Thinking of getting a gaming rig but not just for Skyrim. There are lot of other games I'm interested in playing but mainly Skyrim. Anywho, I'm lazy to built my own computer unless someone help me out on what to get that'll make Skyrim run smoothly. Other than that, anyone know the best website that lets you order your own gaming rig. I know ibuypower and Alienware but are there any other websites like them?

Maybe you should ask in the PC section? I believe there are a sticky about this too.

And stop being lazy.

Alienware tend to be overpriced. Newegg has pre-built machines. Depending on your budget you can get some nice rigs for a decent price. Just a FYI if you go with an NVIDIA graphics card, I highly recommend a card that bears the GTX tag. If you get anything with a GS or GT you will regret it. If you are feeling adventures about building a PC (its not hard if you have help) you can send me a pm and I can give you a list of required parts and maybe some recommended parts if you give me your budget.

Ha, ok. Thanks for helping.

If you've never built a PC before or just don't want to, I suggest Maingear. Their customer service is bar none and they have pretty awesome prices.

That being said, I just bought an Alienware laptop, but because I have Dell credit.

Wait for a bit, unless you have cash to burn.

Newegg

Pick CPU, then pick mobo, then pick ram, then pick GFX card (at least 560ti), then select Power supply, HDD's, case if you don't have one, pick OEM windows 7 home premium and your done!

New gfx cards will be out very very soon.

Any reason why you recommend 560ti for Skyrim?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBJjZK8iSgY is a quick and fun instruction on how to build a PC. Mind the volume.

I thought I read the next gen cards were pushed to Q2 of 2012?

This doesn't help much if you don't tell him what he needs to get specifically. Socket type, RAM type, make sure the PSU voltage, etc.

In regards to why the 560Ti was suggested, it's a mid range video card with a smaller process die, which means it doesn't get near as hot as some of the other ones. A good card all around really.

In order to do THAT, OP should have stated his budget.

Read the sticky post from that one thread. 560 ti is really nice. Let's say I'm aiming the highest detail setting for Skyrim, ultra of course. What kind of graphics card can do that?

Until the game itself is modded, tweaked and optimized better, using skyrim to benchmark hardware, isn't how it should be done. Alas, people will do it though.

Resolution matters to answer that question. Do you have/are you getting a monitor that caps out at 1080p, or are you getting something better? I have a Radeon 6950, which is a bit above the 560 TI, and a monitor with a native resolution of 1920x1200 (IPS monitors FTW), and in cities it's not quite smooth. Outdoors is fine though. No further deleterious effects from enhanced texture mods thus far, but I have yet to install any massive texture overhauls, just smaller things like vegetation and water.

I have a monitor already. It has the DVI and VGA. Max resolution is 1600 x 900.

Im still using a GTX 260 which is about 3 years old and it runs Skyrim on Ultra at just under 40 FPS with occasional dips into the 20s. Video Cards are one of those things where you can't just go by the number on the box. It really depends on what will get you the most band for your buck, the GeForce GTX 260 will do that, although depending on your build you may want to go up a few levels.

You might like to look at PCSpecialist if you are in the UK. They have a very easy to use buld menu and customer service is very good,I bought a ￡1800 laptop recently so i speak from experience.

Depends on the FPS you want, what resolution you want, and whether you want anti aliasing and anisotropic filtering. For Skyrim, the GTX 260 or AMD 5770/6770 is more than enough for ultra setting, 900-1080p resolution and modest antialiasing/anisotropic filtering because the game is CPU bound. If you really want good performance in Skyrim a sandy bridge quadcore CPU is a must. For other games, the GTX 260 and 5770 start lagging behind to medium settings at high resolutions like Witcher 2 and Metro 2033. The 560 ti is adequate for almost all games at High resolutions and High settings so is a good deal right now.

If you can't stand having anything less than 60 fps you need to go higher end, but there is a reason those people are called enthusiast.

Oh and disable Vsync in skyrim ini, or get d3doverrider to force triple buffering much better FPS.

That can lead to some really hideous page tearing though. At/above 1080p I don't consider turning off vsync to be viable; you end up with a constant and very visible seam right through the middle of the screen.

A word of advice? Get 6 (or even 8...DDR3 RAM is cheap today) GB's of RAM and a 64-bit Windows. As Skyrim will have official LAA support very soon (this very week, according to Bethesda), it'll be able to allocate up to 4 GB's of RAM for itself. That means smoother gameplay, next to no crashes, and more RAM space for mods.

I say 6-8 GB's instead of 4 because the OS (Operating System, or Windows basically) also consumes RAM by itself (it isn't odd for it to use from 1 to 2 gb's, depending of how many applications you've running).

Page tearing depends on a myriad of factors such as CPU, Ram, vram, graphics potential, and screen refresh rate. I would recommend d3d overrider to enable vsync with triple buffering if tearing is bad for you. This allows vsync to take less of a performance hit, essentially lets the GPU update more frequently to the monitors refresh rate rather than setting to 20, 30, or 60 fps. Essentially on regular vsync if you can't run 60fps there is a tendency to got to 30 fps because the refresh rate for the GPU is low so it begins to render in factors of the monitors refresh rate and if not usually results in micro-stuttering.