[Dean Ashcroft]

Just thinking here, wouldnt you be loosing a bit of performance by using such an old card for physx? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbww3dhzK0M
*I have never used Physx, so I'm just wondering.

He won't get any benefit whatsoever, Skyrim uses Havok.

Really, Enossirq, just get rid of that card. PhysX was nothing more than a failed gimmick, no one uses it, and you're wasting a PCI-E X16 slot with it there. If anything, take it out to conserve power consumption and improve the life of your PSU.

Anyways, these are my current specs:

MoBo: MSI P67A-GD65 (B3)
>Intel P67 Northbridge
>SLI Ready
CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K @ 3.3GHz
>Quad Core
Memory: 8Gb DDR3 @ 1333MHz (2X 4Gb)
>Dual Channel
GPU: nVidia GeForce 8800GT
>512Mb GDDR3 VRAM
>2 Way SLI
>DirectX 10
PSU: 700Watt
Audio: Creative SB X-Fi Titanium
>With ALchemy
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium
>64bit

It is highly likely that my GPUs will be exchanged for a single GTX 460 by the time Skyrim comes out, too, so I should have more VRAM and DX 11 support available to me by then.

[Taylah Haines]

Fairly creaky old piece of kit, here. It won't be able to run Skyrim - it struggles running Morrowind (albeit MGSO-modified Morrowind) at 1680x1050 (no mip-mapping, no distant land) - I'm lucky to get 20fps most of the time. Oblivion runs at about 25-30fps at 1024x768, mostly high settings (no bloom, no HDR, no specular lighting). That said, it's more than adequate for my primary use (Linux; Windows is only a gaming OS, and even that I'm looking to phase out via stuff like WINE, OpenMW etc).

• AMD Athlon II X64 2.4GHz
  
• 4GB DDR2 RAM
  
• Windows XP SP3 (32-bit)
  
• Nvidia 7300GT

Would upgrading the graphics card be sufficient to (probably) get about Oblivion-levels of performance out of Skyrim, or would I (probably) need to upgrade more (and that's assuming it still will support XP - if it's going to be supporting DX11 that's unlikely).

[Jamie Moysey]

I'm not sure if I can run it but I'll post my specs as well as I know them.

I'm running Windows Vista 32, my computer is a Gateway and about five years old now.

My GPU is an Nvidia 9600GT with 1G of video ram.

My CPU is an 3.0GHZ AMD Athlon 64x2 6000+ Windsor, it's Dual Core.

I have 3 gigs of ram.

My monitor runs at 1360 x 768 Widescreen.

Storage space isn't an issue.

I haven't had an issue with any game I've ever played in it, including newer ones like Fallout NV, Dead Rising 2, and Portal 2, I can run them all on max,
or near max with little frame-rate dip.

Let me know what you think, thanks!

Can anyone take a look and give me a hand? :mellow:

[KRistina Karlsson]

Really, Enossirq, just get rid of that card. PhysX was nothing more than a failed gimmick, no one uses it,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhysX#Use Notice how two of the most graphically demanding games ever made (Metro 2033 and Cryostasis, which are both very good games on their own rights) use it. And quite a lot of other great games use it as well.

If you have the spare card laying around, theres no reason not to use it for a PhysX card. Buying a card for that purpose, however, is not advisable at this point.

[{Richies Mommy}]

I am finalizing my specs for my first game PC build. All the components come to ￡540 I will have ￡60 spare to get a better graphics card or I can change upgrade to a crossfire system after a couple months.
Here are the specs:
CPU-Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz
Graphics Card-Card-XFX ATI Radeon HD 6870 1024MB
Motherboard-ASUS P8H67
Ram-4GB Mushkin Blackline
Power Supply-600W Corsair Builder Series 600CX V2
Hard drive-500GB Western Digital Caviar Blue
Computer Case-Zalman Z9 Plus

[Chloé]

I am finalizing my specs for my first game PC build. All the components come to ￡540 I will have ￡60 spare to get a better graphics card or I can change upgrade to a crossfire system after a couple months.
Here are the specs:
CPU-Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz
Graphics Card-Card-XFX ATI Radeon HD 6870 1024MB
Motherboard-ASUS P8H67
Ram-4GB Mushkin Blackline
Power Supply-600W Corsair Builder Series 600CX V2
Hard drive-500GB Western Digital Caviar Blue
Computer Case-Zalman Z9 Plus

Get some more RAM, at least 6Gb. This way you can take full advantage of running x86 apps (which Skyrim will be) as Large Address Aware (which allows for them to make use of all 4Gb of RAM that an x86 app can use).

So long as you are running an x64 OS, of course, and with that build, you have no reason not to.

[roxanna matoorah]

Am I just paranoid?

@DCDeacon what specs will Skyrim be best at on a computer? I'm buying a new laptop and want to make sure I get good a enough one for Skyrim

@robertwery Don't have PC specs we care share. As always, the more powerful, the better, when it comes to getting a rig.

I know I am probably just a stupid noob and reading this the wrong way but still...

http://twitter.com/#!/search/dcdeacon

[Abel Vazquez]

What do people think at running pretty much highest settings at 1920x1080 with:

AMD Phenom X4 955 3.2Ghz Quad Core
4GB DDR3 Ram
1GB Radeon HD 6870
Win 7 64bit

[Ells]

What do people think at running pretty much highest settings at 1920x1080 with:

AMD Phenom X4 955 3.2Ghz Quad Core
4GB DDR3 Ram
1GB Radeon HD 6870
Win 7 64bit

I would say get atleast two more gigs of ram but besides that you are good to go atleast you should be but until we know the system specs for the game we will not know for sure.

[liz barnes]

To clarify, I was talking about the possibility of two new cards into SLI, not your current pair of 8800GTs.

Yes, but the GPU is still the best upgrade for overall graphics performance. Let me explain, I'll substitute a E8600 for your CPU:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/54?vs=289

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/54?vs=288

...scroll down on the links above for the benchmarks of Fallout 3 and Dragon Age: Origins. Fallout is completely tied to two cores, DA:O utilizes four cores very well and additionally, it isn't very hard on the GPU. Yes a very quad optimized game can show tremendous gains with a quad, but:

1: We don't know if Skyrim is well optimized for quads.
2: All the CPUs have decent frame rates.
3: There is still going to be some level of Gamebryo traits in the new engine. [Fallout 3's engine]

As for the GPU side of things:

I'm substituting your SLI 8800GT 512MB with a single GTS450 to compare to a GTX 560Ti. If you think I'm undercutting your GPUs, use a GTX 285 or GTX 460 768MB... but the performance is somewhere in the middle at best. Either way, the point is that with the GPU upgrade, the performance boost is across the board with all games. This makes the GPU the safe bet in regards to upgrading in almost all cases. A CPU has to be pretty crappy [or the GPU needs to be really good already] for CPU to be the primary concern.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/316?vs=330

Good info and thanks for the reply! So just to make sure I understand everything correctly, it's not my CPU that's going to be the weak link in my setup, but more my GPU(s). A dual core, 3.4GHz processor is by no means outdated as far as i know, maybe it'll choke on heavy duty video processing or editing, but as far as games go it has done fine.

But is a single GTX 560 Ti worth dumping my SLI 8800GT setup? I know the links you gave compared card for card, but no SLI. I could probably make ~$200 off my 8800's and then a GTX 560 Ti is only another $30 - $50 away... so long as I see the performance boost. In the end, I just don't want to have to upgrade my processor because I'll then, in turn, probably have to upgrade my motherboard to support another socket... don't want to spend more than I have to. I'm not looking for a rig that's going to blow a blue whale out of the water, just one that's going to run Skyrim on high settings with a sixy smooth framerate.

[Siidney]

I would say get atleast two more gigs of ram but besides that you are good to go atleast you should be but until we know the system specs for the game we will not know for sure.

Yeah thanks a lot for the advice I was thinking about getting another 4GB ram sometime in the future.

[Farrah Lee]

Good info and thanks for the reply! So just to make sure I understand everything correctly, it's not my CPU that's going to be the weak link in my setup, but more my GPU(s). A dual core, 3.4GHz processor is by no means outdated as far as i know, maybe it'll choke on heavy duty video processing or editing, but as far as games go it has done fine.

But is a single GTX 560 Ti worth dumping my SLI 8800GT setup? I know the links you gave compared card for card, but no SLI. I could probably make ~$200 off my 8800's and then a GTX 560 Ti is only another $30 - $50 away... so long as I see the performance boost. In the end, I just don't want to have to upgrade my processor because I'll then, in turn, probably have to upgrade my motherboard to support another socket... don't want to spend more than I have to. I'm not looking for a rig that's going to blow a blue whale out of the water, just one that's going to run Skyrim on high settings with a sixy smooth framerate.

That's pretty much it. I don't think you're going to see $200 for your 8800GTs, ~$70 each is a more reasonable expectation for used cards in that performance range. The GTX 560 Ti is as http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814261100 with rebate now BTW. With the AMD 7000 series coming in the fall [it is already showing up in AMD drivers], the downward pressure on current GPU prices has 1-2 more rounds before Skyrim's release.

[Cccurly]

you left out the two most important details:

1. your graphics card
2. your monitor display resolution

Intel® Core™2 Quad CPU Q8400 @ 2,66 GHz 2,66 GHz

Do you need anything else?

[Vicky Keeler]

*double post

[Laurenn Doylee]

Intel® Core™2 Quad CPU Q8400 @ 2,66 GHz 2,66 GHz

Do you need anything else?

1. Your display resolution (for example, 800x600, 1280x720, 1366x768, 1600x900, 1600x1440, 1920x1080, 1920x1200, 2560x1600, etc.)

2. the graphics card (for example Intel GMA 900, Intel HDGraphics 3000, AMD Radeon HD 3000, NVIDIA 8400GS, etc.)

[Sharra Llenos]

System requirements, running below optimal speed, and the cost of upgrading video/sound cards are the reasons why I play games on a console. I'm sure people like you blame people like me for ruining the TES series, but I really don't have the money, motivation, or time to keep a good PC updated.

BTW, I'm not trying to start a flame war. And, if you don't blame people like me for ruining the TES series, my apologies.

[sw1ss]

1. Your display resolution (for example, 800x600, 1280x720, 1366x768, 1600x900, 1600x1440, 1920x1080, 1920x1200, 2560x1600, etc.)

2. the graphics card (for example Intel GMA 900, Intel HDGraphics 3000, AMD Radeon HD 3000, NVIDIA 8400GS, etc.)

Sorry, i'm a f***ing noob in that kind of stuff xD....where can i find this property in my cpu?

[mike]

1. Your display resolution (for example, 800x600, 1280x720, 1366x768, 1600x900, 1600x1440, 1920x1080, 1920x1200, 2560x1600, etc.)

2. the graphics card (for example Intel GMA 900, Intel HDGraphics 3000, AMD Radeon HD 3000, NVIDIA 8400GS, etc.)

Ok, i've finally find them xD:

Display resolution:
1680 x 1050
Graphics Card:
Intel® Core™2 Quad CPU Q4800

[Noraima Vega]

1. Your display resolution (for example, 800x600, 1280x720, 1366x768, 1600x900, 1600x1440, 1920x1080, 1920x1200, 2560x1600, etc.)

2. the graphics card (for example Intel GMA 900, Intel HDGraphics 3000, AMD Radeon HD 3000, NVIDIA 8400GS, etc.)

3: Power Supply. If you don't know, give make/model of PC. Assume most prebuilts [Dell, Acer, HP, Asus, Lenovo, etc] will need a PSU upgrade for most any decent GPU.

[Phoenix Draven]

hey guys, can my pc handle skyrim?

MITS Altair 8800b
-2 MHz processor
-256 bytes of memory

if possible, i'd like to play it on the highest resolution my 7" screen can take.

[Penny Courture]

Just thinking here, wouldnt you be loosing a bit of performance by using such an old card for physx? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbww3dhzK0M
*I have never used Physx, so I'm just wondering.

No

That is because normally the 580gtx's would have to using their processing power to process phyx, and normally it's only a small amount of processing power, with the 9800gtx its the perfect card and uses all of it's resources to run phyx programs.

[Josh Trembly]

Ok, now i've written all the property correctly.

R.A.M.: 4,00 GB
Processor: 2,66 GHz
Type of systyem: 64 bit
Display resolution: 1680 x 1050
Graphics Card: Intel? Core?2 Quad CPU Q4800

Do i need to modify my cpu, or it's good enough for Skyrim?

[Dan Scott]

Ok, now i've written all the property correctly.

R.A.M.: 4,00 GB
Processor: 2,66 GHz
Type of systyem: 64 bit
Display resolution: 1680 x 1050
Graphics Card: Intel? Core?2 Quad CPU Q4800

Do i need to modify my cpu, or it's good enough for Skyrim?

Your CPU is fine, but you didnt post your GPU, you should post that as well.

[Lisha Boo]

I'm just curious, is my CPU holding back the potential for my GPU? Should I upgrade my CPU? Or should I just upgrade both? I intend to max Skyrim and sustain a 40+ FPS. I have a 400$ budget.


AMD Athlon II X2 3.1 GHz
ATi Radeon HD 5670 1 GB
4GB RAM DDR3 (3.25 usable due to 32 - bit WIndows)

I can run Oblivion maxed with an average of 35 FPS, although (hopefully) I believe that's due to it's optimization issues.


EDIT: I play @ 1366 x 768

[Siobhan Wallis-McRobert]

Your CPU is fine, but you didnt post your GPU, you should post that as well.

Thx but where can i find this information in the cpu?