[Britta Gronkowski]

I'm sorry to say, but that is simply not true. Fallout 3 and NV did not run significantly better on a quad core vs a similarly clocked dual core.

Todd Howard said himself Skyrim will be mainly a DX9 game with a possibility of DX11 support in the future. Just look at the screen shots, while they do look good, it isn't DX11.

No, you won't be able to max the game on 2.0 ghz. If you do, expect choppy frames.


Now, let us quit the debate spam and instead help others out.

Is this a joke...are you saying that my 2630QM Won't be able to max the game with ease? Anyway...http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+Phenom+9550+Quad-Core His CPU is on par with the Intel Core2 Duo E8500 @ 3.16GHz I'm pretty sure it will handle Skyrim. I'm just mad because your information is very misleading, medium/high settings really? Yes maybe if he was playing at 1080p and even then his CPU wouldn't hold him back much if at all let alone at 1280 x 1024. Its no like Fallout 3/ fallout NV were unable to use Quad cores and this certainly won't be the case with Skyrim either.

[Beat freak]

Is this a joke...are you saying that my 2630QM Won't be able to max the game with ease? Anyway...http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+Phenom+9550+Quad-Core His CPU is on par with the Intel Core2 Duo E8500 @ 3.16GHz I'm pretty sure it will handle Skyrim. I'm just mad because your information is very misleading, medium/high settings really? Yes maybe if he was play at 1080p and even then his CPU wouldn't hold him back much if at all let alone at 1280 x 1024. Its no like Fallout 3/ fallout NV were unable to use Quad cores and this certainly won't be the case with Skyrim either.

I am misleading? You are trying to tell everyone MORE CORES ARE BETTER when they ARE NOT. An E8500 and a 9550 may be similar for computer related calculations such as basic cpu functions but when they are used for gaming the higher clock speed is better BECAUSE MOST PC GAMES DO NOT UTILIZE ALL OF THE CORES. PERIOD. Google will set your soul free. The info is out there, go find it.

I'll help. http://www.guru3d.com/article/cpu-scaling-in-games-with-quad-core-processors/1

[Mashystar]

I am misleading? You are trying to tell everyone MORE CORES ARE BETTER when they ARE NOT. An E8500 and a 9550 may be similar for computer related calculations such as basic cpu functions but when they are used for gaming the higher clock speed is better BECAUSE MOST PC GAMES DO NOT UTILIZE ALL OF THE CORES. PERIOD. Google will set your soul free. The info is out there, go find it.

I'll help. http://www.guru3d.com/article/cpu-scaling-in-games-with-quad-core-processors/1

Maybe that was true back in 2008 when the article was written over 3 years ago. I'm saying his processor is more then capable of running on max settings and it's not like he is loosing performance from having 4 cores. My 4 core processor is faster then all 2 core processors so how is that misleading? 2 core processors will be obsolete in 2-3 years, I think that say's something right there. Its not all about the clock speed my 2.0 GHz is in the top 20 fastest processors. http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Processors-Benchmarklist.2436.0.html I just know that his CPU will be more than enough to max the game at such a low resolution, ask anyone else on this forum.

[Angus Poole]

Maybe that was true back in 2008 when the article was written over 3 years ago. I'm saying his processor is more then capable of running on max settings and it's not like he is loosing performance from having 4 cores. My 4 core processor is faster then all 2 core processors so how is that misleading? 2 core processors will be obsolete in 2-3 years, I think that say's something right there. Its not all about the clock speed my 2.0 GHz is in the top 20 fastest processor...http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Processors-Benchmarklist.2436.0.html I just know that his CPU will be more than enough to max the game at such a low resolution, ask anyone else on this forum.

You are confusing fast as in stuff like web browsing, virus checks, photo/video editing, and stuff like that then comparing it to what we consider fast in gaming. These are two different realms. Do you think nootbookcheck.net considers their reviews to cater to the gamer? lol. 2008 or 2011, this console cycle hasn't ended yet and most game developers that make games for the Xbox360 port them to the PC. Do you think they make optimizations to run on a quad core? No, they port the controls and a couple UI issues and boom, PC game.

I'm saying his CPU is capable of running on medium to high, leaning to high as I said 1 page ago. Not sure why you are going so crazy about my prediction. o_O

[Harinder Ghag]

AMD Athlon X2 3800+
nVidia 7800 GT 512mb
2 gig RAM

Yes, it's getting old. In fact, i bought it to be an Oblivion rig and it served that purpose well. People have told me that it wouldn't run Fallout 3, Bioshock, Assassin's Creed and many other games since and it did the job. I expect people will tell me that it won't run Skyrim, but i am quietly confident. Obviously it won't run it at bull[censored] resolutions, but graphics mean little to me. Non-choppy at 1024x768 with distance sliders at max will do. So, place your bets. Will it do that?

[Destinyscharm]

AMD Athlon X2 3800+
nVidia 7800 GT 512mb
2 gig RAM

Yes, it's getting old. In fact, i bought it to be an Oblivion rig and it served that purpose well. People have told me that it wouldn't run Fallout 3, Bioshock, Assassin's Creed and many other games since and it did the job. I expect people will tell me that it won't run Skyrim, but i am quietly confident. Obviously it won't run it at bull[censored] resolutions, but graphics mean little to me. Non-choppy at 1024x768 with distance sliders at max will do. So, place your bets. Will it do that?

If that is all you have to work with, at least buy some more RAM. 4GB kit is cheap. I doubt you'll be able to run it, but if you can, it won't be great. Low to medium at best. Most sliders and AA to low or off.

[Kelly John]

AMD Athlon X2 3800+
nVidia 7800 GT 512mb
2 gig RAM

Yes, it's getting old. In fact, i bought it to be an Oblivion rig and it served that purpose well. People have told me that it wouldn't run Fallout 3, Bioshock, Assassin's Creed and many other games since and it did the job. I expect people will tell me that it won't run Skyrim, but i am quietly confident. Obviously it won't run it at bull[censored] resolutions, but graphics mean little to me. Non-choppy at 1024x768 with distance sliders at max will do. So, place your bets. Will it do that?

An advice: if you want to spend a little cash on "rescuing" that PC, I suggest you buy a really cheap 2 GB's of RAM module, and look for a nice second-hand GPU, ideally from the previous generation than the current one (so you're looking for a GTX 4xx / HD 5xxx). All put together it should be no more than 100 or 150 bucks, and your PC will be ready to run Skyrim, even at Medium settings with no problems.

[Annika Marziniak]

Its a quad core and you don't just look at the clock speed. Cache is way more important and 4mb Cache is decent. He will have no problems maxing the game.

That will depend on how well Skyrim utilizes more than two cores.

[Conor Byrne]

how about these specs? Can i run Skyrim on normal - high?

------------------
System Information
------------------

Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit (6.1, Build 7600) (7600.win7_gdr.110622-1503)
Language: Finnish (Regional Setting: Finnish)
System Manufacturer: System manufacturer
System Model: System Product Name
BIOS: BIOS Date: 09/18/09 15:13:57 Ver: 10.10
Processor: AMD Athlon™ II X2 250 Processor (2 CPUs), ~3.0GHz
Memory: 4096MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 3328MB RAM
Page File: 1573MB used, 5078MB available
Windows Dir: C:\Windows
DirectX Version: DirectX 11
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
User DPI Setting: Using System DPI
System DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)
DWM DPI Scaling: Disabled
DxDiag Version: 6.01.7600.16385 32bit Unicode

---------------
Display Devices
---------------
Card name: ATI Radeon HD 4770
Manufacturer: ATI Technologies Inc.
Chip type: ATI display adapter (0x94B3)
DAC type: Internal DAC(400MHz)
Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_94B3&SUBSYS_031C1043&REV_00
Display Memory: 1913 MB
Dedicated Memory: 505 MB
Shared Memory: 1407 MB
Current Mode: 1600 x 900 (32 bit) (60Hz)

[Katey Meyer]

Intel Core i7 2600k Sandy Bridge 3.4 ghz
GeForce GTX 560 Ti
Win 7 Pro x64
4gb DDR3 2200
X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatality Pro
80gb SSD
850 Watt PSU

What you think, should be just fine?

[Dawn Farrell]

Intel Core i7 2600k Sandy Bridge 3.4 ghz
GeForce GTX 560 Ti
Win 7 Pro x64
4gb DDR3 2200
X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatality Pro
80gb SSD
850 Watt PSU

What you think, should be just fine?

Very high settings easily.

[sally R]

That will depend on how well Skyrim utilizes more than two cores.

There's no reason not to assume that Skyrim will not utilize multi-cores at least as well as FO3/NV did. Which they didn't do as good as they could have but still did fairly well.

[Roisan Sweeney]

Intel Core i7 2600k Sandy Bridge 3.4 ghz
GeForce GTX 560 Ti
Win 7 Pro x64
4gb DDR3 2200
X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatality Pro
80gb SSD
850 Watt PSU

What you think, should be just fine?

It'll play fine. Personally I'd save some money by dropping:

- The 2600k to a 2500k. Same gaming performance, the only thing you really lose is hyperthreading which won't matter one bit in games. You only need to pay that extra $100 if you use multithreaded apps A LOT.
- DDR3 2200 ram to 1600, 1866 max. You'll save a good $60-70 with barely any performance drop.
- Drop the sound card, you won't notice any difference with decent onboard sound when it comes to gaming, and if you need a better sound card for some real audio work you don't want that one. And if you don't yet have some really nice surround speakers, get those first before you decide to get a good sound card.
- You don't need a 850W with a single 560. ~600-700 will be more than enough, and sli is too much of a PITA to be worth it. With the saved money you can at least put it towards a better PSU brand, better 80+ rating, and modular if you like.

With the money saved you'll have enough to get a better GPU and a bigger SSD.

[David Chambers]

It'll play fine. Personally I'd save some money by dropping:

- The 2600k to a 2500k. Same gaming performance, the only thing you really lose is hyperthreading which won't matter one bit in games. You only need to pay that extra $100 if you use multithreaded apps A LOT.
- DDR3 2200 ram to 1600, 1866 max. You'll save a good $60-70 with barely any performance drop.
- Drop the sound card, you won't notice any difference with decent onboard sound when it comes to gaming, and if you need a better sound card for some real audio work you don't want that one. And if you don't yet have some really nice surround speakers, get those first before you decide to get a good sound card.
- You don't need a 850W with a single 560. ~600-700 will be more than enough, and sli is too much of a PITA to be worth it.

With the money saved you'll have enough to get a better GPU and a bigger SSD.

- The 2600k to a 2500k. Same gaming performance, the only thing you really lose is hyperthreading which won't matter one bit in games. You only need to pay that extra $100 if you use multithreaded apps A LOT.

This is correct.

- DDR3 2200 ram to 1600, 1866 max. You'll save a good $60-70 with barely any performance drop.

This is also correct. Speed makes little difference after 1333MHz and barely more of a difference under that. Timings count too, lower is better, C7 or C6.

- Drop the sound card, you won't notice any difference with decent onboard sound when it comes to gaming, and if you need a better sound card for some real audio work you don't want that one. And if you don't yet have some really nice surround speakers, get those first before you decide to get a good sound card.

Can't fault this either.

- You don't need a 850W with a single 560. ~600-700 will be more than enough, and sli is too much of a PITA to be worth it

SLI and Crossfire are awesome. I've never had a desktop without some sort of dual GPU solution.

[Robert]

3.1GHz Intel Core i5-2400 6MB Cache Quad-Core
4GB DDR3 1333Mhz
1TB HD
GTX 580
CoolerMaster Black HAF 932
600watt Power Supply

Should run pretty well I would Imagine.

EDIT: On second thought, after compairing the two, I think ill go with the much cheaper, and slightly lower quality GTX 570.

[Kim Kay]

SLI and Crossfire are awesome. I've never had a desktop without some sort of dual GPU solution.

Really depends on the usage. With ultra high resolutions like 2560x1440 it's needed, but if you're in the general 1920x1080 crowd there's not much of a reason to pick dual 560 ti's over a single 570 or 580. Anyway, even if he kept the 850w psu for a future sli setup, with the money saved on cpu, ram, and sound card he could get a better single gpu for now until he can afford the second. I go by the strategy of buying the best single gpu you can afford.

[Hayley O'Gara]

EDIT: On second thought, after compairing the two, I think ill go with the much cheaper, and slightly lower quality GTX 570.

Can't blame you. The GTX 580' price has barely descended 100 or 150 bucks since they were released. They're still pretty expensive stuff.

[Rachel Eloise Getoutofmyface]

Can't blame you. The GTX 580' price has barely descended 100 or 150 bucks since they were released. They're still pretty expensive stuff.

I heard that Radeon is releasing the HD 7000 series soon (I could be wrong.). Maybe we will see a significant price drop then, that's probably when i will buy all my parts. And if its cheap enough after this hypothetical price drop, i might end up getting the GTX 580.

[carly mcdonough]

Really depends on the usage. With ultra high resolutions like 2560x1440 it's needed, but if you're in the general 1920x1080 crowd there's not much of a reason to pick dual 560 ti's over a single 570 or 580. Anyway, even if he kept the 850w psu for a future sli setup, with the money saved on cpu, ram, and sound card he could get a better single gpu for now until he can afford the second. I go by the strategy of buying the best single gpu you can afford.

I'm personaly only getting one 1GB 560 ti to run Skyrim on ultra and it should work fine, however my whole build is so it can hammer as much use as possible out of it, it's a Nvidia based build with all exactly matching parts, so you can do it on one 560 ti, in ultra 1080p with a frame rate of over 40 FPS

[Nymph]

I'm personaly only getting one 1GB 560 ti to run Skyrim on ultra and it should work fine, however my whole build is so it can hammer as much use as possible out of it, it's a Nvidia based build with all exactly matching parts, so you can do it on one 560 ti, in ultra 1080p with a frame rate of over 40 FPS

Matching as in brand? Color scheme? Not sure what you're getting at. Anyway, 560 ti is a great card and will play the game great especially for the price range. As far as matching other parts, brand choice really only matters as far as reliability, features, and past biases toward brands. You could put a corsair psu, asus mobo, crucial ram, evga gpu etc build together and it will run just as well as if you had matching parts. But a better gpu is often the best choice when trying to balance what to buy for a gaming build. No need to put too much money into a lot of the other parts.

[Tiffany Carter]

I heard that Radeon is releasing the HD 7000 series soon (I could be wrong.). Maybe we will see a significant price drop then, that's probably when i will buy all my parts. And if its cheap enough after this hypothetical price drop, i might end up getting the GTX 580.

Heh, you better sit down. I've been waiting for Sandy Bridge-E, Radeon HD 7000, Nvidia Kepler and the Bulldozer since the beginning of this year, and technically they all should have been released by September. But all of them have been delayed, either to Nov or 1Q 2012.

I grew so tired of seeing continuous news about delays that I bought a GTX 560 Ti as a temporary solution for Skyrim.

[Brentleah Jeffs]

It'll play fine. Personally I'd save some money by dropping:

- The 2600k to a 2500k. Same gaming performance, the only thing you really lose is hyperthreading which won't matter one bit in games. You only need to pay that extra $100 if you use multithreaded apps A LOT.
- DDR3 2200 ram to 1600, 1866 max. You'll save a good $60-70 with barely any performance drop.
- Drop the sound card, you won't notice any difference with decent onboard sound when it comes to gaming, and if you need a better sound card for some real audio work you don't want that one. And if you don't yet have some really nice surround speakers, get those first before you decide to get a good sound card.
- You don't need a 850W with a single 560. ~600-700 will be more than enough, and sli is too much of a PITA to be worth it. With the saved money you can at least put it towards a better PSU brand, better 80+ rating, and modular if you like.

With the money saved you'll have enough to get a better GPU and a bigger SSD.

Thanks for all the input. This is currently my system at present. Was wondering how it would match up. I never played FO3/NV so I dont know how well they ran. I'm still playin OB. Even tho Skyrim looks way better I'm hoping that it runs a lot better as well.

[Mark Hepworth]

Thanks for all the input. This is currently my system at present. Was wondering how it would match up. I never played FO3/NV so I dont know how well they ran. I'm still playin OB. Even tho Skyrim looks way better I'm hoping that it runs a lot better as well.

Then yeah anyway you'll be fine. If anything there will be a slight gpu bottleneck, but the 560 ti is still great and with the graphical stagnation of games lately I think Skyrim will run very well on your pc. From my experience with my past two pcs before my most recent 2500k/570 build, FO3 and NV are more cpu limited than gpu limited, and your cpu wouldn't even sweat with them.

[Zosia Cetnar]

@Twitch S Simons, nice sig. My personal fav is Kaisa from Battlelore. Tarja a close second...

[stephanie eastwood]

Matching as in brand? Color scheme? Not sure what you're getting at. Anyway, 560 ti is a great card and will play the game great especially for the price range. As far as matching other parts, brand choice really only matters as far as reliability, features, and past biases toward brands. You could put a corsair psu, asus mobo, crucial ram, evga gpu etc build together and it will run just as well as if you had matching parts. But a better gpu is often the best choice when trying to balance what to buy for a gaming build. No need to put too much money into a lot of the other parts.

Matching as in brand and what their geared towards, like crossfire etc. I just wanted the build to run Skyrim like I've mentioned, so as well as possible, and then I'll upgrade it later, but right now super Skyrim will keep me amused