Skyrim PC Requirements Revealed

[CardinalPiggles]

Will a single Intel Core i3 2.93Ghz be enough?

I was thinking about upgrading (drastically) soon but a thousand pounds isn't just something I have lying around.

Pretty sure my ATI 5000 series is fine

 

[pwnzerstick]

These requirements aren't that surprising considering how long Bethesda has been working with this generation of consoles, they should have some mad skills at optimization.

 

[Rack]

It runs on the 360, those requirements are completely ludicrously over the top. They're about 16x that of Space Marine. If devs can't be ****** with the least optimisation call them up on it.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Ultra settings weeee.

I'm so pumped to play this game

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I'm not big on graphics. As long as I can play the game without any problems I'm a happy camper, or a panda, or a camping panda to be politically correct. I feel so grown up.

 

[Jodah]

Hope this is finally a good test for my new rig. I've yet to play a game that truly taxes it.

 

[Danpascooch]

lol, are you joking? an i7 is MORE than enough for ANY game out there. i7 has 4 cores with multithreading(aka uses smart technology to double the output of the 4 cores to 8).

long story short, more cores = less Hz needed = less temperature problems. i have at least 3 games that use my i7 to full capacity. an i7 is MORE than enough for skyrim. the whole point of having multiple cores is so you DONT have temperatureproblems. if you have 2 cores running at 2.3gh, that means 2.3 * 2 = 4.6. but if you have 4 cores, running at 1.8 Ghz, that means 4 * 1.8Ghz = 7.2 Ghz.

as for the GPU, any Gfx over the 200 series for nVidia and the 4000 series for ATI will work with this game.

Please don't spread misinformation like that. Multiplying frequency by core count is completely meaningless and thoroughly ignorant. Not to mention everything else that makes no sense in your post...

Moreover, it's not because it's an i7 that it has 4 cores. Especially when he says its base frequency is 1.6Ghz; It's probably a mobile part.

As someone who wished they knew more about specs than they do, I have a couple of questions.

My video card is a Radeon HD 6570M/5700 series, does that mean it counts as a Radeon 6570? Or a Radeon 5700?

Also, I am using an i7 processor (eight cores) at 1.6GHz

I notice that is under the minimum for Ghz, but I am well over the recommended for number of cores, does my high core count compensate for the low Ghz? And if so, by how much? Obviously there isn't some conversion formula I can plug this shit into, but it would be nice to know where I can consider my processor to fall on the scale.

Alright, what you're saying doesn't match Intel's processor lineup; First of all there are no i7 CPUs with 8 cores yet. Also, there are no desktop i7 parts with a base frequency lower than 2 Ghz, so yours must be a mobile (laptop) one right?

So assuming it's a mobile part with such a low base frequency, I'd be willing to wager that it's not even a quad core part. According to wikipedia, I'm right and what you have is a Core i7 2657M. It's a dual core, albeit with HT so it can work on 4 threads.

To answer your original question then, it's certainly enough for Skyrim (and no, high core count does not make up for a low frequency, at least in games), but considering it's a laptop part, I'd be more worried about what GPU's in there... 'Cause that's way more likely to get raped by Skyrim's visuals.

Yes I am referring to a laptop processor. I don't know what to tell you about the number of cores, DXDiag seems pretty insistent that it's an 8CPU processor, so I must be missing something, here is the exact quote from DXDiag:

"Intel Core i7 CPU Q720 @ 1.6GHz (8CPUs), ~1.6GHz"

As for the GPU, isn't that part of my video card?

Thanks for your time, and the information, I'm fairly clueless about hardware specs.

 

[Danpascooch]

lol, are you joking? an i7 is MORE than enough for ANY game out there. i7 has 4 cores with multithreading(aka uses smart technology to double the output of the 4 cores to 8).

long story short, more cores = less Hz needed = less temperature problems. i have at least 3 games that use my i7 to full capacity. an i7 is MORE than enough for skyrim. the whole point of having multiple cores is so you DONT have temperatureproblems. if you have 2 cores running at 2.3gh, that means 2.3 * 2 = 4.6. but if you have 4 cores, running at 1.8 Ghz, that means 4 * 1.8Ghz = 7.2 Ghz.

as for the GPU, any Gfx over the 200 series for nVidia and the 4000 series for ATI will work with this game.

Please don't spread misinformation like that. Multiplying frequency by core count is completely meaningless and thoroughly ignorant. Not to mention everything else that makes no sense in your post...

Moreover, it's not because it's an i7 that it has 4 cores. Especially when he says its base frequency is 1.6Ghz; It's probably a mobile part.

As someone who wished they knew more about specs than they do, I have a couple of questions.

My video card is a Radeon HD 6570M/5700 series, does that mean it counts as a Radeon 6570? Or a Radeon 5700?

Also, I am using an i7 processor (eight cores) at 1.6GHz

I notice that is under the minimum for Ghz, but I am well over the recommended for number of cores, does my high core count compensate for the low Ghz? And if so, by how much? Obviously there isn't some conversion formula I can plug this shit into, but it would be nice to know where I can consider my processor to fall on the scale.

Alright, what you're saying doesn't match Intel's processor lineup; First of all there are no i7 CPUs with 8 cores yet. Also, there are no desktop i7 parts with a base frequency lower than 2 Ghz, so yours must be a mobile (laptop) one right?

So assuming it's a mobile part with such a low base frequency, I'd be willing to wager that it's not even a quad core part. According to wikipedia, I'm right and what you have is a Core i7 2657M. It's a dual core, albeit with HT so it can work on 4 threads.

To answer your original question then, it's certainly enough for Skyrim (and no, high core count does not make up for a low frequency, at least in games), but considering it's a laptop part, I'd be more worried about what GPU's in there... 'Cause that's way more likely to get raped by Skyrim's visuals.

Consider this an addendum to my previous post, I'm re-quoting so you'll see it.

According to Intel (http://ark.intel.com/products/43122) my processor is four cores with eight threads. I don't know what that means, but if I had to guess, it means 4 physical cores split into eight logical cores?

 

[Outright Villainy]

The first gen bulldozers are disappointing... The i7 2600k is nice and affordable now at $300

To be honest, you'd still be better off saving yourself >$100 with an i5 2500k and just overclocking that instead. There really isn't much between them for gaming. (though if you do a lot of video encoding then it might be worth the extra dosh.)

It runs on the 360, those requirements are completely ludicrously over the top.

Pcs are running at 1080p (and no consoles don't, not a single AAA console game runs above 720), with anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering, and more than likely some higher texture quality for higher settings. And if you honestly think those requirements are over the top, then you must not have been playing much pc for these last few years.

 

[Andy Chalk]

The Skyrim specs aren't official yet, this came off Hines' personal twitter feed, but once they are you'll be able to find out for sure at http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/ [http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/]. I don't know how dead-on accurate this site is (although I recall hearing good things) but it should give you a fairly solid "no thinking required" indication as to how your rig will handle the game.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Skyrim is using the same engine (albeit heavily modded and tweaked) as Oblivion and Fallout 3, which in theory at least will help make it a far smoother and more stable experience than previous TES games, all of which were built upon brand new engines.

 

[Gitty101]

Ah - looks like I can uncross my bronzed, muscular PC gaming fingers XD

The specs I have can easily play this game with the recommended settings. Will be interesting to see if I can hit the Ultra settings though.

 

[Daveman]

the thing is, my laptop can only just make the minimum requirements... so do I go for the xbox version instead?

 

[Robert Ewing]

6GB of HDD space? Seems... conservative...

 

[Omnific One]

The recommended seems a bit high for just high settings. Kinda worried that my 5770 won't cut it, even though I run Crysis, Crysis 2, and Metro 2033 on high/max settings between 30-60 FPS...

 

[Rems]

I'll be able to play it on high, but i'm not so sure about ultra. My main concern is the processor, i exceed all the specs but quad core. Still at the very least it will be playable and pretty so huzzah!

It will be interesting to see how my rig handles skyrim as it can play crysis, metro 2033, shogun 2 etc on max settings (i still remember how crysis used to melt computers).

 

[ToastiestZombie]

The Skyrim specs aren't official yet, this came off Hines' personal twitter feed, but once they are you'll be able to find out for sure at http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/ [http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/]. I don't know how dead-on accurate this site is (although I recall hearing good things) but it should give you a fairly solid "no thinking required" indication as to how your rig will handle the game.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Skyrim is using the same engine (albeit heavily modded and tweaked) as Oblivion and Fallout 3, which in theory at least will help make it a far smoother and more stable experience than previous TES games, all of which were built upon brand new engines.

I think they are using a brand new engine called the Creation Engine or something. This wont be running on the same engine as previous games, it's a brand new engine.

 

[ToastiestZombie]

Will a Amd Phenom X6 1100t and the gtx 570 SLI be enough to run this at Ultra settings? Need this info since I'm getting a computer with these specs around Christmas time.

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

This is what I spend a ridiculous load of money on a gaming rig for... Ultra settings all the way for me!