Plugging into your TV won't be a tall order at all. Almost everything comes with an HDMI port these days, and wireless accessories are pretty easy to find.

 

In terms of performance, Skyrim is easy (unless you mod the hell out of it). I bought an off-the-shelf Dell i3 box last December with 8GB of RAM, dropped a $250 2GB GTX 760ti card into it and it plays vanilla Skyrim flawlessly at the highest graphics settings. The computer itself cost me about $350, the new power supply was $50, so all told, it was about a $650 investment. That said, my vintage 2009 first-gen i7 box can still run rings around it--a testament to how good the i7 is more than anything else.

 

GTA V is a tougher order, as it's a much newer game with higher system requirements. You'd want an i5 or i7 processor--i3 probably won't cut it for this game. Again, 8GB of RAM. With an i5-4000 series or better processor, you should be ok with a 2GB graphics card of a recent generation, say a GTX 760/960 or 970, rather than going for the newer 980. With your price range, you'll have a hard time finding anything pre-built that meets the requirements in your price range, especially given that almost all off-the-shelf PCs these days come with integrated graphics, which is worth its weight in turd, and you'll have to spend extra to drop in a new power supply and graphics card. That said, hit up a few Best Buys and see what they've got on the clearance endcap. I got our TV machine for about 60% of what they were selling its successor system, with virtually identical specs, for.

 

Side note: I'm not a fan of AMD processors for gaming purposes. Even though they're generally cheaper, they don't perform as well in my experience, and I'll dish out the extra cash for an Intel every time.

 

Things will get really interesting for me once the Oculus Rift comes out. I'm already squirreling away cash for a Rift-ready PC once I see what types of games are coming out for it, what the peripherals will cost (controllers, maybe that treadmill rig) and whether it's going to be worth my money or a new Virtual Boy. That'll be a pricey PC to build, as I'm currently looking at a fifth-gen i7, at least one GTX 980 and 16GB of RAM. Could be a $2,000 computer, and that's before buying the Rift itself lol. It'll take a lot of convincing for that to happen.

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