Building a PC, selecting parts from newegg. This is what i have in mind so far:

intel i7 2600k 3.4ghz quad core processor (will probably overclock to at least 4.0 ghz.)
nVidia GTX 570 1.25gb GPU, maybe a gtx 580 1.5gb GPU
8 gb RAM ( either 1600, 1866 or higher MHz)
gigabyte Z68 mobo

Absolutely.

It will run it maxed out, however depending on how optimized the engine is, it may not be a perfect stable 60FPS.

Lol, you're building a PC for Skyrim and are getting 8 gigs or ram? Can you say "overkill"? 4 would be well enough.

you think so, even if i save money and go for the 570 over the 580?

I don't think it's ONLY for Skyrim. Anyway it's cheap enough that 8 is fine.


And to the OP, do you need the i7? You could save a bit and get the i5 2500k and then get the 580.

Battlefield 3 was running at E3 on a single EVGA 580. A 570 will quite easily max Skyrim.

Gonna crossfire that Sapphire HD 6970 for this game. Crosshair Formula IV Mobo and AMD X6 Phenom II 1090T. Im gonna do some damage, at least on 9 dollars an hour.

I have a feeling that most users who create topics like "My PC will run the game with everything on max?" is just trying to show the settings of your PC. :dance:

Just saying

and for CAD, and for programming, and for 3d modelling. But yea, i guess that extra $40 is overkill for those things. Lol.

I feel like it is a legitimate concern. Why buy a game thats gonna require you to also buy 300 dollars worth of hardware.

Overkill...? How? 8GB ram is extremely cheap. I don't know why you wouldn't buy at least 8gb ddr3 2000 ram if you are building a PC right now. It is most certainly not overkill and will only help extend the lifespan of the PC.

With your logic it is overkill buying anything over a 512mb video car because a 512 should be good enough to run on minimum settings... so why buy more, right? :facepalm:

i haven't built the thing yet, so i have nothing to brag about.

The REAL question is...Will my PC run modded Skyrim, max settings, 2560x1600 with 120 FPS (for 3D :hubbahubba: ).

8GB of RAM was overkill a year and a half ago when I built my system and it cost $25 a GB. 4GB is really all you need for games. That's why I only have 4GB. But at half the price now, might as well go for the full 8GB and future-proof yourself.

(and I don't mean need as in "need to play at minimum", I mean that's all current gen games are going to use)

By the way, push that processor more than 4GHz. If Skyrim is half as CPU-bound as Oblivion is, overclocking is going to bring a big performance boost. I don't know anything about that processor, but Intel Core i5s and i7s overclock very, very well. I don't know, with some good cooling you might safely hit 5GHz. Don't be afraid. My first overclock pushed my i5 750 clock up 40%.

will want the hyperthreading for cad and 3d modeling stuff.

The super-real-question-with-a-cherry-on-top is, you have a 2560x1600 monitor that also does 120hz? INTERESTING. TELL ME MORE.

4 is enough for pretty much any games out there at the moment but having 8 isnt too bad for the future. These people who have ridiculous amounts like 16 though.. I just have to ask why?

As I have said before to this question, for video editing and rendering RAMdisks really come in handy. Have atleast 8GB of RAM dedicated to the disk and it will fly by the encode.

i dont want to push it too much without liquid cooling. Just going to get a separate CPU cooler and go to 4.5 at most. I'll have to see what the temperatures are like, so idk yet.

Also, modded oblivion goes into the 5gb mark of ram useage. Skyrim might have even more demanding texture packs which will increase the ram usage even higher. The idea of skyrim using 8gb of ram or higher is not out of the question. Furthermore, when you do graphics editing, and rendering of HD videos, and 3d graphics rendering, it can take beyond 25gb of ram just to load a city scene or something like that into memory. 8gb would be the minimum if you like to add stuff to your games.

Even stalker with texture mods takes up 6gb, gothic 3 with the ultra ini edit takes up 7gb alone after about 30 minutes playtime.

If you're so worried about whether you've got the specs to run the game, why not wait until the official requirements are released?

We're only operating on best guesses at the moment and your rig's only going to get cheaper, so keep your powder dry.

As to your question, I'd be amazed if your computer couldn't run Skyrim maxed out. :shrug:

yea, if you know how to overclock a precessor then you know enough about tech to know what your pc will run or not run

Yes.

(Maybe not the highest AA, but every other setting to the max)

And don't listen to anyone telling you to get 4gb of RAM. If you're building your PC, give it that temporary future-proofness so you aren't opening up your case in a year's time to upgrade the RAM.

never played oblivion or fallout on PC, so no, i don't know what it takes to run these kind of games maxed out.