Not getting enough fps in The Elder Scrolls Skyrim

Make sure you have Nvidia's latest drivers. What resolution do you run it on? and lastly, the cpu *may* be a bottleneck.

ok i do ave the latest drivers for nvida which was suppose to increase my performace by 21 % but i see no difference and i play on a 1280x1024 resolution
if my cpu is bottlenecking ive heard a i5 2500k is a great processor for gaming

Yes, the i5 2500k is a great cpu for gaming, although you "might" want to consider the ivy bridge side of it...

so am i good do i just need to repalce my cpu if i can
i also saw the i5 3570k much better ffor like 10 more dolars might consider getting this

A much cheaper option would be to get a good cooler (not an expensive one) and overclock your current CPU, you could also try to unlock an extra core. I have built 4 machines with that CPU and 3 of them unlocked to 4 cores, you need a motherboard that supports this option though. If you want to upgrade the i5 2500K is better if you overclock and the 3570 is better if you don't.

it would be an even better idea to figure out whether you CPU is actually a problem!

Run some software that can show you the % of each core being used, then you'll know if a faster cpu will help. I suspect not.

@13th

It's clearly the problem. Skyrim benchmarks, available all over the net, show that it scales a LOT on CPU performance. Based on such, I'd actually expect a near DOUBLING in FPS if he upgraded to an Ivy or Sandy Bridge processor.

If you don't know what you're talking about, please go away.

@simon12

It's already a 4 core processor.... Thinking of the X2 eh?
Also, Atlon ll x4 645s generally OC to 3.6-3.7GHz... which isn't going to be good enough to get rid of the CPU bottleneck on that GTX570.

Whether or not it'd be a complete and utter waste of time is debatable. I'd side with YES... but, can see the argument behind "but, I'm poor, and that's the best I can do!"

As far as the 2500k vs 3570k... *shrugs*. I generally agree. Stock performance should be slightly better on the 3570k, but Intel dropped the ball on Ivy's heat spreader, so the 2500k will get a slightly better OC on inexpensive air cooling... making the whole thing pretty much a wash. If someone held a gun to my head and forced me to decide on that one, I'd probably get shot.

ive heard that a i5 2500k bottlenecks a gtx 570 i dont think thats tru right
i generally want to avoid oc as much as possible but its only if i cant get the fps im demanding with the settings i want.
so im guessing a 3570k is a better choice for me right?
also my current cpu says im using about 90 % of it which i think is not good considering my gpu usage is under 50 %

Sorry for some reason I read it as a 3 core and yes even with an overclock it will still bottleneck a 570 but it will get him the better FPS on Skyrim he wants for a $30 cooler instead of a $229 CPU and a motherboard. You could then spend the change on a decent monitor (1920 x 1080+). At 1920 x 1080 & 3.6+GHz the CPU bottleneck will not be huge, though still big. Why did you get a 570 for 1280x1024 in the 1st place.

its not the cpu i have the same one and run it with a gtx 670 and it plays fine.

i wanted to get a card that can support me for some years thats why adn also if i do get a bigger monitor is the bottlenecking shorted than a 1280x1024?
so im going to ask agaoin should i just get the i5 3570k

Yes, or you could get the i7-3770k, but it's usually not worth it for games. I recommend the 3570k.

Surprising the CPU could bottleneck it that much, I have a GTX 550 Ti and Pentium G860 that runs this game on Ultra no prob (1920x1080). But if you must get a CPU upgrade yeah go for an i5 3570k or an i3 if u dont wanna spend as much cuz those are beast as well. I have an i7 3770 and that was just a little overkill I think for gaming, not really worth spending that much when u could get an i5

i have being playing skyrim with this CPU for a few months now with alot of mods installed, although i do have a i5 3570k getting dusty along with a few other components as i wait for a new motherboard.

alright thxs for everyone who helped im going to consider getting a i5 3570k and a 1920x1080
i think with my current gpu it will run great  

woops one more thing what monitor brand/model should i get thats 1920x1080
i dont know too much about monitors and i want to see if you guys know which is better

If your just going for gaming only an I5 2500k will work great when overclocked, still the 2500k is starting to get abit old, so i would suggest going for the I5 3570k as it not only provides a great gaming experence but also is great in other areas such as light multimedia/Surfing.

I have this monitor:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
Its a really amazing monitor, colors blew me away. And I absolutely love everything I have ever purchased from ASUS, they make exceptional motherboards from my experience and definitely very good monitors.

the chances are its a cpu bottleneck cause by running on a low rez monitor with a high end gpu. swap the monitor out first b4 you buy anything else and i can pretty much guarantee your problem will be gone...
your system isnt the worst in the world. the x4 amd is good enough to handle a gtx 570 but only just so the more you can overclock it the better but 3.1-3.2 should be enough not to cause an issue... the problem would show up because it can just handle it. so when you run on a lower rez screen the cpu has to work harder to keep the gpu in line as far as fps goes. your currently probably getting high fps spikes and low fps droop but no consistent averages.
again its down to the small screen. in low poly areas your gpu runs away with the fps , so much so the cpu has to tell it to stop till it can catch up thus the cpu bottleneck. a bigger screen means the gpu has to work harder to create asingle screen so will not be able to produce the over abundance of fps it could b4 which means the cpu wont have to yell stop at it so you end up with a nice happy medium.

so like i say get a bigger screen and the issues should clear up... only buy the screen for now. you can get a different cpu if things dont change but i dont think you will need to...
also dont go off the first answer you get on here. there are a lot of people who think they know when they dont actually know what they are talking about... (a little knowledge can be a very dangerous thing)
13th monkey isnt 1 of them...

this is the kind of thing im on about... the 2500k is just over a year old and is a complete beast of a cpu. its actually a better overclocker than the 3570k and can handle heavy multimedia/ high level math crunching/ 3d/vertex/bitmap rendering and anything else you care to throw at it with ease. yet the guy has wrote it off... seriously some people think that every cpu generation is a major leap forward. he's completley ignoring the fact the 3570k has heat issue problems at 4.2 and beyond but because its newer its better... its not... intel couldnt get rid of the heat quick enough because the dye is to small. so instead of researching new materials to extract the heat better and giving us a cpu that should in theory oc past 5ghz with ease , gave us 1 thats stuck at 4.5 max on air.
the reality is there hasnt been a leap since nephlim replaced core 2, the next leap will likely be haswell where the power should double over the original intel i5/i7.
currently the sandy and ivy bridge offer 20% over the older i5/i7 which you can get back if you oc that old boys to just 3.6
yep the old i7 will give you just as much grunt as a stock sandy i5 and even more if you go to 4.2. yes you can bump your i5 to 4.5 but in real terms your still only getting 30% more cpu grunt. yet in the real world that translates into exactly 0% in games.
so just because something is getting old, dont write it off as crap.
after all mike tyson is what? 40+ if you had a choice would you wanna take a punch off him or off Klitschko, my choice would be, neither, they can both knock you out, and being knocked out is all the same no matter who throws the punch.

well AMD athlons aren't really good gaming cpus to start with. if ur mobo is a AMD 9-series i'd consider a FX processor or if you have a slightly older series consider a Phenom II Quad core.
if your budget doesn't have enough cash in it for a higher end processor you can try reliving some ram by shutting down some background programs.
the most popular solution i've seen for upping fps in skyrim is turning grass down to 0.
other things you can try are turning off antialiasing and anisotropic filtering, dialing down distant object detail, water reflect options, radial blur, and/or resolution.

Well, I have Skyrim running smooth at 1920x1080 with ultra settings (and some extra INI-file settings for shadows). Skyrim update is v1.6, my CPU is older 2-core 4-thread i3 @ 4GHz, GPU is ATI 5870 1GB not over-clocked.
I would advise updating the game. I understand that CPU calculations have been optimised on a couple of updates. Additionally, disable in-game graphics filtering options, except perhaps FXAA.

FX sucks for gaming. Period.

everyone is entitled to their opinion. but my friend has one of the intel i7s, i think its a 3900k, ones and he preferred my build or his own.

+1 to what Hexit said hes one that knows what hes talking about. And yes FX CPUs suck for gaming.