The ultimate PC specs for Skyrim?

[Alventiothy]

About 6 months ago i purchased a new pc build in order to improve skyrim performance. going from a measly old Amd athlon processor to an Amd fx8350 (@4.5ghz) and from a radeon 5770 to a radeon r9 290. Note, I am not a fan of AMD, but at the time, these parts happened to be on offer and made any other purchase look silly in terms of price to performance. Of course the performance was a massive jump, but perhaps not quite as much as I had hoped for. My question is, I have heard that skyrim can be fairly unkind to AMD users (is this true?) and so would like to ask on behalf of myself and a friend and myself (in the future) what pc specs fellow skyrim users would pick if they were to build the "ultimate" skyrim gaming pc? And yes i do know people have different preferences and loyalties, but its a simple question, and one which might help a great many people looking to at least get somewhere near skyrim in-game bliss even when a hefty amount of mods and textures are installed.

 

So....A friend recently asked me, if he had roughly £2000 ($3000) and wanted to build a computer purely to play Skyrim and install an OVERKILL amount of mods, what should he get?

I want to point out that although it could be said that money is not a big factor in this, i would rather edge towards a 'within reason' budget, aka not including 10k 2x intel xeon with 4 way sli style computers which are out of reach for the majority of people. The last reason I ask is because it may answer my separate question of whether i should switch to Intel processors (and which type the Haswell-E or the Haswell?) for my own Skyrim playthroughs because I also dream of playing skyrim with ALMOST EVERY highest res texture installed and a gargantuan amount of mods installed (merged to avoid the 255 limit of course!).

 

Many Thanks for any help

 

[Boombro]

A heavily modded Skyrim should never need a 3000$ pc if you know what to spend. And you can run a mad skyrim on those parts no less dude. Did you even try it fully? I mean a heavy ENB and some grass on top, that cpu can run CH, frostfall and hunterborn togather with no hassle too. Did you updgrade your mobo? Ram? How much is screen speed in m? 5?

 

 

Cpu: Intel Core i5-4690K.

FAN: CM Hyper 212 EVO

MOBO:ASUS Z97

GPU:Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970

RAM: G.skill 8GB

HDD:Western Digital Blue 1 TB

CASE:Thermaltake Commander.

 

Go all AMD, and you spend on a better case like a haf or a sabertooth mobo but get water cooling and good psu. This should cost around 1500 and can run heavy skyrim no problem.

[notmyhome]

A no-limits-build? i7-4790k, 12GB of memory, a Gainward 970 or two and a 500GB SSD at least. Also, like Boombro said, watercooling. That'll leave your friend with about 800 to spend on a monitor, keyboard and mouse that matches the rest of the setup.

 

But actually what Boombro said would be very much alright. At some point it's Skyrim's engine limiting you rather than hardware. That point isn't too far away from an i5 and 8gig of RAM.

The SSD is a must though, unless your friend actually likes the loading screens.

[Alventiothy]

I did try it out quite extensively, but perhaps i've missed something really obvious? I had project Enb i think, along with most of the S.T.E.P guide's textures. One thing i am a fan of is mods that add npc's to the game and so ive often added tons of these, including interesting npcs, inconsequential npcs and a whole host of other npc and creature adding mods, and these really eat away at performance (does Skyrim have a script limit for npcs because that might be the cause?). But nothing I could find could explain my less than satisfactory level of performance so whilst i've tried everything to get my system to perform better I eventually concluded that as I was soon to be upgrading anyway, i would write here and ask for people's opinion on the IDEAL pc for skyrim. I realize there are lots and lots of more than satisfactory setups these days. But my question is firstly, Is it possible to run skyrim with EVERY HIGHEST texture pack along with huge environment adding mods and the maximum non-conflicting npc adding mods together on todays machines. I mean like what computer would be necessary to run S.T.E.P at its highest settings along with every imaginable npc mod, perkus maximus, some huge quest mods like falksaar and wyrmstooth and any other maximum quality textures i can find.

 

I realize some may find what I am saying a little quirky and perhaps asking too much, but its been my dream for years (as i am sure it has many other peoples) to own a pc in which I can run the skyrim modded version that I would really like to see, without having to sacrifice anything at all. I have been willing to sift through hours of mod sorting and conflict resolving to get a very high standard of skyrim in both looks and feel to my tastes and was even willing to help people out in that regard, but i guess i'm now looking to further that even more by really trying to push the skyrim engine to its absolute limits (assuming it has them). I'm just not as clued up about pc components as I am skyrim modding (and there is still lots i have to learn in that department too) so could use a little help there. Budget is no issue as when I upgrade I tend to go all out (rightly or wrongly, and within reason) and then not upgrade for years afterwards.

 

So i guess its more of an, "in an ideal world what pc would you have to mod skyrim with every POSSIBLE texture and setting and added mod to its MAXIMUM setting". Call it a rhetorical question if you will but it interests me none the less.

[postal001]

I did try it out quite extensively, but perhaps i've missed something really obvious? I had project Enb i think, along with most of the S.T.E.P guide's textures. One thing i am a fan of is mods that add npc's to the game and so ive often added tons of these, including interesting npcs, inconsequential npcs and a whole host of other npc and creature adding mods, and these really eat away at performance (does Skyrim have a script limit for npcs because that might be the cause?). But nothing I could find could explain my less than satisfactory level of performance so whilst i've tried everything to get my system to perform better I eventually concluded that as I was soon to be upgrading anyway, i would write here and ask for people's opinion on the IDEAL pc for skyrim. I realize there are lots and lots of more than satisfactory setups these days. But my question is firstly, Is it possible to run skyrim with EVERY HIGHEST texture pack along with huge environment adding mods and the maximum non-conflicting npc adding mods together on todays machines. I mean like what computer would be necessary to run S.T.E.P at its highest settings along with every imaginable npc mod, perkus maximus, some huge quest mods like falksaar and wyrmstooth and any other maximum quality textures i can find.

 

I realize some may find what I am saying a little quirky and perhaps asking too much, but its been my dream for years (as i am sure it has many other peoples) to own a pc in which I can run the skyrim modded version that I would really like to see, without having to sacrifice anything at all. I have been willing to sift through hours of mod sorting and conflict resolving to get a very high standard of skyrim in both looks and feel to my tastes and was even willing to help people out in that regard, but i guess i'm now looking to further that even more by really trying to push the skyrim engine to its absolute limits (assuming it has them). I'm just not as clued up about pc components as I am skyrim modding (and there is still lots i have to learn in that department too) so could use a little help there. Budget is no issue as when I upgrade I tend to go all out (rightly or wrongly, and within reason) and then not upgrade for years afterwards.

 

So i guess its more of an, "in an ideal world what pc would you have to mod skyrim with every POSSIBLE texture and setting and added mod to its MAXIMUM setting". Call it a rhetorical question if you will but it interests me none the less.

 

Enough mods can make any pc crawl, even with the best gpu + cpu. You have to make some choices on the mods to use.

Edited January 21, 2015 by postal001

[saurusmaximus]

As mentioned above, what you really need to spend your allowance on is the best GPU you can. Skyrim will run fine on a mid-grade cpu; though with the budget you listed, You wouldn't need to settle for that. I don't know about AMD cpus, I'm using an Intel, but I do know almost everyone agrees Nvidia is the way to go for video cards.

[Boombro]

I did try it out quite extensively, but perhaps i've missed something really obvious? I had project Enb i think, along with most of the S.T.E.P guide's textures. One thing i am a fan of is mods that add npc's to the game and so ive often added tons of these, including interesting npcs, inconsequential npcs and a whole host of other npc and creature adding mods, and these really eat away at performance (does Skyrim have a script limit for npcs because that might be the cause?). But nothing I could find could explain my less than satisfactory level of performance so whilst i've tried everything to get my system to perform better I eventually concluded that as I was soon to be upgrading anyway, i would write here and ask for people's opinion on the IDEAL pc for skyrim. I realize there are lots and lots of more than satisfactory setups these days. But my question is firstly, Is it possible to run skyrim with EVERY HIGHEST texture pack along with huge environment adding mods and the maximum non-conflicting npc adding mods together on todays machines. I mean like what computer would be necessary to run S.T.E.P at its highest settings along with every imaginable npc mod, perkus maximus, some huge quest mods like falksaar and wyrmstooth and any other maximum quality textures i can find.

 

I realize some may find what I am saying a little quirky and perhaps asking too much, but its been my dream for years (as i am sure it has many other peoples) to own a pc in which I can run the skyrim modded version that I would really like to see, without having to sacrifice anything at all. I have been willing to sift through hours of mod sorting and conflict resolving to get a very high standard of skyrim in both looks and feel to my tastes and was even willing to help people out in that regard, but i guess i'm now looking to further that even more by really trying to push the skyrim engine to its absolute limits (assuming it has them). I'm just not as clued up about pc components as I am skyrim modding (and there is still lots i have to learn in that department too) so could use a little help there. Budget is no issue as when I upgrade I tend to go all out (rightly or wrongly, and within reason) and then not upgrade for years afterwards.

 

So i guess its more of an, "in an ideal world what pc would you have to mod skyrim with every POSSIBLE texture and setting and added mod to its MAXIMUM setting". Call it a rhetorical question if you will but it interests me none the less.

Even if you have the pc for, you will never have the skyrim for it.

 

Go 2k or 1k if your eye can't see it, cards of today and skyrim can't handle everything 4k yet and the screens for it cost the same as a high end pc.

 

Chose only those two npcs mods. chose an ENB that fits you. You don't need 100 mods to make skyirm look sick:

A full textures, towns, forts etc ( 32cm is life, 32cm is love.) go 2k.

An ENB. Many enbs today are build for fps and looks amazing (32cm is life, 32cm is love.)

A grass mod, flora overhauls cost some fps. (32cm is life, 32cm is love.) I mean come on, look at this http://livedoor.blogimg.jp/skydb-mod/imgs/c/4/c462f918.jpg

A lighting mod.

A water mod.

Something for people because they are ugly.

 

That it.

 

Remove some npcs mods and spawn mods. They take a lot of cpu power, case crashes and make your saves really huge.

[Myuna]

Just remember that Skyrim is an old game and it does not actually need a super computer to run. All mods need is enough VRAM (for enboost) and it sails from there. If you're building a custom gaming PC then you have already filled the requirements to play Skyrim. It's not a next-gen game even with lots of mods.

[Riprock]

"Ultimate" specs will change in 3....2...1...

[soupdragon1234]

I have heard that skyrim can be fairly unkind to AMD users (is this true?) and so would like to ask on behalf of myself and a friend and myself (in the future) what pc specs fellow skyrim users would pick if they were to build the "ultimate" skyrim gaming pc?

 

So....A friend recently asked me, if he had roughly £2000 ($3000) and wanted to build a computer purely to play Skyrim and install an OVERKILL amount of mods, what should he get?

 

 

 

Many Thanks for any help

 

Skyrim runs better with Intel cpu's but theres nothing wrong with the R9 290 it's the same perfomance as a GTX 970 albeit with a higher power consumption (and a cheaper purchase price)

 

An i5 processor is good enough for any kind of gaming I have an ageing i7 920 with about 30-50% less processing power than an i5 4690k and Skyrim flies no bottleneck there.

 

Textures, ENB's and other graphical goodies are all about the graphics card. If you want to go really over the top then a couple of GTX 970's in SLi would be the order of the day (better value than a GTX 980) or a couple of R9 290's in Crossfire (if your PSU can take it)