Well, my opinion is both... really. Whatever your choice, your GPU must support direct X 11; and crossfire or SLI. You have to buy at least one GPU with 1 GB, GDDR 5 and HDMI to run Skyrim in good condition i'm afraid. See Tom's Hardware to compare performances.

Also, if you buy a new computer, always buy a very good power supply prepared to receive future updates on your system. Also i recommended a Quad core CPU and Windows7 x64.

Uh, we don't know anything about skyrim's requirements yet - and even if we did, the card having a HDMI port would be completely irrelevant, and both crossfire and SLI are driver/mobo technologies, the cards support it inherently. The amount of VRAM you have is relatively meaningless compared to the actual speed of the card - there are very weak, large VRAM cards available. And, finally, neither console has more than 512mb RAM total - that includes both VRAM and regular RAM.

Well, the top-of-the-line Nvidia cards are more powerful, but the best ATI card is still like 4x what you need to run the best game that exists on highest graphics. So the extra power is a waste of money. Also, ATI is MUCH cheaper so you get a much larger amount of proccessing power per dollar you spend. They are also more energy effecient. I strongly reccomend a high end ATI card. I have an ATI Radeon 5850 (got it for like $275) and I don't think I will need another video card for like 5-10 years. It can still effortlessly run games like Crisis on highest settings.

i have an AMD/ATI rig, but i plan to buy Intel/Nvidia rig for skyrim.

the whole matching GPU to CPU is actually based on the mobo itself. the mobo will either be set up to run amd or nvidia, not one or the other. and youll usually find more amd cpu boards set up to run amd gpu than nvidia simply because of marketing. though they do have to make boards to use nvidia also because there are trade rules and regulations that state that they have to give all manufacturers equal chance. if they exclusively made there boards to run amd gpu then they'd get a pretty bad fine.

I always used Intel and nvidia and never had big problems and I think there is no big difference in nvidia or amd. But I remember a problem appeared with nvidia and oblivion not a big one though. Sometimes the screen went black in my experience this just appeared if you walked into a corner. It was not a big problem and solved fast by the mod community. The same problem never happened with amd.

Though that's still not a hard rule - some of nVidia's cards run faster, cooler, and with less power than the competing ATI card, though most of the time it's the other way around.

Hmmm, I think that you will get best performance with Skyrim if you take out Optimus Prime's heart and place it inside your computer.
That should run any game properly in my opinion.
I did it already with Megatron's heart so you have my guarantee that it will work. :tops:

The recent nVidia generation seems to use less power in idle than the competing ATI, but more under load.
Which is just another example that you have to compare them sepaeately for every price range, purpose and generation. Indeed, no hard rules.:shrug:

People still believe this [censored]?! Where does this myth even come from?

To the OP:
If you're building a system now I suggest you go with either a HD6950 or a GTX560Ti...check some reviews and decide which one you like better. Both cards should be able to run Skyrim at max settings and produce more than 60 fps

I run Oblivion on an nVidia 9500gt on an AMD Athalon 64bit processor, at max settings seemingly without a hitch. Although I had been attributing my occasional snag to low memory. the Gateway/Emachines board I have only supports 2 gigs of ram, and a gig on board the video card.

I will however keep in mind the Intel inVidia cooperation thing. If I ever build a new box, I had intended to carry over my video card from the old one...

hmmm..... this is i'm getting, any thoughts?


Intel? CoreTM i7 930

Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit

8GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz

1TB - 7200RPM, SATA 3.0Gb/s, 16MB Cache

MSI N560GTX-TI Twin Frozr II/OC

ASUS VH238H Black 23" Full HD HDMI LED Backlight LCD Monitor


a Dell XPS 9100's 525W PSU is it enough?

Which would be better out of these two combinations:

AMD Phenom II X6 1090T 3.2 GHz
2GB AMD Radeon HD 6950

Intel i5-2500 Quad Core 3.3 Ghz
1.25GB Nvidia GTX 570

My presumption is it's an antique, that some time ago, like 10 years ago, there was a case where nVidia worked better with Intel and ATI better with AMD and from a legitimate case of it occurring back then, people are still spreading it now, when it doesn't apply anymore. I think that's most likely as I am fairly sure there would have been a few biases like that back then, when standards were a bit less.... standard. Another possibility is that since ATI use to be really bad at writing drivers so the community wrote their own, that these drivers were compiled in 64 bit what AMD got into way before Intel, not sure what would balance better for nVidia unless the nVidia cards were at that time just slightly better but the drivers were literally only released in 32-bit... I am fairly sure it will be something like that.

The current Intels blow AMD away but if you are only getting the machine for Skyrim WAIT!!!

Even if Intel still blows AMD away Intel's Sandy Bridge will be a bit older by the fall, and if AMD's Bulldozer performs as well or even better than Sandy Bridge for less price then that's even a better deal. In addition, if you buy an AMD CPU motherboard now it will only be socket AM3, and all the newer Bulldozer based CPUs will be socket AM3+, meaning you are buying AMD at the worst possible time if you buy it now (you can still use AM3 CPUs in the AM3+ motherboards that come out, allowing you to upgrade later even if you got the AMD CPU you plan to get now).

The same goes for video cards. For the mid-high level the nvidia GTX 560 Ti does look like the best option right now (based on looking around a bit the last few days) however it is $250 now and that may drop heavily by the fall, especially on sale! For reference the GTX 460 launched last summer and by December it was going on sale for under $150 now and then! It's very possible the GTX 560 Ti or a similar AMD GPU will be under $200 by the time Skyrim launches. I personally would never ever spend more than $250 absolute maximum on a GPU either. The technology evolves way too fast to burn money like that in my opinion, unless you are well to do.

I like that Bethesda is independent and doesn't go with Nvidia or AMD.
It's very annoying that in every single EA pc game you have to watch the logos of Intel and nVidia before the title screen.
It's even worse when Mass Effect 2 wants to install nVidia software on my computer to run while I have an Ati.

Single-card solution? Easy. Nvidia 5xx series beats up ATi 6xxx' ass in terms of performance in every benchmark. They're slightly more expensive, though...

SLI? Same.

Dual-GPU cards? Erhmmm...We'll see this next Tuesday, when the GTX 590 is released. By now, ATi wins, as the Radeon 6990 is the most powerful dual-GPU card avaliable.

One should not only think of the raw power of a product,but also its value.
AMD usually has the best performance/price ratio.

e.g.
6-core Core i7 is 40% faster than 6-core Phenom 2,but also 330% more expensive.

I have that in mind, believe me. And it's true in CPU's, but Nvidia, fortunately, isn't Intel, and has it's ratio a bit more comfortable.

Look at the stats. Me and a friend actually were just today, (I am looking into a new processor which lead us to discuss graphics cards, as he is looking for a new one)

The Nvidia cards of equal ability to the ATI ones run alot hotter, and take more power. The ones that run faster, run hotter yet. And the cost more. So if you can afford good coolant for your PC, money is no object, and you want the fastest thing, then go ahead and Nvidia.

But all the stats show that if you want the coolest, fastest, most effeciant one for the best power/money ratio, ATI is a clear winner. :/

I believe the 560, specifically, runs cooler than comparable cards.

I'm building this system in a few days for 1050$. To get comparable performance from Intel/Nvidia would cost approx. 60-75% more. That puts AMD in the lead in my book.

• APEVIA X-DREAMER3-BK Black Metal ATX Mid Tower Computer Case w/ front LCD temperature indicator, transparent side panel window and 3 120mm fans at front, side and rear.
  
• OCZ StealthXstream II 700W ATX12V v2.2/ EPS12V 80 PLUS Certified Power Supply w/ 4 +12v rails and 2 PCI 6 pin power connectors.
  
• GIGABYTE GA-870A-UD3 AM3 AMD 870 SATAIII 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard w/ Dual PCIe 2.1, 2.6 gig FSB and exclusive auto unclock.
  
• AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition Thuban 3.3GHz, 3.7GHz Turbo 6 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Six-Core Desktop Processor w/ unlocked multiplier.
  
• Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATAIII 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
  
• ASUS Black 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 12X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA 24X DVD Burner
  
• CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 Desktop Memory
  
• HIS IceQ X Turbo Radeon HD 6850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity and manufacturer overclock.
  
• Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional 7.1 Channels 24-bit 96KHz PCI Express x1 Interface Sound Card w/ Adv Hd 5.0, X-ram and digital audio out.
  
• Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Wow I just looked up a bunch of crap on the 560, and my best estimated equivalent ATI card, the 6950, and wtf. They are only 250 dollars? Didnt the newer top of the line cards used to be like $400-$700? Why is it all so cheap! T.T

I could not find run tempuratues on them specifically, but the ATI card is 15$ cheaper! Buaha!

Also, Nvidia focuses on processing power, but ATI focuses on more stream processes. The way I understand it, it's pretty much this. If you had to get through a wall by breaking it down, would you rather have 5 rather buff guys (Nvidia) or 15 mid-strength guys (ATI) to help you?

No, it's not really anything like that, it's the same number of guys but some of them sweat more.

In any case, the x60 cards aren't top of the range, they're mid/high, which explains the price.

And why do you sweat? Because you get to hot.