FFXIV Hardware Requirements

[Karinastar]

You'll be fine, I overclocked my i7 2600k by over 1ghz on a $30 Coolermaster air cooler and over a whole evening of FFXIV and other stuff I don't see a temp over 50 degrees. ATI cards tend to run cooler than nvidia, so you should be fine there too as long as you don't overclock the card too excessively, provided the case is even remotely decent.

I will make the obligatory "Build it yourself" argument though. You could get the same components and save yourself at least a couple hundred bucks. If you really aren't comfortable with it, that's pretty decent for a prebuilt depending on how good their cooling system is. I'm not really a fan of liquid cooling for daily use PCs; it tends to be a bit more failure prone, requires more maintenance and is only really needed if you're going for crazy OCs, whereas the most that's gonna fail on an air cooler is a fan and that's just a screw on replacement. You don't really need to OC these CPUs that much, a OC to 4.3-4.5 ghz will get you 60fps everywhere in FFXIV, even in cities. The only other thing I can really suggest is a SSD (Solid State Drive). With the other components being so high performance, you'll really notice the hard drive as a bottleneck. Since you're posting this in the FFXIV forum, I'll use that as an example. In cities and such, I get a fair amount of stutter before everything smooths out because of everything being loaded from the HDD (I have a 7200rpm caviar black). A SSD will really smooth things out for you and will improve loading times.

I'll also say, don't bother with buying an overclocking package. These CPUs are sooo easy to overclock, and the BIOS is really user friendly. You can just google "i5 2500k overclocking guide", and it'll give you numerous step by step guides. You only really need to change like 2 settings to get to an OC of 4.4-4.5 ghz, which will give you all the CPU power you'll likely need for a long time.

[Spade]

Thank you so much for that info, Karina! The site says the cooling system comes with a free standard fan upgrade, but I don't know if liquid cooling systems require a fan anyways, or if that will be separate and something I can use for daily use.

As far as building it myself goes, I found all the parts on newegg individually and I think it would only be about $150 cheaper. I've never built a computer before, so I guess I'd be willing to pay them that extra money to ensure it gets done right.

I guess my only other concern is do you think that motherboard will prove to be a bottleneck? I don't know much about them, and the one I selected was the cheapest one they offered.

[Karinastar]

Glad to help. =)

If it makes you feel more comfortable and you're willing to spend the extra that's cool. I'm really only against prebuilts when it's a name brand, because they tend to use pretty shoddy parts that don't perform well. Something like ibuypower where you configure it yourself is usually a pretty safe bet, plus warranty issues are easier when you can just go through them. I've had a couple of friends get PCs from them and they've been happy with them (though one had to send the PC back due to a bad motherboard, but that can happen when you build yourself just as easily).

Motherboards aren't usually "bottlenecks" unless you're doing something like using a USB 2.0 motherboard with USB 3.0 devices or using a SATA 6gb/s SSD with a 3gb/s slot. The other time they can be one is if you are running a Crossfire setup. If you plan to do that at some point, I would suggest a more expensive board so that both video cards can have more bandwidth. All that said though, looking at reviews that motherboard has gotten some pretty unfavorable ones, it doesn't overclock well and apparently has some sort of bug that pops up where it will restart itself multiple times before it finally works. I'd probably look into another brand (Asus, MSI, and ASrock have all gotten solid reviews), or the next model up from Gigabyte. Just be sure it's a P67 board, or you can't overclock. I personally have an Asus P8P67 (be sure you don't get the LE if you get this one), and it's worked great for me aside from the occasional double post which many of them apparently do and Asus has said is intended. But yeah, if you want to run 2 video cards at any point you're probably going to have to pony up another $80+ to get a board that will take the most advantage of that. Otherwise a midrange board is just fine and will probably have all of the features you need.

[Spade]

Thanks again for your help, Karina. I took your advice and got a SSD (120gb 6gb/s) and the MSI P67A-GD55 motherboard. Overall, I spent more than I was hoping to, but it should be a pretty nice system

[Karinastar]

Cool, like I said I don't have a SSD myself (didn't have enough extra money when I built this PC), but everyone I know with one absolutely loves it. Let me know how it is with FFXIV!

[CrstyCptSteveWitherspoon]

I have an SSD, dont' think I installed XIV on it thought because it's only a 60 GB one($200 ) but I do have Rhino 4.0 and Photoshop installed on it and they do open MUCH quicker than on a normal HDD. I haven't looked at the prices lately but they're deff the way to go in as far as insuring your PC isn't bottlenecked.

[Pence]

Hello ya'll, when it comes to computers I have little idea. I've come to the time where I want to get a desktop and figure it may awell be able to run XIV (doesn't have to be perfect, but playable).

I have found a few online, but i'm not sure which (if any will run XIV). Any input is appreciated =D

Intel $900

Motherboard: Intel DH67CL B3 Motherboard - OEM
LGA1155, H67 (B3 Stepping), 4xDDR3-1333, 1xPCI-Ex16 v2.0, 2xSATA-III, 3xSATA-II, 1xeSATA-II, RAID, 1xGigLAN, 8Chl-HD, DVI, HDMI, USB3.0, ATX

CPUs | Processor: Core i3 2120 Dual Core (3.3GHz, 850-1100MHz GPU) - LGA1155, 5.0 GT/s DMI, HTT, 3MB Cache, 32nm, 65W

- Would change this to Core i5 2500 Quad Core (3.30GHz - 3.70GHz Turbo, 850-1100MHz GPU) - LGA1155, 5.0 GT/s DMI, 6MB Cache, 32nm, 95W if able.

Memory - RAM: 4GB DDR3

Hard Drives - Internal: 500GB 7200rpm Serial ATA-II-300 HDD

Video Card: HIS Radeon HD 5770 - 1GB GDDR5 - (850MHz, 4800MHz)
128-bit, 2xDVI, DisplayPort, HDMI, PCI-Ex16 v2.1, Fansink





AMD $900:
Motherboard: ASUS M4A87TD/USB3 Motherboard
AM3, SB850, HT 5200, 4xDDR3-1066, 1xPCI-Ex16 v2.0, 6xSATA-III, RAID, GigLAN, 8Chl-HD, USB3.0, ATX

CPUs | Processor: Phenom II X4 965 Quad Core (3.4GHz) - AM3, 2MB L2 & 6MB L3 Cache, 45nm SOI, 125W

Memory - RAM: 4GB DDR3

Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 6870 - 1GB GDDR5 - (900MHz, 4200MHz)
256-bit, 2xDVI, 2xMini-DisplayPort, 1xHDMI, PCI-Ex16 v2.1, Fansink







AMD $1170:
Motherboard: ASUS M4A87TD/USB3 Motherboard
AM3, SB850, HT 5200, 4xDDR3-1066, 1xPCI-Ex16 v2.0, 6xSATA-III, RAID, GigLAN, 8Chl-HD, USB3.0, ATX

CPUs | Processor: Phenom II X4 965 Quad Core (3.4GHz) - AM3, 2MB L2 & 6MB L3 Cache, 45nm SOI, 125W

Memory - RAM: 4GB DDR3

Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 6870 - 1GB GDDR5 - (900MHz, 4200MHz)
256-bit, 2xDVI, 2xMini-DisplayPort, 1xHDMI, PCI-Ex16 v2.1, Fansink


- - Would also upgrade ram on them all to 8GB if able.

Any input appreciated, cheers. (Sorry if this is in wrong area)

[Gokulo]

For a sec there I thought it was a bot ad post O.o

[Karinastar]

What setup you choose depends on your budget, really. Unless you can invest in a 2500k and the P67/Z68 motherboard needed to overclock it, I'd probably go with the Phenom. Even then, with the 2500k, the better video card in the AMD setup will do more for you than the extra CPU power as far as games are concerned. The Black Edition CPUs overclock super easily, 4ghz with a 965 is easy with any half decent air cooler, and that'll give you enough CPU muscle to run FF14 rather well, and will be more than enough for any proper game that isn't coded to run like an emulator. Plus, you get a much beefier video card with that option. The 6870 should be fine for FFXIV, like I said the game was coded by monkeys and runs like a console emulator, leaning very heavily on the CPU and not so much on the GPU past a certain point. The 5770 in the Intel setup would probably be a bit too weak to run the game at high res and still have it look decent, however.

Overall, the AMD setup should easily run the game at 1080p with most options set to high and should give you 50-60fps everywhere except places like Uldah and Broken Water Aetheryte where half the server congregates. It would also be better for other games, where performance is more based on your GPU. I am confused on one thing though, you list the AMD setup twice, the components listed look the same but there's an almost $300 price difference. Where's that coming from? SSD or something?

[Pence]

Ahhh snap I did post it twice. Ha. There's 2 AMD ones I'm looking at and evidently my copy and paste fails!

Motherboard: ASUS M4A87TD/USB3 Motherboard
AM3, SB850, HT 5200, 4xDDR3-1066, 1xPCI-Ex16 v2.0, 6xSATA-III, RAID, GigLAN, 8Chl-HD, USB3.0, ATX

CPUs | Processor: Athlon II X4 645 Quad Core (3.1GHz) - AM3, 2MB L2 Cache, 45nm SOI, 95W - Boxed

Memory - RAM: 4GB (2 x 2GB) PC3-10600 1333MHz DDR3 RAM - 9-9-9-24

Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 6770 - 1GB GDDR5 - (850MHz, 4800MHz)
128-bit, 1xDVI, 1xDisplayPort, 1xHDMI, PCI-Ex16 v2.0, Fansink

- That's the $900 one.

Thanks for your input =D I'll give it a week or so, then decide if it's right for me. Sounds pretty ideal, but.

[Karinastar]

Oh hmm, that changes things a little. A 6770 is just a rebadged 5770. I'd suggest a bit better of a card than that for serious gaming at this point, you should probably go with something in at least the 6800 series. ><

[Pence]

I guess I'll just go with the $1200 one. Thanks for your help.

[Karinastar]

Happy to help! But for what it's worth, $1200 sounds like you're seriously overpaying for that system, unless you have some other goodies like a SSD or monitor in there. You could easily save like $300+ building it yourself, and if you're really not comfortable with that I took a quick look at ibuypower and a similar system (Phenom II x4 965, 6870, 4gb DDR3 1600) was only about $1012 from them, including OS and a PSU upgrade to a name brand. That's assuming you live in the US, if so might be something to consider. :/

[Pence]

I live in Aus =P I find cheaper ones online, get all excited...then they never ship here. It hurts me.

[Katoke]

So I have
Pheonom 1090T Hex core 3.2gig
HD5750 (750 Core , 1150 memory clock) 1 gb DDR3
8 gigs ram
Biostar AM3 ready mobo
7200 SATA II HD

experiencing lag while running in window mode with 2X AA , this seems a bit contradictory to some above posts of people getting capped frame rates or what have you. Are there any specific setting in the ATI setting/ff14 config I should be checking?

[Jojimbo]

What res are you running at?

[Katoke]

1280x790 or something like that.

[Jojimbo]

Where exactly are you getting lag? If in cities then I don't think there's much you can do. And you may still get lag occasionally in busy-ish camps.

What are your Drawing/Texture settings at as well? And are AO/DoF off.

[Katoke]

AO off, DoF off, 7/10, 4/5, 4x AA normal now. GPU usage reads 77% in towns, 90% in the field. Appears to have fixed the lag, but cards running at about 64c, CPU at 42c

Just worried since every other game I play the card never peaks like .. 63c, in the field it sometimes will peak 68

[Jojimbo]

Those temps are fine, XIV will probably run the card a bit hotter than most games.