own machine. The last PC I built was for Oblivion. It cost me $1600 and it ran the game at 1920x1080 at the max almost everything. I went to newegg and began to price things out and put together a monster for just under $2000, which if I buy those parts in October it will most likely be less.

So, I guess my question is, am I missing something where people are trying to achive things that I may not be aware of? I guess if someone wants to play it on three monitors for example they may need to crossfire two graphic cards which would make the price go up quite a bit, but I'm most likely going to connect it via HDMI to large LED TV.

Anyhow, am I missing something? In the meantime here is a list of the main components:

SAPPHIRE 100311BFVSR Radeon HD 6970 2GB 256-bit
Intel Core i7-970 Gulftown 3.2GHz 6 x 256KB L2 Cache 12MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Six-Core
Intel BOXDX58SO2 LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
8gig of RAM

You'd most likely be just as good with a new video card and a RAM upgrade, possibly a CPU as well. It all really depends on what you have, not how much you spent. If you buy the new one you won't have to upgrade for many years, and when you do it'll probably be a GPU upgrade and nothing more. I have an ATI 4870 and I'm not the least bit worried, although I'll probably buy the 7xxx series when it's out, just because ATI has such great prices.

People get way too nervous about system specs. You don't need to break the bank every year, people that say they need another $3000 dollar computer, like the ones you've seen on the forum, contribute to one of the more inaccurate myths about PC gaming.

There's a nice tech thread in the Community Discussion board to help you with all your worries.

Your system would do very well, don't worry How much you benefit of a high end system depend on how high you are able to take settings. System requirements will anyway be pretty low. I would not upgraded in any cases until I tested the game.

well that is a reasonable one but some people can get overboard, but you are right you can get computer parts for ridiculously low prices. I could upgrade my graphics card and have about a 50$ profit if I sell it right. but then there are some just crazy thing that people buy like new cooling systems multiple processers and monitors which will actually put you back a lot.

people exaggerate the price of gaming PCs because they don't actually understand PC gaming. i'm pretty sure you could get close to max in Skyrim at 1920x1080 on a 9800GT with 4GB of RAM just because that's how PC gaming works these days.

i for one am hoping i'll be able to get decent performance at decent settings on my laptop.

Indeed, I forgot to say that if the OP does it right, he can cut back on the $2000 price tag substantially. Probably at around or under $1000. Cannibalize the old computer, or sell it. Either way will save you some money. Price shop aggressively, and cut corners on the more common / inessential things. Also, blu-ray player. Put that in your computer, with AnyDVD HD, and youll have the best home theater system on the market: No adds or warnings to sit through. And a sound card

I can build a PC with Newegg that will be able to run many games near max for about 900 bucks.

there is also really extravagant crap you can get for your computer, like 3d, that will put you back about 200$. More hard drives. excessive amounts of Ram. 2 power supplies. like 4 cd drives. It can put you back a lot, but if you plan it right you may be able to upgrade you PC and it be cheaper than a console

^^, you can get quite a decent PC for under 1k easy.

I don't worry about it and just upgrade slowly. It might take a couple years before I can play a game at max but it doesn't really matter anymore. by then there would be another game I would have to upgrade for. At least it seems right now having to upgrade has slowed waaaay down. There were a few years there where graphics were just leaping forward.. Way too fast for me to keep up with even if I did have the money to do so.. In all reality graphic card updating just confuses me anymore. There are too many that are too alike and reading the reviews to try to figure out which one I should buy for what price is just overwhelming.

There is no way you need to spend $3000 on a PC, I don't know where you got that figure from, but it is ridiculously high.

I spent ￡830 (about $1000, maybe 1100??) on components to self-build (which is not difficult) a high-end gaming PC a couple of months ago and I am confident that it will run Skyrim well come November. As a PC gamer I appreciate the console market, because it has slowed down the harrowing and expensive PC upgrade considerably - I recall a time when you'd be upgrading a PC every 3 or 4 months to keep up with the hardware requirements of the latest releases, fortunately this is no longer the issue it used to be!

Look at it this way.. The hardware that is running the xbox is now 5 years old. You don't need a high-end computer to run a game built for such a system.
While I would LOVE if Skyrim actually scales up to utilize modern high-end computer configurations, I highly doubt it will take full advantage of it. My system I built about 20 months ago, has 1 gig of memory on the video card alone. This is double the memory in the entire xbox 360. I haven't even bothered browsing for new hardware lately, since so many developers aren't even attempting to max out their games. Unfortunately, since the revenue from consoles is so good, we will have to wait on this slower pace of game advancement until the next generation of consoles is born.

Are there any other demanding tasks you will be using this computer for? (for example, Adobe CS5?)

Also, did you realize you can get an i7-2600k + P67 mobo for about the same price as the 970 + 1366?

4gb of RAM is what I'd call "bare minimum". 6-8gb is what I recommend, considering Windows 7 can need 1.4-2gb to boot. With RAM so cheap as is, no reason to not get 8gb.

dont do too much.
if you have a processor that has at least 2.4ghz default and multicore you should be able to do as much in this game as possible.
my amd phenom II x 6 is overclockable to like 3.3 or something.
the thing i would worry about is if you want to mod in the future without an upgrade. in that case just upgrade the graphics card. radeon 5600 and up, those are great cards!
or ..dare i say it...this
http://www.nvidia.com/object/product-geforce-gtx-560ti-us.html

that might be my next purchase. i love that ffing card!
problem is i don't have the cash to up the power supply..yet.

I see no reason to spend over $1500

P67 Mobo
Intel SB 2500k
4GB Ram of DDR3 1333 CL7, or DDR3 1600 CL9
A decent Video Card, such as GTX 560/ GTX 570, or comparable Radeon.

That i am sure will run the game at 1080P on max. You can OC the 2500K to 4ghz on stock air no prob, add a decent cooler, or H70 etc and you will hit mid 4s. After that its all about each individual chip, and weather you have water cooling, as to how high you can go.

Processor = #1 Priority, as it is very important to performance, and it can also be used in a number of other applications.
RAM= #2 Priority, as it is cheap for the huge difference it makes, though anything more than 4 Gb is overkill, as most games can't use more. (Without some tweaking that can be bad if done wrong)
Video Card= #3 Priority, it is very important to running a game at decent settings.
Motherboard= Pretty important, it has to support your specific processor, RAM, and other parts
Power Supply= Pretty important, don't overkill it, but you should get at least 500 watt power supply if you are serious, I have a 1000 Watt one.
Hard/solid state drive= You don't have to have a solid state drive, you should just go for a decent hard drive with a fast SATA connection.
Sound Card: Unnecessary, just get some good speakers.

NEVER BUY THE NEWEST STUFF!!!
This is where the belief that PCs are expensive comes from. If you want a really good machine, buy the 2nd best stuff, as you get nearly as good of a computer for half the price.

NOTE
Also, parts that are $1000 right now might be $300 by October, never buy parts this early in advance, wait until right before Skyrim if you are building this machine for Skyrim.

All of the cards in the Radeon HD 6000 series are EyeFinity capable, and can run 3 monitors without the need for CrossFire. You just have to have at least one monitor that is Display Port capable, because there won't be enough HDMI or DVI ports for all three monitors. As far as your original question is concerned, I think the only thing you're missing is that some people like to talk out the wrong side of the Internet and blab off about stuff they don't know about. I built a new PC for Skyrim, and I have no doubts that I won't have any problems, even though the system requirements haven't been released yet. And I went with an AMD Phenom II x4 955, Radeon HD 6850, and 4GB RAM. Oblivion runs at 1600x900 (my monitor's native resolution) at 60 FPS easily. It also has no problems with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat, Far Cry 2, or anything else I've thrown at it. Yes, I know none of those games were released within the last 6 months or so, but still. If it's going to run on an Xbox 360, it's going to run on my PC.

Duo i5 intel 3ghz
geforce gts 450
8gigs of ram
I can run most new games on 1980x1080 with a decent frame rate.
Getting the best of the best is always good, but its not necessary.

My friend recently put together one for $600, it should be able to run it at High, maybe not max, but high...

I think people used to console gaming don't quite understand the whole freedom thing. A lot of people seem to buy consoles so they know they're getting "the best" in their (highly limited) field, so they think that this should carry over to PC gaming, and that the only thing worth buying is "the best". And a PC made entirely out of "The best" is hilariously expensive. If you're willing to drop a few settings here and there you can go much, much further down, and even if you're not, you can go much further down. My GTS 450 is a testament to the whole "You don't even need a good card to max things out anymore" thing.

Of course, there's always the gossip effect, if you get a lot of people who like to sound like they know what they're talking about speaking of something they're ignorant of, bad things happen - hence, every PC is $3000 and you have to upgrade it every 3 months or games you used to be able to play would actually slow down. And no, I wish I was exaggerating.

Fact of the matter is, PC gaming takes a minimum of research to get into properly, and most console gamers haven't done that research, so fall back onto what other people have said. We all do it, most of the time what other people have said is factual, but in this case it almost never is.

Yes, this is one thing that I think people keep forgetting.

What we can achieve right now graphics wise is limited largely by the Xbox 360.
Most developers choose not to maximize the PC's possibilities due to time/effort/profit.
So for most games (excluding PC exclusives e.g. Witcher 2) we are largely limited graphics wise by what the consoles can do, so in reality having high enough specs now (or a year ago) should be able to carry you through to the next generation of consoles with no problems.

(I'm actually not knocking this. Without consoles PC gaming would be an extremely expensive hobby.)

Most people over-exaggerate at huge levels.
By tradition (that would be Morrowind and Oblivion) you knew that TES games would make use of the most modern technology,and that they will have a wow factor regarding graphics.
But one shouldn't forget that both Morrowind and Oblivion came at times that new generations of consoles came out.
So it's reasonable for older fans of the series to expect that Skyrim too will need the latest tech to run.

But this time Bethesda has to work for the same consoles it did with their last game,meaning they can't go with over the top graphics as the tradition went in the past.

So let's be reasonable:
Skyrim is going to run at xbox360 and ps3.
The truth is that if your computer can run other xbox360 or ps3 games with the same level of detail the consoles cun run them,you will also be able to run Skyrim at the same level of detail the consoles will have,except if Bethesda doesn't spend a day to optimize the pc version.
But I'm sure that Bethesda cares of pc gamers and that they will make a good optimization so the number of people who can run Skyrim at their pcs is as big as it can get.

:)

In october you can get decent fullmaxsettings (1980x1200) for a... about €500-550.

and yeah, point is that ps3/xbox360 were new when MW/Oblivion came out,now their "old", and PCs are more advanced, cheaper. so np laddies!

My PC was about $3500 not including monitor. But the SSD and HDDs all add to the price. Really for a gaming PC, there is no need to spend more then $1400 or so. My PC also acts a home server/media encoder. (I do plan on upgrading the CPU to a Bulldozer class one when they come out), It has been about 2 years since I got the 955. (Also I know prices have dropped now, but when I built this PC, it was around $3500 total)