Am I missing something? (PC Configuration question) : V - Skyrim

» Wed Aug 18, 2010 4:36 pm

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

Complete Overkill

First of all, high priced CPUs are a waste. Building now I'd go with the 2500k and no more for gaming alone. For X58, the i7 960 just price dropped and the 950 shows up at Microcenter for $200 every so often. For 1156, i5 750/760 or i7 870. AMD Bulldozer will also be here long before Skyrim. For a Budget Build the Phenom II X4 920 is the best buy since the L3 cache is worth the $10 premium over the Athlon II X4 640.

The HD 6970 is a fair choice for the GPU. I'd go with a HD6950 and try to flash it to a HD6970. [The HD7xxx series will be out before Skyrim.]

X58 has Tripple Channel RAM, so find a 6GB [3x2GB], 9GB or 12GB set up it that's the way you go.

Don't cheap out on the PSU!!

» Wed Aug 18, 2010 11:44 am

If this is 100% a gaming rig, and you have the extra cash, enjoy. But you might want to put part of your budget towards a 1080p projector or large 1080p monitor and go with the 2500k instead of the i7-970. Also, as @greatsquare suggests, 6GB should be a good amount of RAM and you may want to consider going with an AMD solution.

If you will be performing other intensive tasks on this computer, such as Adobe CS5, 1080p video encoding, disc authoring, etc., I'd suggest the following:
- go with http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115070
- in any case stick with Intel, as AMD CPUs lack SSE 4.1+ support, which is heavily used during CPU intensive (read AVCHD, MPEG encoding tasks).
- go with a P67 instead of the X58
- CS5 allows GPU acceleration only with NVIDIA cards - go with the GTX 570, 580 or 590 instead of the 6970
- go with 12 or 16GB RAM

If you can wait another month or so, there will probably be some thunderbolt-compatible SB or Ivy Bridge mobos announced, only if that sort of thing is relevant to you (for future-proofing I suppose)

» Thu Aug 19, 2010 1:19 am

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?

Most likely I will use it for Photoshop and such.

Yes, I know I can get the i7-2600K + P67, and that is actually another spec I ahve put together. =)

» Thu Aug 19, 2010 3:41 am

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.

Yes, that is what I'm doing. =) Thanks for the other info as well. Much appreciated it.

» Wed Aug 18, 2010 2:07 pm

To all: Thanks for the info. Man I really love this forum...such helpful people. I have always planned to wait until October to begin putting this together. However, you all answered the question i had, which getting a $1000 to $1500 computer will do the trick. That is what I thought but only building one PC, luckly with much success, I still consider myself a newbie. So thank you again!

» Wed Aug 18, 2010 9:37 pm

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.

This.

Heck, I'm still hoping that the "built for XBox" thing will let me still run it on my old hardware, as it has with games like Mass Effect 2 and other "current" stuff. (In this case "old" = an iMac from when they were way behind the graphics card curve instead of just behind. HD2600XT/256mb, 4gb ram, 2.66 Core 2Duo. Yeah, I won't be able to run on high, but I'm hoping it'll still hit the minimums.)

Sure, you need more than that to crank all the sliders to max, turn on 1000x AA/AF, and install 6gb of replacement texture mods, but still not what some people are claiming.