Modded Skyrim gpu and cpu requirements?

[bladie]

Could it maybe be that Skyrim reserves as much VRAM as it can while running, so the amount of VRAM used is not the same as what the game really needs? The VRAM usage looks constant from the Afterburner screenshots (it also can be just a short time frame, I don't know).

 

I looked up prices for a gtx780 and they're really high if you want it new. Second hand the prices look reasonable but I rather buy only new components for now since this is the first pc I'm building.

 

Between the gtx970 and the r9 290x, the gtx970 was my preferred card, since it performs better in other games than the r9 290x (at 1080p) and the prices are similar here. I was considering the r9 290x since it has more VRAM and may perform better in Skyrim because of that. On the other hand, if shinygamer's game runs fine with 3GB of VRAM and he uses 2k textures, the gtx970 will probably also do fine.

 

For the cpu, I think I don't want to overclock (total system becomes too expensive then), so I'll probably get the i5 4690.

 

Ah, the choice is so hard to make :wacko:

[Boombro]

Could it maybe be that Skyrim reserves as much VRAM as it can while running, so the amount of VRAM used is not the same as what the game really needs? The VRAM usage looks constant from the Afterburner screenshots (it also can be just a short time frame, I don't know).

 

I looked up prices for a gtx780 and they're really high if you want it new. Second hand the prices look reasonable but I rather buy only new components for now since this is the first pc I'm building.

 

Between the gtx970 and the r9 290x, the gtx970 was my preferred card, since it performs better in other games than the r9 290x (at 1080p) and the prices are similar here. I was considering the r9 290x since it has more VRAM and may perform better in Skyrim because of that. On the other hand, if shinygamer's game runs fine with 3GB of VRAM and he uses 2k textures, the gtx970 will probably also do fine.

 

For the cpu, I think I don't want to overclock (total system becomes too expensive then), so I'll probably get the i5 4690.

 

Ah, the choice is so hard to make :wacko:

No, it easy. You must know what you want, how deep is your wallet know how to use google.

[bladie]

Sadly there are no google results for how modded Skyrim with my intended setup runs on all of these cards. I can make a choice for gpu if I just consider other games. The point is I don't know Skyrim's requirements and try to figure that out in this topic.

[Boombro]

Sadly there are no google results for how modded Skyrim with my intended setup runs on all of these cards. I can make a choice for gpu if I just consider other games. The point is I don't know Skyrim's requirements and try to figure that out in this topic.

It what you want.

 

I bought r9 290x with a 4 vram because I wanted many 2k textures, a lot of grass (I just dig a grassy skyrim!) and a mid-rang enb. Now, for this I can just buy a card that costs way less. An r9 270x, maybe a 660ti. So why this card?

 

Because I also wanted the card to be able to play the many upcoming games and still stay strong for at least 2 years. By that time, I will just buy another r9 290x card after a huge price drop and crossfire it. It a good plan to save money.

 

If the most games you want are from the past 10 years, you can get away with what today it counts as a mid-rang card, like gtx 600 series or r9 under r9 260x. This a great for a first time pc gamer since there too much to play. But this not the case with many today gamers who want high end settings, streaming and other stuff.

 

I thinking picking the case is hardest thing to pick anyways.

[BlackRoseOfThorns]

Can anyone that runs a similar game setup tell me how much VRAM I will need for my graphics card? Currently I'm considering the NVidia GTX970 with 3.5GB fast memory and the AMD R9 290X with 4 or 8 GB of VRAM. If the VRAM usage does not come close to 4GB, buying an 8GB card would be a waste of money for me, but I can't find any information on this.

 

If you can afford it, go for gtx 980 (basically 780ti but with 4gb of vram and about 5-10% more power). Otherwise 970 seems like a good choice, there was lots of people hapily playing skyrim with such build. The downside of this card is hardware problem when getting close to 3.5gb of vram usage. Don't bother with 8gb cards for 1080p resolution, vram serves as buffer so you won't get bottlenecked, but does not increase fps. It prevents fps drops when you hit certain vram usage and you most likely won't use more than 4gb, if the data gets adjusted on the fly by games. I would look at 8gb only if you plan buying second card for sli for higher resolution / two screen setup.

 

Also, for the cpu I'm now considering the i5 4690. What would the difference in the in-game performance be if I went for the overclockable 4690k instead?

 

I have 4790k and absolutely love it. Was worth every penny. With decent z97 motherboard it can be overclocked easily and the temparute stays realy low for such high clock speed (air cooling - Noctua with 2x fans / 4.4-4.6ghz on all four cores >I change it depending on ambient temperature in summer/winter). Skyrim and enb relies on cpu speed and with i5 4690 you will be locked to 3.5ghz (turbo 3.9 is only for single core). If you plan to limit yourself with modding (no advanced .ini tweaks for distance and more detailed landscape meshes and LOD textures/meshes, combinations of heavy scripted mods, lots of new animations/visuals), i5 4690 should be enough.

Edited March 18, 2015 by BlackRoseOfThorns

[shinygamer]

Don't forget that skyrim doesn't like to run at more than 60fps or else the physics get all weird, flying mammoths and things, I'm not familiar with AMD gpu's but with nvidia I set my monitor @ '60Hz and use nvidias 'adaptive vertical synch' to keep a max fps @ 60 and this works for me and the game runs quite smoothly and is very playable even at 35-45fps, I find it's the ENB's rather than HD textures, (grass mods can certainly cost a few frames but nothing compared to an ENB) that are the real fps killer or at least the quality ENB's rather than the performance ENB's, with the set up I've mentioned above, if I turn off the ENB in game the fps jumps to 60 (with v-synch on) and stays there, incidently, the afterburner stats above were recorded over about an hour of playing @ 1920 x 1080.

Personaly, I've not modded any other games as much as skyrim or used ENB's with any other game so I don't know how demanding some other games are if you try and compare them to modded skyrim, I bought the 780 a year or so ago just to play modded skyrim with an ENB and I've been quite happy with it, I think you could drive yourself crazy if you try and base which card you buy on every game you might play and how it might perform :confused:

[BlackRoseOfThorns]

 

I think you could drive yourself crazy if you try and base which card you buy on every game you might play and how it might perform :confused:

 

Actually it's wise to do a research on games you play the most. Some engines hates specific hardware/software setups and runs flawless on others. I know for example that crossfire had some issues with enb back in the days and skyrim / pvp mmo's just works better with intel cpu's.

 

Personally I prefer nvidia for it's temps and noise level.

[shinygamer]

Deleted.

Sorry, forum being weird and double posted?

[shinygamer]

 

 

I think you could drive yourself crazy if you try and base which card you buy on every game you might play and how it might perform :confused:

 

Actually it's wise to do a research on games you play the most. Some engines hates specific hardware/software setups and runs flawless on others. I know for example that crossfire had some issues with enb back in the days and skyrim / pvp mmo's just works better with intel cpu's.

 

Personally I prefer nvidia for it's temps and noise level.

 

Of course doing some research is advisable but all you really need to do is checkout some of the websites that specialize in gpu reviews, benchmarks and overclocking and do the maths on price as all the comparisom hard work has been done on most of the top games, all it really comes down to is AMD or Nvidia and choose a card that will play your games, you can spend a bit more on a card and try and give yourself some future proofing as I did with the 780 but within 12 months of buying it for nearly £400 Nvidia launch the 970 which is slightly faster with more VRAM and over £100 cheaper :pinch:

I presently use Nvidia as my previous experiences with AMD were not good, mainly due to driver issues and some AMD reference cards are infamous for running hot but that issue is generally sorted with aftermarket cards from MSI, etc, but until AMD can produce a competitive reference gpu themselves then I would rather pay that bit extra for a cool, quiet Nvidia card which also often overclock really well.

[bladie]

Thanks for all the input, I decided to go with the 4690k and gtx970. Can't wait to test the system out :laugh: