From what I've read, most games don't even fully utilize 2 cores, I doubt 4 cores are going to be much of an improvement. Nevermind Bethesda's crappy track record for taking advantage of more than one core. Remember, many people buy pre-assemebled PCs, which tend to have run-of-the-mill hardware - probably not quadcore.

@the OP: I'm more familiar with AMD CPUs, so I don't really know how the Intel/other brands stack up. Don't bother with quadcore unless you find one on sale; keep in mind most games will mostly use one core, and probably only use a second core for the physics and some other effects. It is highly doubtful the developers are going to bother writing code and tweaking the engine to utilize more than 2 cores (though it would be nice if the devs did do that). The previous TES game engine tended to be a CPU hog, but I don't know if the new engine will be that demanding on the CPU. You might need a GPU upgrade down the line, but my hunch is that your set up will meet at least the minimum requirements.

EDIT: I have windows XP 64-bit with 3BG RAM. I think the developers have to code the engine to take advantage of oodles of RAM; iirc, some games put a hardcap on RAM utilization, and will only use, say, up to 2GB no matter how many gigs you have stuffed in there.

EDIT: Disclaimer: I'm not a computer guru or authority or whatever, so some of my info may be outdated or flawed.

Consider this:
Windows 7 64-bit needs on average about 1.5-2gb of RAM just to boot. If you only have 4gb of RAM total, that leaves you with only 2gb to actually do stuff. There's no reason to have less than 6gb of RAM anymore.

@Lokee, Absolutely, I would agree that 6GB would be ideal, perhaps even as high as 8GB to build in an extra buffer for multi-tasking.

The only benefit from going beyond 8GB would be if the OP is using specific applications that can really make use of it.

Yeah, beyond 8gb you're just doing it "because you can". 8gb is what the average user should be running nowadays imo.

I would say wait. It is rumored that Intel will be releasing their new high end core in the Fall, which could cause price drops. Plus AMD will have Bulldozer out by then most likely. I just built a desktop because I was tired of being on a business laptop for the past 6 years. If I had a desktop, I would probably be waiting to build. I went mostly value for the money with no specific budget and believe it should perform well. I have a pc, xbox 360, and ps3...so if one version is a lot better than the others I will buy it for that platform. I am trying to move away from the 360 though since if I need to get rid of one, it would be the 360 (only thing keeping me right now is I have Mass Effect 1 and 2 saves, want to play 3 on it).

I've got an Asus G73-JH.

CPU: Intel i7 Q 740
6 gigs of ram
GPU: ATI Radeon 5870, with support for DX11
1600x900 resolution screen

For perspective, it can run Metro 2033 on High settings with a smooth FPS, and ran the DA 2 demo maxed out.

I hope I'll get at least high settings with Skyrim, but you never know.

I have a 25MHz 486SX, 4MB Ram and a VESA compatible video chip. It runs Doom, can it run Skyrim?

Seriously speaking, system with 4x2.66 GHz, 4GB DDR2 800 RAM, GTS450 1GB i expect should run it accpetably (>30 FPS) in high settings on 1366x768 resolution. It runs New Vegas on ultra setting at 1920x1080 resolution at (nearly) constant 60FPS.

I suppose i could upgrade the RAM to 8GB DDR2 1066 one if need be, i'd rather not as the mobo is getting old (asus P5K-E)

I think you are kidding.
I could play Oblivion with maximum settings and 2x AA at my old computer which was a dual core celeron at 2.2ghz with 2gb ram and an ati 4350.
With that computer I couldn't play Crysis even at 800x600 resolusion at lowest graphic settings,because the game would crash with BSOD.

: /

Now I have a computer with quad core Phenom 2 at 3.2ghz,2gb ram and a 4850 which plays Crysis at very high with photorealistic texture and weather pack mods.

I think I'll be able to play Skyrim at least at medium.
Since it will also run on consoles...

As was stated many times here, very few games take advantage of multiple cores, and those that do usually only run two threads. But what is missing is that background processes in Windows can (sometimes) take advantage of unused threads/cores. Which is an advantage if a game tends to be CPU heavy instead of offloading the bulk of the lifting to the GPU. Previous TES installments have tended toward heavier CPU use. So, unless your budgetary constraints just won't allow it, a quad-core CPU could help. But don't forget that some of Intel's dual-cores have hyper-threading, giving extra virtual cores. For reasons unknown to me, some software is better at utilizing these virtual cores than using real cores. As much as I hate to say it, many of the Intel chips offer better compute performance over AMD chips. But the AMD chips tend to be much lower priced. I am hoping that this new engine for Skyrim is more GPU optimized, as I went with an AMD proc for my new build. I can tell you that the System Requirement's Labs "Can You Run It" widget can't find a thing that my rig doesn't blow away, and I didn't spend that much on it. In fact, all told, monitor, keyboard, and new speakers included, I spent right at a thousand dollars, and I was finally able to turn Oblivion all the way up at 1600x900, and have a steady 60 fps. I am hoping for similar performance in Skyrim, although I'm sure the inevitable hi-res texture mods will cause a significant hit in frame rate. It's all academic until system requirements are released, of course, but, fingers crossed!

Actually not really. An average person is only doing 1 thing at a time, and rarely are they programs that actually max out their 2GB of alloted memory usage (Idle programs in the background do not cound as multitasking). So unless you are doing something like video rendering and photoshot at the same time, 4GB is all you honestly need. And until developers start adding in LAA, more then 4GB is a waste unless you are trying to future proof your rig.

And there are plenty of reasons to have less then 6GB. Lack of money to buy the ram. I got 4GB (4x1GB) of ram for $97, and that was before it jumped up to $120

Hopefully vanilla Skyrim will have great graphics, high res textures, DX 11, tessellation, etc.,in which case we would not need to install HD texture packs, ENBSeries SSAO, etc.

Otherwise, if vanilla Skyrim does not have high res textures, for example, we will need to mod them in, requiring a more powerful computer in order to get decent frame rates at 1920x1080.

So in a strange way, the better Skyrim's vanilla graphics are, the lower the effective system requirements would be for someone who likes to play with high res textures at 1920x1080 or higher resolutions.

AMD Athelon 64 bit processor 3800

2.00 GB RAM

Nvidia Gforce 210

Unless your aiming for super-crisp graphics with maximum draw distance (i.e. all the highest settings), this will work just fine.

I'd probably wait until we get some more concrete information about the engine before we get into this too much. We had a 100+ page thread about this for Oblivion back in 2006 and it didn't really tell us all that much in the beginning. As for guesswork, I'd assume that the game will at least run on a dual-core CPU, 2GB of RAM and something like a GF 8-series/Radeon HD3-series GPU. This is pretty much the minimum requirements for the Crysis 2 demo released earlier today, so I'd say Skyrim should be fairly similar in terms of required GPU functionality and the likes, even if it is a DX9 game at core.

I wasn't trying to boast earlier in the thread, I don't actually have a gaming PC yet, I was just asking whether or not it would handle Skyrim. I also have another question for those who know more about PC gaming: Is GTX 460 SLI viable in the long term for gaming? I would hate to buy a PC then have to upgrade soon after.

can someone help me? will this run skyrim on my computer?


AMD Athlon II X4 620 Processor
Ram 8.00gb
64bit windows 7 operating system
ATI 5570 HD Dx11

I may have asked this about a million times already, but are my current specs adequate by any standards?

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 2.13 GHz
GPU: GeForce 9400 GT
4 GB RAM
1 Terrabyte Hard Drive

Probably.

You may want to invest in a quad core CPU, and MAYBE a new graphics card, but I'd assume that it'd run it maybe at low to medium settings.

I expect the specs will be any dual core cpu and amd/nvidia gpu with 256 megs of vram and support for dx9 and at least 1 gig of ram.

Wanted will likely be a dual core cpu 2 ghz any 1 gig gpu nvidia 8800 or better blah blah blah and 2 gig of ram.

Sorry for the thread dig and being the cliche newb to a forum.

However. upon seeing what i assume is game play in the official trailer and the massive lag I get from the steam running behind on fallout new vegas, should I expect the same for TES5 as well? During some combat in fallout new vegas I get lagged down to 1 and 2 fps. the PC I have has been my gaming platform for the past 4 years and I'm wondering if i should buy a new gaming rig now or wait til a couple weeks before the release of TES5 to ensure I have top notch hardware. what are your opinions? Can you give some advise on some decent hardware between $700-1000 for a gaming rig that will run this game?

Current pc build:

• Window XP pro sp3
  
• Intel Pentium Dual CPU E2200 2.20GHz
  
• 2gb RAM
  
• NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT 512.0 MB
  
• 160gb hdd

I don't know where you are, so the pricing is a guess, but I think you should be able to pick up a quad core, 4gb of ram and a spiffier vid card for about a grand, depending on how you shop. General rule of thumb is that the more you have to do on your own the better your system will be. Example: I bought my computer piece by piece and put it together on my own. I saved a bunch of $ and i didn't have to get all the useless extra stuff Futureshop (Best Buy etc) will put in - who needs a media card reader, or a bunch of light bulbs around your fans?
You have 9 months - keep an eye on the sales at your local computer shop and just wait until they have something up you actually want.
Final advice - how patient are you? Waiting until Black Friday or Boxing day not only ensures you get the latest stuff on sale, but also, the game will be about by then and you'll know what you need instead of listening to us and our estimates

My god is it this time of the week again where this topic returns. Just about every saturday!

Genuine Windows? 7 Ultimate, 64bit, English
875W Multi-GPU Approved Power Supply
Intel? Core? i7-2600K (8MB Cache) Overclocked Turbo Boost to 4.1GHz
16GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1600MHz
Dual 2GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon? HD 6950
Alienware TactX? Keyboard and Mouse Bundle
Alienware TactX? Mouse
2TB SATA 6Gb/s (7,200RPM) 32MB Cache
2TB RAID 1 (2 x 2TB SATA 6Gb/s) 7200 RPM
Alienware? 19-in-1 Media Card Reader
No Monitor
802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1 EDR USB Combo Adapter
Dual Drives: Blu-ray Disc (BD) Burner (Writes to DVD/CD/BD) and DVDRW

Will this run skyrim? Lolz i wish i had this.

Sorry, you might need to upgrade.

Yes you will run the game perfectly, but you will not be able to play.