Noooo! Skyrim!

[Kaylyn]

I think I have a 600 or a 650 watt power supply in mine. They're not very expensive at all if you get them from a wholesaler, which we luckily have in Bossier City, the city closest to me. I think it'll run you right around $100 if you decide to upgrade that. And it's super easy. Hardest part is remembering what all needs to be plugged in. I upgraded my hubby's, and when I tried to boot it up, I went into a panic attack trying to figure out what I had done wrong before I realized I'd forgotten to plug in the processor. >_>

[emax4]

That machine looks really nice. It seems a bit pricey for my tastes, but I'm used to putting things together. You said your Dad is a techie. If he's put a system together before you can save a few bucks and buy the parts yourself. The tradeoff is that at least with the system already built, you save time, headaches from worrying if this or that will fit, no anxiety in waiting for parts to arrive, it's ready to go, etc.

Still, for the money, that's a good video card. Keep in mind that a lower-rated video card (not the Radeon HD 6850 that this computer comes with) may allow you to run the game, but not get all the eye candy where the game runs at higher settings (resolution, shadows, etc). I was using an older nVidia 8400GS card (picked up for $15 at a resell shop), and that was my first big video card over 64MB. It ran Unreal Tournament 3 ok, but when I upgraded to an nVidia GeForce GT220, the same game played much smoother and pleasing to the eye. On top of that, my newer card allowed me to play newer and older games like the Need for Speed series, Call of Duty 2, and others.

Something to remember is that it has an AMD processor. When newer processors come out and you want something faster, you'll have to stick with an AMD chip instead of using an Intel chip. Same goes for motherboards with Intel sockets, and those same board can only use Intel chips. You can also swap out one motherboard for another, but unless you plan to buy new stuff, make sure the RAM you would already have would work in your newer motherboard.

I went ahead on NewEgg, did a search for desktop computer systems with the AMD Phenom II processor and came up with some money-saving results. Here's the comparison link on their page:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...^83-227-358-TS

One is $569, the other is $679. The cheaper one has a slightly better video card and has 8 GB of memory (already maxed out) over the more expensive one with 4 GB of memory. The pricier one allows for a maximum of 16 GB of RAM (memory) which can be upgraded at any point. The pricier one also has a 700W power supply but the inexpensive one has a 480W Power supply. That doesn't mean anything now, but if you upgrade at some point to a higher video card that requires a hungrier power supply. it's something to keep in mind. Also, some standard power supplies don't have a 6-pin connector for a video card, which some high-power video cards require. So if you don't plan on going that route for a while, I wouldn't worry about it. The video card you'll get with the system from Target or NewEgg is more than enough to handle what Skyrim will throw at it.

[Geek King]

That system looks good, but I want to point out that they tend to use weaker power supplies. If you ever decided to upgrade video cards in the future, you may need to purchase a new power supply. I have a Cyber power system that I picked up 2 years ago and my only complaint was the power supply. (I burned it out trying to upgrade the video card)

One of the things I like about CyberPower is that it is easy to tweak stats on their site before ordering. I when ahead when I ordered mine and bumped the power supply up to an 800 for a few bucks more, since I want to upgrade to an SLI setup this spring. Plus, sometimes you can be surprised how cheap a significant bump in performance can be, since you can see the cost difference next to each option.

I also like their customer service. My first CP computer had a motherboard that went bad a couple months after purchase. They were great on the phone, shipped me a new one, and arranged for a local shop to install the part at my home, on my timeline. They earned a fair bit of customer loyalty from me for that.

[Chromatix]

I wrote a detailed FAQ about buying or upgrading a PC for gaming, for another forum which targets a specific game that recently had a major upgrade.

Here it is: http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtop...f=339&t=118819

You might want to start with the last post in that thread, and then go back to the top and work through it all.