HELP WITH FIRST PC BUILD!

[gamerotakurules]

Soooo, I need someone's help with my first PC build. The people I know in real life that are good at PC building don't even know what Skyrim is... So I need help. I would like my PC to be able to run Skyrim at 1366x768 resolution at Ultra settings with the RealVision ENB and the 2k Textures mod at the minimum of 30fps in the Civil War questline when battling at a fort. So at around 60fps usually. I'm experienced with modding on the Nexus site, I just need help with pricing and compatibility. This goes for more than the PC, such as a monitor and stuff. Other than powerful PC with a quiet cooling system, my PC is gonna need a 1366x768 resolution moniter (Benq is you can), a light-up keyboard, a high quality mic, one or two high quality speakers, a 720p/1080p cam, Windows OS 8.1, a g502 gaming mouse, and a nice looking case that serves its purpose. If you could keep it under $800 that would be WONDERFUL. By the way, if you do choose to help me, thank you for giving me your sorcerer-like knowledge.

[obobski]

Why 1366x768? That's fairly low resolution these days. As far as what you want, ignoring all of your super-specific peripherals (which will run the price up and there's nothing to be done about it unless you can budge on them), a decent Core i3/i5 with a higher-end graphics card (e.g. 290X) should have no problems doing what you want at 1080p, and fit around $1000 price-wise. With all of your specific add-on peripherals, and starting from square zero (e.g. no monitor, no keyboard, no OS key) it'll go higher as a result (your peripherals alone can add another $1000 (or more) to the price, depending on what you mean by "high quality speakers" and "nice looking case"). Within your $800 setup, you'll either have to budge on your peripherals, or budge on performance, and potentially both depending on how much "extra" stuff you need.

[mark5916]

As above, why 1366x768 reolution?

 

All today displays are far beyond that barrier.

 

If you mean, you wanna play at 1366x768 res - only, i thing today CPU-GPU components have suficient power to keep up with that resolution easily.

 

In the other hand, as you can only spend 800 bucks for a complete build, peripherals like you mentioned above, will reduce your overall RIG performance.

 

So, in that price range you will get a decent computer configuration, but either way you must lower your expectations on those peripherals

or you must take to consideration a performance penalty on your RIG.

 

There is no other way actually, with that given budget. :tongue:

Edited November 24, 2015 by mark5916

[gamerotakurules]

To clear up the peripherals, I don't mean best of the best, I mean good enough to serve it's purpose. For the speakers, decent headphones may work. And I would simply like a mic that can hear my voice good enough, not perfectly. And I realize that cams can go for a high price, so I'd stay to a fairly cheap 720p cam. But the g502 mouse - that is almost a necessity for this build. And in regard to the 1366x768 resolution, yes I mean that I would like both the monitor AND the game to run at that resolution. I think going past that would be overkill and a waste of money that I could use for the PC itself. Windows 7 is outdated, and Windows 10 (in my opinion) sucks. So I'm going for Windows 8, with a nice modern stability. Thank you, I will take a look at the i3, i5, and 290x. Right now I have a laptop (and that is why I chose 1366x768 res.), and obviously playing Skyrim on PC lacks any sort of power whatsoever. Thank you both for your advice.

[obobski]

"Decent headphones" can also blow your budget - I'm really not trying to be a doomsayer, but if you're after top of the line peripherals your budget will present a problem. On the monitors - finding a 1366x768 display will be relatively obtuse these days; 1080p monitors are around $100 and there's a load of options. Honestly I would suggest you take some time and look up actual pricing on the components you want (e.g. just price out all of your peripherals).

 

WRT "Windows 7 is outdated" - based on what? 7 vs 8 is largely a question of UI preference more than anything else; 10 is another matter altogether. All three will continue to receive support for many years to come. I really only bring this up because I've started seeing that rumor/myth of "Windows 7 is outdated and antique" starting to surface, and it's simply not true - even Vista is still supported (and will be for another two years) and up to the task of running a modern gaming system [and is itself not very different from 7 and 8].

Edited November 25, 2015 by obobski

[mark5916]

There is an particular BenQ 18.5" 1366x768 Monitor, but it costs near 100 bucks. + shipping costs i assume.

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/BenQ-GL955A-18-5-inch-Monitor/dp/B009PV6U6I%3Fpsc%3D1%26SubscriptionId%3DAKIAICG4QGEBOZIENBWA%26tag%3Dkagoo09-21%26linkCode%3Dsp1%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3DB009PV6U6I

 

However it has only a VGA port, so no DVI and HDMI connection. (that makes things a bit difficult to find an appropriate GPU for that Monitor.)

 

That leaves you with a remaining 700 (?!?) dollars for a PC build + peripherals + Operating system.

Edited November 25, 2015 by mark5916

[obobski]

You can get a 1080p monitor for around that price, and without DVI/HDMI (with HDCP) you may run into issues with some streaming formats and HD disc playback (because of the lack of HDCP support over VGA). As far as VGA output, AMD no longer offers analog outputs on their recent cards (but offers DisplayPort which can be converted, that's extra money (DP adapter + that monitor would probably cost the same or more than a 1080p monitor with digital inputs)), nVidia offers a single VGA output on some newer cards. I haven't tried DP to VGA adapters, but the VGA output quality on modern nVidia cards is abysmal compared to what was standard just a few years ago, so I'd certainly preference a digital connection between a modern graphics card and monitor(s).

[gamerotakurules]

I've also posted this question on Steam, and got a lot of productive answers. The only answer that I couldn't get, was a nice CPU/GPU combo. This combo only needs to run Skyrim on 1366x768 res., but with Ultra settings and RealVision ENB and the 2K Textures mod. So could someone link me? The only combo I have right now is the Intel Xeon E3 1231v3, and the Geforce 970 4GB (I don't think I need that much power here). Thank you for the advice on monitors, and I looked at a comparison and the only difference in Skyrim between Windows 7 and 8 was literally 0.1FPS. So yeah, I was wrong. Windows 7 is NOT outdated, and it serves my purpose perfectly here. And I found a noise cancelling headset that serves my purposes exactly for $15. Again, thank you for the advice on monitors. I will look in to some now.

[obobski]

Performance differences between Windows XP thru Windows 8 should be largely insignificant for Skyrim (I'dve included "and Windows 10" but I haven't seen benchmarks to actually confirm or deny that, and Windows 2000 should generally be included too but it has enough quirks and sometimes one of them will jump up and bite you on the tookis) - there's no issue with any of them from a performance standpoint for any DirectX 9 game. Windows 8 (and later) have significantly rewokred how DDI8 and lower are handled, which can impact performance heavily (this matters if you play older games, like Morrowind), and Windows XP (and older) of course don't support DirectX 10 and above (and are fully EOL and don't receive security updates, so I wouldn't suggest them for a machine that's web-connected (I still have an XP machine that lives, quite happily, offline though)). As far as support in terms of drivers and software, Vista and later are still current - Vista's support (from Microsoft) will end in 2017, with Windows 7 following in 2020, and Windows 8 in 2023. It will be interesting to see how "hard" of an end that is for Vista though - its so similar to Windows 7/8 internally that it may just continue plodding along (like Windows 2000 largely did alongside XP). Same goes for 7/8 with one another (and then there's always the possibility that Microsoft can kick those deadlines out, like they did for 2000 and XP, although that seems less likely).

 

I'm not really advocating for or against Vista, 7, or 8 - they're all equally capable of performing the same role today. The biggest questions are how you feel about Internet Explorer (since Vista is explicitly blocked from receiving IE updates, but you can still use Firefox or Chrome or whatever (and I assume most people do)), and Aero (Vista/7) vs Metro (8) for UI. They all support DX11 and are still covered for driver and platform updates though.

 

WRT the parts combo you requested, I'll go back to Core i3/i5 and a decent graphics card (e.g. GeForce 960, Radeon R9 280) - that should be perfectly doable within your budget. No guarantees on mods and performance (too many variables at play), but the vanilla game shouldn't have any trouble running on Ultra at 1080p on such a machine (my older Core 2 Quad and GeForce 660 can do that - this isn't a horribly demanding game by modern standards).

 

On the headset/headphones: noise cancelling, as in ANC, is something I'm generally leery of as many manufacturers do such an awful job of attempting to implement it (usually it doesn't do much of anything but add noise to the signal). Unpopular as it may be among would-be audiophiles, Bose is still the industry leader when it comes to ANC, but a pair of QuietComfort headphones is around $300. That said, there are plenty of closed-back headphones that cost a lot less than that and can provide excellent sound and good isolation, and if you need serious isolation from sporadic noises (e.g. dogs barking, kid sister screaming, etc) ANC would be the wrong choice anyways (it really only works well with continuous noise, like HVAC or airplane engine noise) - IEMs would be the ideal choice there, or just go with a closed-back monitor headphone (which will do no better or worse than the QuietComfort).

[gamerotakurules]

Thank you for the advice, and I'll look at the Radeon R9 280. I already have my eyes on an i5 Quad Core CPU, I just wanted to be sure.