Greetings fellow Tamrielians...

I would like to put it out to the community and anyone knowledgable in the framework of ESO to add their two cents into what hardware would bring out the best in ESO in terms of performance and immersion.

As I know this will be subjective to a certain level, please state pricing as a factor when advising of certain products.

It is already obvious that graphics card, memory, CPU and SSD will play a massive role, do advice as to what will bring out the best for the game with some overhead for future expansions done to the game.

My Questions

1. What I am curious about is, will a dedicated sound card improve perforamce, does ESO use OpenAL? I understand that it might be overkill, that the cost of a dedicated sound card won't warrant the performance improvements (if any), but still, it is good to know.
2. SSD, How fast? Brand? Cost? Size? Does ESO cache everything at the loading screens or do they load assets progressively (on demand)?
3. Graphics Card, Is ESO developed to take advantage of a certain brand? ATI Mantle? DirectX 10/11? OpenGL?
4. Graphics Card, How much onboard memory will ESO use?
5. CPU, AMD/Intel?
6. CPU AMD A or FX? Crossfire APU?
7. Memory? How much will ESO use? Is there a max amount, so I don't go buying 64GB of DDR3

Feel free to add other components if you think it will help with the gaming experience.

Thank you all, see you all in game.

1. Nowadays, the mainboard has it implemented. Some years ago, one could experience some performance boost when using a dedicated sound card. Today, a dedicated soundcard may eben have a slight negative impact on performance (just read that somewhere).

2. Samsung 840 Evo is always a good choice. But any SSD will give an advantage over a conventional HD (even if you get a "cheap" one) I would take a 120 GB or better 240 GB, if you want to install windows + some games on it (recommended)

3. I think NVidia may have a slight advantage.

4. Depends on your resolution, but with Full HD something slightly above 1GB... so 2GB should be enough

5. CPU: Intel I5-series quadcore CPUs. TESO (at the moment does not take advantage from hyperthreading, so you can save some money you would have to add for a i7-series CPU) i5-series is known as a good gaming CPU. You may want to overclock it (TESO takes advantage of high clock speeds, and TESO - like most other MMO - seems to be CPU limited, that means the CPU is the most important part affecting performance)

6. Personally, I would never buy AMD atm.

7. Never exceeded 4-point-something GB in total... so 8GB is enough

Here ya go:

Motherboard:

http://products.ncix.com/detail/asus-b85m-g-matx-lga1150-b85-13-84513.htm

It's really all you need, a good deal.

Processor:

http://products.ncix.com/detail/intel-core-i5-4570-quad-c3-81329-1230.htm

Again just fine for what you need.

RAM:

http://products.ncix.com/detail/kingston-khx1600c9d3b1k2-8gx-8gb-kit-2x4gb-53-70136-1285.htm

8G is just fine.

SSD:

http://products.ncix.com/detail/kingston-ssdnow-v300-120gb-2-5in-91-78078-1285.htm

Put your OS and the ESO game on this.

HD:

http://products.ncix.com/detail/western-digital-caviar-blue-1tb-5a-74462.htm

For all your storage, video, music etc.

Video Card:

http://products.ncix.com/detail/msi-geforce-gtx-750-ti-b5-94307.htm

Slightly more than one might need but the 2G of memory will be useful. A very efficient card.

Power Supply:

http://products.ncix.com/detail/seasonic-s12ii-620w-eps12v-20-24pin-e8-52174.htm

Always buy the Seasonic.