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Intro: I decided to do some testing today to see what type of impact cpu speed and threads has on skyrim. Methodology: Choose a location with lots of fog, running water, particles and test cpu impact on performance. Test 1. GPU - 752/1002 CPU - STOCK WITH NO TURBO @X20 MULTI (Core parking disabled) all threads utilized. http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/6705/tesv2011111313360148.jpg TEST 2 GPU - 752/1002 CPU - STOCK WITH TURBO ENABLED @26 MULTI (Core parking disabled) all threads utilized http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/6065/tesv2011111313371038.jpg TEST 3 GPU - 752/1002 CPU - STOCK WITH TURBO ENABLED @26 (Core parking disabled) emulating I5 setup with 2 logical/physical cores and 2 hyper threads http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/3843/tesv2011111313400213.jpg TEST 4 GPU - 752/1002 CPU - STOCK WITH TURBO ENABLED @26 (Core parking disabled) emulating quad core setup with 4 logical/physical cores and 0 hyper threads (No difference from 8 threads (hyper threading enabled) so no reason for screenshot) Summary - I would like to see more testing from other cpu offerings from the m14x. My initial thoughts are that the number of threads does offer a slight benefit on performance. However it CAN'T be denied that actual CPU speed is even more important if you are using a mobile I3/I5/I7 setup with 4 threads or greater. I would really like to see some speed comparisons for 4 and 8 threads at 3ghz and 3.4 ghz. *note* Intel denotes on the processor overviews as cpu CORES with hyper threading technology (either enabled or disabled *note* To emulate I5 setup simply set the affinity to the first 4 threads (0,1,2,3) This should be core 0, plus hyper, core 2, plus hyper. Setting the affinity to 0,2,4,6 disables the hyper threading and allows only the 4 physical cores.

@Ninja - With the I5 can I ask you to please do a screenshot comparison between turbo off and on? Thanks!

Game: Markarth mine entrance, Ultra, AA off, 16xAF, Vsync off Test machine:m14x CPU: i5, core parking off, speed step off GPU: 555m gt (752,1002) Turbo on: Turbo off: Turbo on: Turbo off: I dont know if i did this right, but to turn turbo off in throttlestop i would tick the "disable turbo" option and set the multiplier to x23. Sorry about the old thumbnails i cant figure out how to remove them XD

@mw86 thanks a lot yeah i was not planing on upgrading to more ram, but to faster ones. but i will at first sort things out like you said. i will do a clean install using windows ultimate .i left the home premium on the order, as i have plenty of other (original) windows 7 versions flying around here. only thing i'm a bit worried doinga clean install is that all the tools that came with it are wiped. especially as i don't know what tools are really needed at first. i will probably do the same with my data, as i got an external USB 3.0 1 TB hd which i'm not really using at the moment. and since evn my macs can write on to NTFS disks, i won't have to worry about file-system compatibility throughout my own computers..

ok cool thing, thanks! in the end, what i want to do is to keep the "unnessessary" stress on the machine as low as possible, also with only running as many services as nessessary. i'm really psyched to see how it will perform.

Exactly. I'd recommend a SSD for OS + APP/GAMES and a large HDD for storage needs. Even if you do get a little performance bumb with RAIDed drives in my opinion it's not worth the hassle. Oh, and congratz on your purchase + welcome to T|I!

Thanks for the tip though. I'll try checking on PowerPlay (and set it to max performance) and see if I get any difference performance than unchecking it.

Thanks a lot! I am looking for GTX 470m and I wanna try it. But on eBay, the seller usually doesn't accept return. kaka. Any way, thanks for your help again!!!

yeah at first I thought it was needed but after some testing I realized it was redundant so I removed it, changing only the intelppm will be enough

Hey guys, so some people have been experiencing poor performance in towns and dungeons, And this is due to a poorly made shadow system. Anywho, I modded the SkyrimPrefs.ini file to be more friendly in these enviroments with medium/high quality. Heres all the changes: fInteriorShadowDistance=1750.0000 fShadowDistance=3500.0000 iShadowMapResolutionSecondary=1024 iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=1536 fShadowLODStartFade=250.0000 iShadowMapResolution=1536 I find the following 2 settings to remedy shadow shimmering, however some people have had severe shadowing problems with the following changes: fShadowBiasScale=1.0000 iShadowMaskQuarter=0 What this does is reduce the range of the shadows and the resolution, in most systems this would reduce the quality drastically but Skyrims system makes the shadow 'pixels/jaggies' bigger with a higher. So i scaled down the distance and resolution about 25% from 'high' settings (not ultra). There shouldn't be much visual difference but i'm getting much better performance in elaborate dungeons and cities. Of course back up the ini, you might notice some visual blemishes that my eyes didnt catch.

Right testing sort of complete, in uni now abusing the 10Mbps connection to download Skyrim, while waiting decided to host a minecraft server and play some more battlefield and guess what? 49% came and went without a problem although its only at 52% now but it looks as it it could be the Gaming serge protector i was using. Been playing for about 3 hours now on ultra with no problems

Yeah, I'd even consider it a weapon after it enter self-destruct mode.