New PC and for gaming advice

[PullThePin07]

Alright, I hope this is the best place to post this kinda thing. If not, then I'm sorry.

 

Anyways, I'm buying a new computer and it's to mostly play Skyrim as maxed as I can get it within reason.

 

What I'm currently looking at;

 

AMD FX-8350 CPU (8x 4GHz/8MB) *I know skyrim normally doesn't use all cores but after un-parking them and using the ini file multi core tweak It can use all of them decently well, been doing it with my old PC for awhile.

Liquid CPU cooling

8 GB DDR3-1866

GTX 760 2GB

600 Watt PSU

 

Monitor-ASUS VS248H-P 24" HD LCD Monitor (HDMI connection to PC)

 

A separate Solid State Drive specifically for games and OS. ( thanks for input).

 

I'm looking for a decent framerate around 30-40ish in exterior cells.

 

Will this be enough?

Edited July 1, 2014 by PullThePin07

[hoofhearted4]

my major comment would be on the SSD and HDD planning you have. put your OS on the SSD. thats where you will notice the difference in the speed of your computer. putting games on an OS does very little, and does nothing as far as performance or FPS. the only things it does it cause the game to boot up slightly faster and lesses load times a little bit. if you have extra room on your SSD, by all means put Skyrim and/or some other games on there. but it shouldnt be priority. your OS should be

 

yes 1080p is a very noticeable jump from 720p....idk what textures you should go with, i say 4k, but i have no reasons to back that up with lol.

 

build itself looks fine. what is your budget?

[PullThePin07]

Budget is around 1000.

 

I'm going to put the OS and games on the solid State Drive.

 

The reason for skyrim on the SSD is cuz the huge world space and all the objects. I don't want long load times between cells.

[FMod]

Does $1000 include the monitor?

Is there anything you can reuse?

Can you push it over $1,000 or is it preferable to get under $1000?

 

For textures you'd probably run 2k, there's little benefit to 4k textures as they aren't captured sharp enough, while it adds to the memory load.

[PullThePin07]

Well, I already have the monitor. The 1000 is where I wanna stay around. Can go slightly over just a bit.

 

Thanks for the 2k texture thing, it'll help.

[FMod]

For Skyrim specifically, an intel CPU is largely required to keep the framerate up.

 

This is the closest I could come to $1,000 while producing a powerful system:

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/BmB2bv

 

At $1,035, OS is not included, as you might be able to reuse old PC's one.

This takes advantage of very deep discounts and rebates.

 

The only thing you could save on further is a cheaper video card, but I don't see a lot of options.

GTX770 is a little cheaper, but a lot slower - http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-video-card-gtx770dc2oc2gd5

On the other hand, GTX770 is also much quieter and cooler than a 290, and Nvidia drivers are updated more often, so if you prioritize that over performance, it is a reasonable choice.

 

I've been using Nvidias for years, but right now I'd take the 290, it's a very powerful and future-proof card. But if you don't require this level of performance - seeing how you went with 760 initially - a 770 will get the budget down just under 1k.

 

With 290 we're talking 52-55fps average (most time 60 with only CPU dipping it lower). With 770, only 40ish. For an only 24" monitor, I can see going with 770, you can make a few compromises; and fps dips on a small screen aren't as visible as on 32" and over.

So 770 is still a very fast card, it will still run good framerates if you don't actively push it. 290 will handle anything you're realistically going to throw at it.

 

 

edit:

The build I suggested is really the best you can get for the price. But that requires you take the exact components, exactly at the cheapest retailers listed (well, unless it's like $1 difference). If you just go get them all in one place, you won't get the bang for your buck.

 

Not everything in it is outstanding, some components are just picked to a price point, with a little more cash it could be polished up. Again nothing fancy.

Edited July 2, 2014 by FMod

[Thor.]

Pff saying the cpu has anything to do with fps. thats like saying my ferrari has no engine but it runs fast enough. Graphics gpu is where is all the HP thats required to push fps. Optimization and stability is another thing, loading textures fast is what's required to make the game stable, the longer the load times the higher the instability is, a 8350 is good enough for skyrim, so is a intel. Though if you want future proof anything higher then a 6 core cpu is where its needed.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113347&cm_re=amd_fx_8_core-_-19-113-347-_-Product

 

Also i5 is a little underpowered

 

 

http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/453/AMD_FX-Series_FX-9590_vs_Intel_Core_i5_i5-4670K.html

Edited July 2, 2014 by Thor.

[JimboUK]

Pff saying the cpu has anything to do with fps. thats like saying my ferrari has no engine but it runs fast enough. Graphics gpu is where is all the HP thats required to push fps. Optimization and stability is another thing, loading textures fast is what's required to make the game stable, the longer the load times the higher the instability is, a 8350 is good enough for skyrim, so is a intel. Though if you want future proof anything higher then a 6 core cpu is where its needed.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113347&cm_re=amd_fx_8_core-_-19-113-347-_-Product

 

Also i5 is a little underpowered

 

 

http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/453/AMD_FX-Series_FX-9590_vs_Intel_Core_i5_i5-4670K.html

 

 

Bethesda's Gamebryo games are very CPU heavy, test it yourself, spawn a bunch of NPCs, check your frame rate, disable scripts using TFC1, see how much the frame rate jumps by.

[Thor.]

Maybe cpu heavy also vram and system resource heavy to, you can easily cap your ram pretty quick with that many npc's on screen. I managed to hit 100 or so before the fps started dipping.

wth the skse mod that allows higher npc count, can't remember the name of the mod though. It was a memory patch.

Edited July 3, 2014 by Thor.

[FMod]

It leaks VRAM, but capping it out has negligible effect on performance, as has been demonstrated (only a 3% loss with 2GB card versus 3.5GB VRAM use on 4GB card). It can't cap out RAM because the engine's 32-bit.

Not that you could on R9 290 anyway.

 

CPU performance and specifically performance of the first CPU core that ~75% of the skyrim engine is running on is what determines, more than anything else, the minimum sustained framerate in this game.

 

And i7 is pointless for Skyrim, i5 runs about 1% behind it at the same clock rate.