skyrim machine choices - desktop with q9300/ati 6850 or m14x?

Hi Guys,

i am getting skyrim from santa in few days and after some checking its seems to be very more cpu bound than gpu.

in light of this i am unsure of what is the best platform to play it on,

Desktop
Intel core 2 q9300 @2.5ghz, with 8gb ram and ati 6850

or

Alienware M14x i7, with 6gb ram gt555 1.5gb

any advice?

 

skimmed what you wrote and i have to say - considering laptop vs desktop is important to decide first (portability requirements). and while you wrote i7 for the m14x you didn't tell us which model (some are faster than others - and if you're talking cpu strengths that's important to note). And lastly - is this game (while a nice length and all) the ONLY thing you want to do with your new pc? cause you seem to be wanting to choose your laptop on a game that will give you maybe at most 50 hours play through.

 

Hi Bud,

Thanks for the reply. I have both machines already, but after reading around about skyrim it is very cpu dependant so am unsure whether to play skyrim given the choice on my desktop, or laptop.

The processor in my alienware m14x is a i7 Processor 2630QM. which after checking is about 2x the performance of my desktop processor, so all things being equal should beat my desktop, but i wanted some peps thoughts who actually have the game

 

Skyrim runs fantastic on the M14x, I have mine mostly on high, with a few settings to ultra. smooth as butter. I have not had one graphical jerk yet.

Honestly people must think this machine is dead slow or something, everything i've chucked at it (brink, skyrim, bf3, bfbc2, anno 1404, anno 2070 etc etc) has ran smoothly and looks beautiful

 

At first I was thinking you could install it on both machines and copy/paste your saves, but then I remembered it’s Steam-dependant (for installation & achievements only) and there could be a problem.

I’m biased but I would also say M14x.
FTW!

 

thanks for the posts guys, i will use drop box or something else for storing the saved games, will save me messing about with syncing the files.

 

can't really compare a laptop with a desktop. If you need portability, or small form factor, etc, then a laptop would do, and the m14x can almost max out sky rim with an OC. But a desktop would be a better value and it is more upgradable, but hdd prices so high right now.