Looking to upgrade my PC.

[Leffox]

Hi,

 

I'm thinking of starting to upgrade my computer rig as I would like to take my modding of Skyrim further.

 

Right now I have:

CPU: i3 3240 @ 3.40GHz

RAM: 8GB

GPU: AMD Radeon HD 7770 Series

PSU: Some 700W supply.

 

As I play now I can occasionally get up to 60fps but as I walk through the tundra/forest areas it can drop to 40, sometimes 30, this is with a few graphic mods with high textures. What upgrading should I prioritise here?

 

I'm not too sure how much I'm willing to spend on this, I'd just like a really nice looking skyrim with a playable, smooth frame rate. Not looking for insane 4k textures or anything crazy like that.

[obobski]

CPU and graphics are where you should be looking. Ideally both would be upgraded - your options for the graphics card will be fairly wide-open, but CPU options will be dictated to you by your motherboard. I would guess something like i5-3570 or i7-3770 should be possible. Comparisons for the CPU:

http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/417/Intel_Core_i3_i3-3240_vs_Intel_Core_i5_i5-3570.html

http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/423/Intel_Core_i3_i3-3240_vs_Intel_Core_i7_i7-3770.html

 

For gaming alone the HyperThreading feature on the i7 is not likely to be as significant as it is in other tasks, but if you're after multimedia encoding or other multi-threaded applications it's worth considering.

 

On the graphics card, 7770 isn't a slouch, but upgrading to something faster (e.g. Radeon 280X) would be a very worthwhile upgrade too.

[AeroModss]

Mate,if you are on budget PC,buy then cheapest GTX 970, and some i5 processor,and 8gb of ram min.

[Leffox]

Well, it's not necessarily too tight of a budget, just wanting estimates.

 

I might be setting my bar to high and it'd probably be better starting a new PC from scratch but, what sort of PC is needed for Skyrim ~60fps with an ENB + other texture mods? I'm confused about what ones work well with the engine because I hear controversial things sometimes.