I saw another guide, but I didn't like it for a few reasons. So I've made my own for you guys which I think it is a little more informative so that if something new comes along, then you can apply what you learn here to judge them.

CPU:

Role of the CPU in gaming: Runs the basic program. The faster the CPU feeds the GPU, the better.

Things to know: A 4 core CPU will do little for a game that uses only 2 cores. You don't know how many Skyrim uses. If you have more than 2 cores and the game only uses two, at least you have an extra core for general PC processes while the game can better utilize those 2 freed up cores more fully. Such a thing is a marginal boost at best though.

Personally recommended CPUs: Athlon II/Phenom II X4, i5 Intels. New Intel i3s, i5s and i7s are better than the old for about the same price. The old Intel i-series CPUs have 3 numbers in their name the new Intel CPUs have 4 numbers in their name. [Old: i7 920, New: i7 2600] Intel is better than AMD at the same clock speed. AMD will release a new series of CPU in June that goes by the code name "Bulldozer"... it looks on par with Intel i5/i7 CPUs.

Your old system: If you have a PC with an AMD Phenom I X4 any AMD Athlon II or Phenom II X2 or X3 or an Intel E7xxx, E8xxx, Q6xxx, Q8xxx, Q9xxx, you should not worry about about your CPU at this point.



RAM:

Role of the RAM in gaming: Aids the CPU in running game.

Things to know: DDR3 is faster and cheaper than DDR2. You don't want to build a new system with DDR2. Speed doesn't mean much for game performance. Timings can matter for game performance and lower timings are better. Timings are indicated by a C and then a number.

Personally recommended RAM: 4GB 1333MHz C7 [or C6 or C5]

Your old system: If you have DDR2 and it is slower, don't worry, quantity matters more and DDR2 usually has decent timings.



GPU:

Role of the GPU [aka: video card] in gaming: Renders the Graphics.

Things to know: The more powerful the GPU, the better. The more powerful the GPU, the more power it will consume [generally]. Therefore, people looking to put a decent GPU into their name brand PCs they got retail will need a new power supply. The Video memory is important and 1GB is sort of the norm. If you look at the specifications, you will see a thing called "Memory Bus" and a few numbers followed by the word "bit". This effects memory bandwidth. A video card with 1GB of video memory and a 256bit memory bus will have twice the memory band width of a 128bit memory bus. The higher the memory bus, the better.

Personally recommended GPUs: Skyrim is a long way off, but unless AMD/Nvidia sneak the next generation in at the last second [the timing is close], then the current offerings are likely going to remain the only game in town. I will often be playing Skyrim on a laptop that has a desktop HD5770. I would only suggest a HD5770 or GTS450 if you can not find another ~$40. Note that the HD57xx and the GTS 450 have a 128bit memory bus, while the HD68xx has a 256bit memory bus and the GTS 550 has a 192bit bus. I'd suggest as a minimum for a new rig at this point a GTX 460 1GB or it's AMD equivalent, the HD 6850. The bang4dabuck GPU atm is the HD6950 1GB, which runs as low as ~$215 and that is a great price for such a relatively high-end card. The HD6870 1GB is good middle ground.

Your old system: If you have a pre-built brand name [Dell, HP, etc.] no video card or a weak video card, you will need a Power Supply [PSU]. Experienced PC Gamers with whatever GPU will know for themselves more or less. For PC quality gaming, I'm making an educated guess that those with the 800GTS 640MB, 8800GT, 9600GT, HD3870 are on the wait and see borderline for decent PC quality gaming.



PSU:

Role of the PSU in gaming: Powers the computer.

Things to know: A crappy PSU can take you whole system with it when it goes.

Personally recommended PSU brands: Corsair, Seasonic, Antec, PC Power & Cooling

Your old system: As said before, if you have a retail PC, it is a good bet you'll need a PSU. Experienced PC gamers need to decide PSU requirements on a case by case basis.



The Rest:

Motherboards: I am partial to ASUS, Gigabyte and EVGA for brands. The new MSI seem to be of relatively decent quality as well.

HDD: I haven't had trouble with HDDs for the most part. Western Digital is the best more or less and 1TB is a good size to start with.

SDD: Not needed, expensive, low storage space. It is an extra.

Case: Spending more than $50-$60 for a decent Cooler Master case is unnecessary.

Operating System. Windows is the only way to go for the most part unless you want to get complicated. A 64bit [x64] OS is recommended. This is needed for systems with more than 4GB of RAM... that includes the VRAM in your video card. A 32bit OS is also known as [x86].

DVD/Blu-Ray drives: Blu-Ray cost more, but if you have a use for it and have the cash, it is up to you.

General guide belongs in General Discussion.

I'll assume you mean my guide... mine was not a general PC guide, it was a guideline for my predicted spec's for skyrim. It was as detailed as it needs to be.

:thumbsup:

I wish I could edit titles here, I would take the word general out. The fact is that building a PC for games coming out in in 2011 are going to require the same components in general whether it is Skyrim, Rage, the Witcher 2... or any other major title of 2011. Even if Bethesda gave you the system requirements and recommendations for Skyrim right now, you can't build a system specifically for Skyrim because that doesn't account for resolution or desired levels of anti-aliasing and such.

In the end, all PC builds are general. I just thought a guide should include a bit of the rationale behind what components get recommended. A guide that includes an explanation why a component is good is useful beyond the immediate recommendation.

If this gets moved out of the Skyrim board, it will just be replaced with 100 other between now and 11/11/11 on the Skyrim board with less info.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1167952-the-community-tech-thread-no-97/

We have a whole thread dedicated to this business.