New PC for heavily (I mean HEAVILY) modded Skyrim 2014

[eabbud]

 

In my humble opinion you only need a strong GPU.

Your current CPU is great, and seriously, you won't even see a single FPS difference after upgrading from 2600K to 4770K. (I just wanna clarify this, yes, 4770K is the better CPU here and it has a new architecture, but when playing Skyrim you won't see that benefit. When it comes to play Skyrim there are not much difference even between i5 and i7)

The only difference between is gonna be the socket.

You got SSD, you got lots of Ram and your current MB is decent.

 

You only need a single GPU with high VRAM. Just buy a GTX 780Ti and you're good to go.

I don't suggest buying a TITAN if you're not playing at 2560x1440 resolution. You're never gonna use that 6GB Vram, never. You're not gonna even come close to it.

 

And BTW if you're not using 1440p resolution, you don't even need the 4K mods. There is a barely noticeable difference between 4K and 2K in 1080P. Only thing you can do here if you really wanna spend a lot of money is to get a better Monitor@1440P and a strong GPU like 780Ti.

 

You will be much more happier this way.

And if you're only gonna play Skyrim, 290x seems like a better choice here. Performs around 780Ti, got 4GB Vram and probably a lot cheaper.

 

I can just guarantee you that, if you just get 290x, you will be able to play the game with RealVisionENB full in 1080p or 1440p.

You will probably be able to install more than 100 texture mod. Even I got 16GBs of mod folder with a humble GTX 770 : ) And It runs perfectly fine.

 

And my CPU is not even close to yours, I don't even have an SSD.

 

So long story short, you don't need to completely rebuild your system, you just need a strong GPU that's all.

Just bought a Corsair H100i watercooler. The previous (air-cooler) wasn´t being enough for the OC (hitting 90 degrees Celsius). Gonna start a new gameplay with 2K textures and STEP and see how my 7970 behaves...Thanks!!

[scegielski]

 

"I don't suggest buying a TITAN if you're not playing at 2560x1440 resolution. You're never gonna use that 6GB Vram, never. You're not gonna even come close to it."

 

I've got a Titan, and actually, you will use the 6GB of VRAM if using ENBoost and the memory patch.

You're probably doing something wrong.

 

 

Haha, I don't think so. You see, ENBoost allows you to use more VRAM. Without it Skyrim holds a copy of all the textures in RAM as well as VRAM and you hit the 3.1GB memory cap. Enboost offloads that texture RAM into another process enbhost.exe effectively eliminating any RAM limits due to textures. Therefore the memory limitation for textures is only VRAM and it is fully possible to get close to using 6GB of texture memory. I have never reached 6GB, but monitoring the usage with Skyrim Performance Monitor shows it is usually over 3GB and it's been close to 5GB.

[Rockmassif]

Just like you said, "close to 5GB" but not exactly 6GB.

 

If I really want it, I can even use 10GB of VRAM. But wants and needs are 2 different things.

 

In real world, while playing in 1080P with ultra settings and 4K textures you will always be around 4GB Vram. And considering that most of the time you won't need 4K textures in 1080p, there is no practical usage of 6GB Vram.

 

But if he is going for 1440p, then it might be a good idea to get a TITAN. But still debatable.

 

2GB Vram is not even a choice here, 3GB vram might be a choice but you will have to sacrifice somethings in order to avoid excessive stuttering. 4GB is the real and practical choice.

In my humble opinion.

[eabbud]

Just like you said, "close to 5GB" but not exactly 6GB.

 

If I really want it, I can even use 10GB of VRAM. But wants and needs are 2 different things.

 

In real world, while playing in 1080P with ultra settings and 4K textures you will always be around 4GB Vram. And considering that most of the time you won't need 4K textures in 1080p, there is no practical usage of 6GB Vram.

 

But if he is going for 1440p, then it might be a good idea to get a TITAN. But still debatable.

 

2GB Vram is not even a choice here, 3GB vram might be a choice but you will have to sacrifice somethings in order to avoid excessive stuttering. 4GB is the real and practical choice.

In my humble opinion.

Yep man..I guess I´ll build a future proof rig for 4K. Gonna go with the titan black asap...

[FiftyTifty]

 

I´ll build a future proof rig for 4K

 

 

For f*#@'s sake. People still believe in future proofing?

[eabbud]

 

 

I´ll build a future proof rig for 4K

 

 

For f***'s sake. People still believe in future proofing?

 

My man...3 years ago I built this pc, and it was VERY future proof. It is as so, that 2 years later I exchanged my 6870 for a 7970 and bought more ram. This week I instaled a new watercooler and could push the processor OC a little further. So, yes, believable and makeable...

Edited March 24, 2014 by eabbud

[Rockmassif]

I have to say this, there is nothing wrong with your current setup, it's just not cut out for heavily modded Skyrim(mainly because of VRAM), that's all...

You did a good job building it 3 years ago.

[MadWizard25]

Just a note regarding VRAM usage. With a heavily modded setup (360 plugins [some merged to get under 255 plugin limit], 600 mods), 1080p display, 1k exterior textures and normals and 2k textures and normals for everything else (via DDSopt), I use up 3.5GB VRAM on average, and can hit 4GB VRAM use in exteriors. Recorded via Skyrim Performance Monitor. Using ENBoost and Real Vision performance ENB. GTX 760 4GB OC.

 

So yeah, get 4GB+ VRAM card, even if you have 1080p display. Honestly, Im actually surprised, I never though it would get that high, but there you go. If you play with 4k textures, and/ or have a screen resolution higher than 1080p 4GB VRAM aint gonna cut it, at least in my experience.

[zyxtomatic]

Just found this thread during some Google searching, and I'm very curious to know what the original poster ended up doing with the upgrade and how it worked out.

For what it's worth (in case anyone else digs up this thread later), a multi-gpu setup (Crossfire or SLI) can be hit or miss when using an ENB with Skyrim. I originally had dual 7950 cards, and getting a Skyrim ENB to work without artifacts was a pain in the rear. I later upgraded to a single 290X, and that was much better and easier to deal with than my previous Crossfire setup. I should note that Skyrim *without* an ENB runs just fine with Crossfire. Same applies to Fallout 3, if you're curious.

[matortheeternal]

You should just use fewer 4k textures. Waste not want not.