UESP Forums

Hey guys, I just got my school loan money that didn't get used for stuff like my tuition and fees and wanted to use some of it to get a new computer. I have two that I have been looking at my local Sam's Club that just opened, one of which is just the tower with an AMD A6-5400K processor, an AMD Radeon HD 7540D graphics card, 8 GB DDR3 RAM, and a 1 TB harddrive. The other one that I am looking at is a Dell Inspiron 660s Desktop Computer, with an Intel Core i3-2130, 6GB Memory, 1TB Hard Drive and comes with a 21.5" HD Widescreen monitor. The graphics are integrated Intel HD graphics.

My current monitor is a 17" HP vs17e. I was somewhat leaning toward the Dell Inspiron because it come with the monitor, but I want to know which of these two computers would be better suited to play Skyrim without having to upgrade it right away?

I told my wife that it should cost me about $500 for a system that I need for "school" (I don't use the quotation marks with her because a good portion of my using it will indeed be for school related purposes, however I don't need anything that advanced). I honestly think I would be more successful in convincing her that I need to upgrade the video card on a computer I just bought to get it to the level that I "need" than convincing her that I need to buy a new monitor.

On another note, is my current monitor sufficient for playing Skyrim? The reason I am asking is because if I am going to have to upgrade the video card anyway, I might as well go for the deal that comes with an HD monitor bundled with it for a pretty good deal, even when the total is more than just the tower.

However, if I can get away with my current monitor, then I will go for the first computer I was looking at and go ahead and get a better video card.

Well ...

In regard to your monitor, your computer doesn't really care what monitor you're using (though higher screen resolutions will tax your graphics card more). The one you have supports 1280x1024, so while it does use the pseudo-antiquated 4:3 aspect ratio there aren't going to be games that don't fit on the screen. I picked up a 1080p LED LCD 16:9 monitor for ~$150 from tigerdirect a few weeks ago.

For the intel machine ... it uses a pretty low-level i3 - it's a 3.4GHz dual core with HD 2000 (integrated) graphics ... . It scores a 4,014 on passMark (higher the better, and that score isn't shabby for a budget-box but nothing to brag about these days)

For the AMD machine ... its processor is also a dual core with integrated graphics (that's the 7540D part - that's the GPU on the APU/CPU). It's CPU side unfortunately scores only a 2145 on passMark. It's a A6, generally you look for at least A8, preferably A10 if you're trying to go without a GPU.

So either way you are going to need a video card (and please post your ideas before buying what the guy at the store recommends) to play modern games on anything but low. And with the AMD yeah you get 8GBs of RAM, but what speed? The performance of the onboard graphics is related to the speed of the RAM, and without part numbers for the computers or their motherboards we won't know what speeds are supported

I wouldn't worry much about how much memory is in, 6gb vs 8gb, because if you need to switch from 6 to 8 that's ~$35-50 in parts these days

With either machine you'll want to make sure it has an open PCIEx16 slot on the motherboard for the video card and enough room in the chassis, below the PCIE slot and the rear for a 2-slot video card. Also, the power supply should be at least 450W and have at least 1 6-pin PCIE connector (if you want to use a dedicated video card)

Don't know if I will have any money to get a new computer with now as it is looking very likely that my wife's car tie rod is about to go out, meaning that we will have to have it replaced.

Ah bummer- sorry to hear that.