PC recommendation?

PCMR

Way to get the best answers out of people. If you don't like the answers you get here then go to reddit or pcpartpicker

A.J.

You should provide your country for shopping and an idea about price. Do you have a monitor/display or need to buy one? Build your own? Upgrade a used PC? There are 2nd and 3rd generation quad core Intel i5 PCs with 8GB RAM and Windows in minitower format for under $200 delivered. This is one: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIADZE5U83316 You check discussion for upgrade about whether it takes a standard power supply. You then find a graphics card. Those over 75 watts power will need a supplemental PCIe power connection and therefore a new power supply. There are cards on ebay, Amazon, local sites, or new on sale. https://pcpartpicker.com/products/video-card/#sort=price&page=1 This RX560 4GB 896 shaders version https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814932014 does not need a power supply connection other than motherboard. Its short length should fit nicely. You can use general benchmarks https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php and gaming reporting sites https://www.notebookcheck.net/Computer-Games-on-Laptop-Graphics-Cards.13849.0.html This setup of about $300 in the USA plays all modern games in 1920x1080, though CPU is not top tier, should be stable enough, and the only question is optimizing game settings. Gaming rank at notebookcheck is about #100 to #115 It is the lowest cost path. Elder Scrolls Online ultra preset should be smooth play if internet connection is strong. 2011 Skyrim without mod should approach 60 fps on ultra settings. My background is computer hardware, 30+ years IBM+Lenovo Corp Procurement Engineering, and gaming is per tables, charts, reports. This is the lowest cost hardware path to a good gaming PC that is repairable. Otherwise, cheapest path to a good new PC is probably AMD Ryzen 5 2400G with integrated Vega 11 graphics. https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php Where the i5-3470 of the used PC shown gets you a 6709 score, the new Ryzen 5 2400G gets you a 9274 score, but Skyrim uses only two cores of a CPU fully and two cores weakly. As both are quad core and the AMD Ryzen is near gaming performance to Intel CPUs, it should be a stronger CPU. The included Vega 11 gets rank 175 on the table, not nearly as strong in gaming as an RX 560 4GB 896 and you must have 2x4GB ram or better in the PC. Though some modern games are a bit sluggish, Skyrim unmodded should run at or about 40fps on ultra 1920x1080 and modded should still play medium high. $560 plus tax here https://www.bestbuy.com/site/hp-pavilion-desktop-amd-ryzen-5-series-8gb-memory-amd-radeon-rx-vega-11-1tb-hard-drive-black-silver/6253604.p?skuId=6253604 Check customer comments when price is lower https://www.walmart.com/ip/HP-Pavilion-590-P0040-Natural-Silver-Desktop-Tower-AMD-Ryzen5-2400G-Processor-8GB-Memory-1TB-Hard-Drive-AMD-UMA-Graphics-Wireless-Keyboard-Mouse-Wind/333224327 It is over $400 in parts including retail Windows, plus any optical drive, keyboard, mouse, assembled packaging https://pcpartpicker.com/list/vkrsQZ It is possible to go cheaper, but these are gaming level so the PC is not a one-trick pony. There are gaming experts and gaming PC hardware experts that answer on Y/A still. I'm familiar with all PC parts and capability. There are PCs still on clearance based on AMD FX series CPUs, but they are not best at Skyrim.