Hey Guys, 
  
I have a relativity new PC aside from the CPU and am wondering what to get Skyrim on.  

 Here are my specs:   
  
OS: Windows 7 64 bit
GPU: AMD Radeon 6950 2GB 
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 3ghz 
RAM: 4GB
Storage: Intel 120 GB SSD  
 
Would It make more sense to get it on PC or just on my 360? 
 
Thanks

I would imagine it will run better and look better on your PC. The 6950 is no slouch. Runs perfectly on my 5870 @ 2460*1600 on High Settings (Ultra High settings will run it but it occasionally glitches requiring a reload from last save).

I would definitely go PC if I were you.

It looks like you should be fine, but just to be sure, how much RAM do you have? You probably want at least 3 GB, probably 4 to be safe.

Otherwise you should be fine and the game should look amazing! Also I'm very jealous of your SSD. How much did that run you?

Your PC is more than fine for this. Great GPU, CPU is a bit on the weaker side compared to what's out there today (but that shouldn't matter much).

No reason to not go PC for this one.

I would usually recommend the PC version but this game is awesome with a controller (not an issue if you have a wired xbox controller) and why not experience this epic fantasy world on your large expensive TV (not an issue if your PC monitor is nicer than your TV)? Unless there's someone else in your household wants to play simultaneously? In that case, definitely get it on PC because you can install it on multiple PCs and play at the same time (see: log into steam on the second PC with the same credentials, install and then put in offline mode.).

Bethesda did a lot of work optimizing this game for the xbox. You will not be disappointed. Of course, you won't be disappointed with either version because your PC would run it on High at least. I have: Athlon x2 BE 3.1 Ghz, 4G DDR2 1033 Mhz, Radeon 4870 1 Gb and it runs great aside from random crashes every now and then. the crashes may be caused by the large address awareness in Windows, I'm not sure yet.

GL

Remember that skyrim only uses 2gb of ram, no matter how much you have. Is not fun for power users, apparently there is a mod for this, but i haven't read anything about stability yet.

PC damn you. PC.

@velt said:

Remember that skyrim only uses 2gb of ram, no matter how much you have. Is not fun for power users, apparently there is a mod for this, but i haven't read anything about stability yet.

Its not really a mod, it simply changes a flag to make the executable large memory address aware. It doesn't let you use more ram, like people think it does. The executable is 32 bit. What it does do, is lets the program access more than two gigs of pagefile memory; a swap file on your drive.

It makes a huge difference; I have a feeling stock Skyrim constantly ride the ceiling of the page file. Textures weren't loading, so I'd get creatures/armor that were just pinkish. Areas wouldn't load, so maps would be missing large chunks of geometry. I'd get hard crash to desktops every half hour. Enabling LMA fixed all of this. In the last 16 hours of gameplay, I've not had any of the issues occur again.

OP: Your PC is going to run Oblivion on a mix of high and ultra. 'Cept for the shadows; instead of rendering on the GPU, it's all handled by the CPU for some odd reason. They don't look great on ultra, anyways. Setting them to medium or high will make the game silk smooth on that computer. They made modding textures very easy. No longer is archive invalidated needed. Any textures in the texture directory will overwrite what's loaded from the bsa. Installation is easy and uninstallation of modded textures is easy, too. People have been extracting the textures from Skyrim using the New Vegas editor, resampling and resizing, and making them available to the community.

If you want the big screen experience, a 30' HDMI cable is $25 on Monoprice. Your game will be played at a natively rendered 1920x1080p instead of 1280x720 upscaled to 1080p. Plug the controller into your PC.

Most importantly, watch the Quicklook of the 360 version. Anytime a load screen comes up, count out loud. "One one thousand, Two one thousand." That's the time it takes for the PC version to finish its loading off a platter based WD Black. It loads so much faster than New Vegas does which is installed on my Intel SSD; so much so that I haven't bothered moving the installation directory because I don't see a need to.

Personal fucking Computer.

My little brother has a setup similar to this and the game runs great.

@IllogicalBeetle said:

I would imagine it will run better and look better on your PC. The 6950 is no slouch. Runs perfectly on my 5870 @ 2460*1600 on High Settings (Ultra High settings will run it but it occasionally glitches requiring a reload from last save).

I would definitely go PC if I were you.

What do you mean by "perfectly"? I had to tone down a lot of settings to get a decent framerate in cities. Whenever I look in the direction of a city my framerate drops to 30 fps and I've got a 570. But I guess my Phenom II is holding me back a bit... I read some things about Intel CPUs being way better for Skyrim.

@Zelyre: Your "little trick" doesn't help with low fps in cities, does it?

I have a AMD 5770 and an Intel Core 2 Duo at 2.1 GHz with 4 GB of RAM and it runs on High great. You should have no problem playing.

I've been running the game on my laptop. Your hardware is more than fine.

@Vegetable_Side_Dish:

i5 @ 2.53 GHz

6 gigs of RAM

nvidia geforce 435m with 1 gig of memory (hard to scale it to other video cards cuz this is a mobile one)

I have to run the game in 720p with low AA and Anisotropic. The framerate drops a lot when I'm in some cities but I can get a good 30-40 frames in the open areas.

@Afroman269 said:

nvidia geforce 435m with 1 gig of memory (hard to scale it to other video cards cuz this is a mobile one)

I have to run the game in 720p with low AA and Anisotropic. The framerate drops a lot when I'm in some cities but I can get a good 30-40 frames in the open areas.

Mobile card typically means a third to a half of the performance of the desktop counterpart (geforce GT 430), mobile cards are much more power efficient, though. Thanks for posting specs, this is relevant info to my interests.

@Jimmi: Without modding, Skyrim will only use 2gb of RAM anyway. Easy fix though: check number 3 http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/11/14/the-10-best-skyrim-mods-so-far/

If I don't do the thing where I get a 30 feet HDMI cable and connect it to my tv, is it still better to play it on PC or should I just get it on 360 to be able to play it on my tv? If I played it on PC I would use a gamepad.

@Joker369 said:

If I don't do the thing where I get a 30 feet HDMI cable and connect it to my tv, is it still better to play it on PC or should I just get it on 360 to be able to play it on my tv? If I played it on PC I would use a gamepad.

Do you want to play with half the framerate, triple the load times, no mod support and inferior visuals? If so console all the way.

I'm surprised you even have to ask tbh, that 6950 is going to play Skyrim very well on ultra settings.

This is one mod for Skyrim out already to improve water quality: