Building a computer

[xorkatoss]

hey everybody, im finaly going to buy a Gaming Computer and i would like some help with the computer's specs, im thinking of buying smth like this:

CPU: Intel i5-3470 Quad Core 3.20GHz/6MB
RAM: 4GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Graphics: not sure about this one yet

I would appreciate it if somebody could help me with some stuff:
Intel CPU: i5-2400 and i5-3470, what is the difference between those two?
RAM: what is the 1333MHz and the DDR3 part? Should i go for 6GB RAM instead?

Will a computer with those specs allow me to play Skyrim in about Mid to High Settings or even Ultra?

 

[RED BARON]

hey everybody, I'm finally going to buy a Gaming Computer and i would like some help with the computer's specs, I'm thinking of buying something like this:

CPU: Intel i5-3470 Quad Core 3.20GHz/6MB
RAM: 4GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Graphics: not sure about this one yet

I would appreciate it if somebody could help me with some stuff:
Intel CPU: i5-2400 and i5-3470, what is the difference between those two?
RAM: what is the 1333MHz and the DDR3 part? Should i go for 6GB RAM instead?

Though I am fairly certain this should be a topic of its own, even if you want to use it for Skyrim I will answer you:

First of, you can compare CPU's by benchmark tests, such as this - they are graded and should be easy for you to compare:
CPU PASSMARK

So in response to your question the i5-2400 is better by far (and even though this is a benchmark I also believe that to be the case).

Then in regards to RAM: Its always a good idea to have a large amount of them since it allows your computer to do more at the same time (hence faster), but keep in mind that you need different OS (like the difference between 32bit and 64 bit) depending on the RAM if you want to make full use of them. Check it here though you can also find that information on Windows own site, but figured it was more simplified here.

Then further in regards to RAM you can also consider Hyper ram, meaning that they are 1600 MHz instead of 1333 MHz, hence faster. I would usually recommend using Kingston produced RAM - also make sure you use only the same type of RAM in the setup.

In regards to a graphic card it depends on your computer type, since you haven't said if its a desktop or a laptop your looking for (looking at the CPU I assume a desktop).

But I can say that for the laptops I would recommend something along the line of: GeForce GTX670m or the AMD HD7970m - both easily capable of playing skyrim on max. (You can check those and many other things (among that other computers and reviews) here: Notebook check)

For desktops I would recommend graphic card along the lines of:
AMD's Radeon HD 7800 since AMD is usually cheaper and less picky in regards to what it fits with (more customizable) and they are quite quite good

For more information about cards (this is for gamers wanting to play games, which I safely assume you are): Guide to Cards

You can also check this site out for some knowledge about it (keep in mind that the stated card aren't fully up to date): Guide

Finally keep in mind that the motherboard should fit with the elements you choose, usually if you for instance buy something pre-build or something you put together on a site that allows for one to customize your setup and have them put it together, they make certain that things fit - but keep it in mind. (I tend to spend quite a bit more on the motherboard to get a really good one, as its the motherboard that kinda serves as your base for all other elements, so if your motherboard is outdated you can't find any of the new stuff you want to upgrade your comp with). Additionally the motherboard also decides how many RAM you can fit, amount of USB ports, how good your sound is (quality of integrated soundcard) and so forth.

This also relates to the power supply that needs to be able to power all of it (I personally like to keep some more juice on mine). Also in that relation its a very good idea to have at least a decent cooling system. Makes the computer last longer and if you buy a good one you don't get a lot of noise.

The cabinet is not that important, though if I were you I would make certain to take one with space enough for upgrades.

Finally the hard-drive: you can just buy a harddrive with enough space to suit your needs, I would say around 500gb to 1tb. Since it sucks to run out of space and having free space also helps on your computer speed. In that context you can also consider SSD (solid state drive) which will improve your compute speed and startup time. It is way more expensive, but it also have a lot of benefits. One can also combine the two types, having a normal harddrive (HDD) to store shit on and a smaller SSD for windows and startup.
Alternatively you can use a hybrid drive which is cheaper and carries some of the benefits of the SSD (increased speed among those).
For more on that: Guide to SSD

Hope this will help you some and good luck with it.

(Mod: if you want to move this to a new thread, your welcome).

 

[xorkatoss]

RED BARON

Though I am fairly certain this should be a topic of its own, even if you want to use it for Skyrim I will answer you:

First of, you can compare CPU's by benchmark tests, such as this - they are graded and should be easy for you to compare:
CPU PASSMARK

So in response to your question the i5-2400 is better by far (and even though this is a benchmark I also believe that to be the case).

Then in regards to RAM: Its always a good idea to have a large amount of them since it allows your computer to do more at the same time (hence faster), but keep in mind that you need different OS (like the difference between 32bit and 64 bit) depending on the RAM if you want to make full use of them. Check it here though you can also find that information on Windows own site, but figured it was more simplified here.

Then further in regards to RAM you can also consider Hyper ram, meaning that they are 1600 MHz instead of 1333 MHz, hence faster. I would usually recommend using Kingston produced RAM - also make sure you use only the same type of RAM in the setup.

In regards to a graphic card it depends on your computer type, since you haven't said if its a desktop or a laptop your looking for (looking at the CPU I assume a desktop).

But I can say that for the laptops I would recommend something along the line of: GeForce GTX670m or the AMD HD7970m - both easily capable of playing skyrim on max. (You can check those and many other things (among that other computers and reviews) here: Notebook check)

For desktops I would recommend graphic card along the lines of:
AMD's Radeon HD 7800 since AMD is usually cheaper and less picky in regards to what it fits with (more customizable) and they are quite quite good

For more information about cards (this is for gamers wanting to play games, which I safely assume you are): Guide to Cards

You can also check this site out for some knowledge about it (keep in mind that the stated card aren't fully up to date): Guide

Finally keep in mind that the motherboard should fit with the elements you choose, usually if you for instance buy something pre-build or something you put together on a site that allows for one to customize your setup and have them put it together, they make certain that things fit - but keep it in mind. (I tend to spend quite a bit more on the motherboard to get a really good one, as its the motherboard that kinda serves as your base for all other elements, so if your motherboard is outdated you can't find any of the new stuff you want to upgrade your comp with). Additionally the motherboard also decides how many RAM you can fit, amount of USB ports, how good your sound is (quality of integrated soundcard) and so forth.

This also relates to the power supply that needs to be able to power all of it (I personally like to keep some more juice on mine). Also in that relation its a very good idea to have at least a decent cooling system. Makes the computer last longer and if you buy a good one you don't get a lot of noise.

The cabinet is not that important, though if I were you I would make certain to take one with space enough for upgrades.

Finally the hard-drive: you can just buy a harddrive with enough space to suit your needs, I would say around 500gb to 1tb. Since it sucks to run out of space and having free space also helps on your computer speed. In that context you can also consider SSD (solid state drive) which will improve your compute speed and startup time. It is way more expensive, but it also have a lot of benefits. One can also combine the two types, having a normal harddrive (HDD) to store shit on and a smaller SSD for windows and startup.
Alternatively you can use a hybrid drive which is cheaper and carries some of the benefits of the SSD (increased speed among those).
For more on that: Guide to SSD

Hope this will help you some and good luck with it.

(Mod: if you want to move this to a new thread, your welcome).

wow, just wow...thnx for all the help! +rep and yes im going for a desktop, laptops suck..

Please post a thread in the computer forum for a response on your build. Not trying to be rude, just don't want to derail this thread.

Thanks!

sry for that, i thought i could ask this kind of question in this thread since it had to do about getting help with buying a pc that could play Skyrim at around Med-High Settings >_<

 

[The_wand_mirror]

lal videocard is actually the only thing that matters if you want to play stuff on ultra, your processor wouldn't influence a game that much really i checked for example what the performance difference would be between my i7 860 and a i7 3820 (or whatever it's called) regarding battlefield 3 and it was way to small too even consider buying the thing. Just saying that writing down your specs for a game pc doesn't really mean anything without the videocard.

Btw if you're planning on buying a 7850, the 6970 is cheaper and i believe it's faster, although then again the 7870 beats it. But whatever skyrim is not that graphic intensive.

 

[Dr Super Good]

lal videocard is actually the only thing that matters if you want to play stuff on ultra, your processor wouldn't influence a game that much really i checked for example what the performance difference would be between my i7 860 and a i7 3820 (or whatever it's called) regarding battlefield 3 and it was way to small too even consider buying the thing. Just saying that writing down your specs for a game pc doesn't really mean anything without the videocard.

It all depends on what the game is doing. Battlefield games generally are FPS which means few actors in large mostly static environments and all physics can be handled by the GPU if physics exist. This puts huge load on the GPU making it bottleneck performance.

Other games like StarCraft II have realitivly simple scenes but with everything happining all over the map. This puts huge load on the CPU causing it to bottleneck performance while the GPU hardly is used at all.

However not all games use CPUs efficiently due to the difficult nature of multi threading. Many games will only break work into a fixed number of threads aimed at the average processor so you may find your CPU bottlenecking a game despite most cores being empty. This is the case with dual threaded StarCraft II running on a quad core.

 

[Gilles]

To answer your original question, yes. Those will run Skyrim on Med-High. I ran it on much older and slower hardware at high settings. But...

As people have already mentioned, the video card determines how well games run more than the other components do. As DSG pointed out, it's not the only thing that matters, but it matters the most. Especially in a game like Skyrim.

 

[RED BARON]

But whatever skyrim is not that graphic intensive.

Should be said just in case: That really depends on what he does with his game - if he starts adding mods to improve on the graphics he will find that it is rather intensive. (Not that those mods are really needed).

 

[The_wand_mirror]

Should be said just in case: That really depends on what he does with his game - if he starts adding mods to improve on the graphics he will find that it is rather intensive. (Not that those mods are really needed).

Yeah i know all about that xD

It all depends on what the game is doing. Battlefield games generally are FPS which means few actors in large mostly static environments and all physics can be handled by the GPU if physics exist. This puts huge load on the GPU making it bottleneck performance.

Other games like StarCraft II have realitivly simple scenes but with everything happining all over the map. This puts huge load on the CPU causing it to bottleneck performance while the GPU hardly is used at all.

However not all games use CPUs efficiently due to the difficult nature of multi threading. Many games will only break work into a fixed number of threads aimed at the average processor so you may find your CPU bottlenecking a game despite most cores being empty. This is the case with dual threaded StarCraft II running on a quad core.

Yeah but i mean any 2.8 ghz quad-core will do all right.

 

[xorkatoss]

First of all thnx to Ralle for making this threat,
Second, I already bought my Gaming Desktop lol...

I didn't have the chance to try Skyrim yet(still dling it)but do you guys think i can run it smoothly?

HIDDEN

I know that the pictue doesn't say much but i don't know any other way to show you my computers' specs >_<

 

[RED BARON]

I know that the pictue doesn't say much but i don't know any other way to show you my computers' specs >_<

Go to "run" type: dxdiag -> press enter -> success

Yeah i know all about that xD
.

Yea, the irony of writing that and then going to the skyrim thread to see you writing about the same thing Considered going back to edit and then figured what the heck

 

[Dr Super Good]

Apparently Skyrim is more demanding that is should be. It is basicly TES Oblivion with more bulky assets and render and few optimizations. Although it is detailed, it does not provide you with intense visuals for the resources it consumes.

In any case with scores like that you should be able to max most ingame settings. Insane things like anti-aliasing, excessive draw distance and things like that will probably push your system but then again it will probably push every system no mater how powerful.

 

[RED BARON]

Apparently Skyrim is more demanding that is should be. It is basically TES Oblivion with more bulky assets and render and few optimizations. Although it is detailed, it does not provide you with intense visuals for the resources it consumes.

Yea, and sadly the program I used to fix the code with for a much much faster running game haven't been updated to latest version yet

 

[Radicool]

Intel CPU: i5-2400 and i5-3470, what is the difference between those two?

Well, to put it simply, they are 2 different models of i5 processors. The 2 at the front of the first CPU means 2nd generation. The 3 at the front of the second CPU means 3rd generation. Simply put again, 3rd generation is usually better than a 2nd generation CPU.

To be honest, either processor is really fast and reliable. If you have a laptop, the 3rd generation is better.

RAM: what is the 1333MHz and the DDR3 part? Should i go for 6GB RAM instead?

MHz stands for MegaHertz. It is the speed of the RAM. 1333MHz is not bad.

DDR3 is the type of RAM. The main types are DDR400, DDR2 and DDR3. DDR3 is the best one. You don't really buy new computers with DDR2 anymore.

4GB of RAM is actually plenty for any games. If you are planning on using photoshop, video editting programs and/or opening multiple programs at once, you might want 6GB of RAM. If you only open 1 game at a time and maybe music in the background, 4GB is plenty.

 

[RED BARON]

Kind of a late reply to that by my opinion...

 

[Zakamutt]

Hmm, these days tomshardware and the like actually recommend 8gb of RAM.

I have actually managed to exceed 4gb of RAM usage with enough going on on my computer (Hi, >300 firefox tabs!), though it isn't very frequent. More importantly, though, is a certain gain in smoothness in games. Especially if you have only 2 RAM slots, I'd recommend getting 4gb modules, whether one or two...

And your comp is probably like, ordered already.

 

[Radicool]

Hmm, these days tomshardware and the like actually recommend 8gb of RAM.

Really? Pherhaps its a big marketing thing. They will always like you to buy more RAM wouldn't they?

4GB is plenty. I have multiple applications open at once with no problems.

League of legends, Warcraft 3 or Starcraft 2 run fine with background applications (such as media player and internet explorer) for music open and 1GB spare RAM. If you start opening more programs, especially those which demand more RAM, then maybe you might need more RAM.

I remember reading benchmarks on the performance gain with more RAM. 4GB runs fine, and then 8GB ran slightly (slightly) slower, 16GB even more slowly. Pherhaps its because its harder for the computer to manage more RAM, I dont know. My point, excessive RAM does not make your computer faster.

 

[Nuclear]

RAM is so cheap nowadays that you should absolutely buy 2x4GB.

 

[Dr Super Good]

I remember reading benchmarks on the performance gain with more RAM. 4GB runs fine, and then 8GB ran slightly (slightly) slower, 16GB even more slowly. Pherhaps its because its harder for the computer to manage more RAM, I dont know. My point, excessive RAM does not make your computer faster.

That is either due to how the on-chip memory controlers work or because of how the ram is installed to the system.

Chips with more memory may take longer to select an individual address. Systems with many memory modules on the same channel will have to access one and then the other.

 

[saphiree]

RAM: Just buy 8GB, it's really cheap at the moment, and the systems specs for running crysis 3 in full details is actually 8GB (only game so far to use that much).

CPU: Doesn't really matter, the first gen core i7 and i5s will do. Heck even some of the old Q series quad cores will do in most games. At least with overclocking.

GPU: I would not personally go lower than GTX 670, but an ATI 7870 or a GTX 660 is fine I guess.

 

[RED BARON]

I believe the guy must have created his computer by now

 

[xorkatoss]

I believe the guy must have created his computer by now

haha so true, I can pretty much run everything with my new pc, all i need now is a new 1920x1080 HDMI screen which im going to buy soon!

 

[RED BARON]

haha so true, I can pretty much run everything with my new pc, all i need now is a new 1920x1080 HDMI screen which im going to buy soon!

Hehe, well congratulations on that Its an awesome feeling when you know that.

 

[saphiree]

haha so true, I can pretty much run everything with my new pc, all i need now is a new 1920x1080 HDMI screen which im going to buy soon!

Just remember, higher resolutions require more power

 

[xorkatoss]

Just remember, higher resolutions require more power

haha yeah but with my current 1280x1024 I don't enjoy games as much as I should
and my youtube videos' quality is so bad

Hehe, well congratulations on that Its an awesome feeling when you know that.

haha thnx, I have been saving for like 3 years to get my pc and in this school season i was working for 2 months untill i could affort my new screen

EDIT:
btw I have ordered that tv but didn't buy it yet, I would like some opinion on that screen if you can please

 

[RED BARON]

Well personally I always stick with LG But from what I can gleam of the site (which is not really in a language I can read ), it looks pretty alright and Phillips have never been a bad brand for me.

 

[saphiree]

We have two Phillips TV's at our house, where one is a smart TV, and we have had BAD experiences with the software. The picture quality is superb though.

 

[Gilles]

Software? What kind of software problems do TVs have?

 

[Zakamutt]

These days TVs are also smart and shit, y'know. Might be a bad UI or glitchy settings or something; interesting.

 

[RED BARON]

We have two Phillips TV's at our house, where one is a smart TV, and we have had BAD experiences with the software. The picture quality is superb though.

Wouldn't know about that, given that my Philips TV is so old that it doesn't have any fancy software However my LG TV and screens does and they have never given me any trouble and have a very low amount of pixel errors.