The OFFICIAL FFXIV Benchmark & Beta Performance Thread

[Katlan]

Next question has anyone gotten 30fps with AO and DOF on? (no wild dips constant)

i get 30fps w/ AO & DoF on, but get about 22-25+ in heavily crowded areas of town. I don't use DoF cause i really dont care for it, I like to detail in the distance. I was able to do double buffering (w/o Ao & DoF) w/ a smidge under the AO results

[Jianfre]

I will only state this one time: Your motherboard must have the right features, like correct CPU socket, chipsets, ram. Otherwise you will likely slap together a badly concocted machine.

For alecrast: If you are going to upgrade at least make it worthwhile! Make it the i5-750 which offers at least 30% more power and is $190 and with combo GPU or rebate or sale you can get it even lower. Is $16 too much to ask for such a large boost? I say no.

For builders, decide your price range first. Decide your processor and your motherboard.

I'm going fancy with a $180 GB board for my Phenom X6, but I will be upgrading to the X8 in a year or two. I have my PCI and ram slots ready to drop in with each FFXIV expansion. I'll be ready for SSDs and hardware choices for maybe 4 years with AMD.

Its not something you just throw together. Research it and when you think you are done, research it again. I'm still fine tuning my build now and reading new reports.

Buy online with free or cheap shipping so you don't have to deal with retail people. Most high end parts are not purchasable at Bestbuy or Compusa. Stay away from Ibuypower and Cyberpower, do it yourself if you want performance.

[Wulfgang]

Tom's Hardware is great for researching components and taking a look at broad benchmarks. Newegg commenting is generally helpful as well. I spent many many hours over the past week researching a solid build and finally bought it today:

i7 930
ATI 5870
GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R SATA 6 GB/s USB 3.0
Intel X-25M SSD

And some other fun stuff like SSD and a great PSU / HSF. My best advice before purchasing (if using Newegg) is to pore through the combo discounts. I was able to save ~$180 through instant rebates and combo deals. Excited to build it this week.

[alecrast]

I will only state this one time: Your motherboard must have the right features, like correct CPU socket, chipsets, ram. Otherwise you will likely slap together a badly concocted machine.

For alecrast: If you are going to upgrade at least make it worthwhile! Make it the i5-750 which offers at least 30% more power and is $190 and with combo GPU or rebate or sale you can get it even lower. Is $16 too much to ask for such a large boost? I say no.

For builders, decide your price range first. Decide your processor and your motherboard.

I'm going fancy with a $180 GB board for my Phenom X6, but I will be upgrading to the X8 in a year or two. I have my PCI and ram slots ready to drop in with each FFXIV expansion. I'll be ready for SSDs and hardware choices for maybe 4 years with AMD.

Its not something you just throw together. Research it and when you think you are done, research it again. I'm still fine tuning my build now and reading new reports.

Buy online with free or cheap shipping so you don't have to deal with retail people. Most high end parts are not purchasable at Bestbuy or Compusa. Stay away from Ibuypower and Cyberpower, do it yourself if you want performance.

I don't tell people to go cheap. I also don't tell people to go over their budget. In this case, the person said what they are willing to get (Q8400 or Q9400) and I simply offered a third option in the Q9550 while providing details that a larger L2 cache is beneficial, hence "Q9550 > Q9400 > Q8400". Since the OP hasn't given any context as to why they're getting what they're getting, I'm not going to tell them to go out and buy an i5, i7, or Phenom II. Maybe they already have a C2D on a LGA 755 motherboard with DDR2 and just want to upgrade from a dual-core to a quad, which is a pretty solid upgrade for not a lot of money. I'm acting on the assumption that the OP knows what they're talking about since they already made it clear they purchased an i7 860 and this was a secondary system. If they're building a completely new system then yes, Core 2 is the wrong way to go. They should be looking at i5/i7/Phenom II X6 series processors but the OP didn't provide that info and I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt that he knows what he wants, until proven otherwise.

[CrstyCptSteveWitherspoon]

I'm not sure what brand of your 480 but usually there are software like EVGA Precision and MIS Afterburner that you can use to increases your clock speed even on stock cooling fan.

Is your clock at 700/701 right now?

Yes I have an EVGA 480. I have MSI afterburner and have the fan speed modded. When I first ran the benchmark I hit 80C easily, and even went up to 82-83. I made a new profile and now usually hover in the mid to low 70's, hitting 78C max. I was going to wait to get a new case that had better ventilation before I played around with the clock speed(currently set at 700). I just don't want to fry this thing after I just dropped $500 on it.

[shaddix]

Yes I have an EVGA 480. I have MSI afterburner and have the fan speed modded. When I first ran the benchmark I hit 80C easily, and even went up to 82-83. I made a new profile and now usually hover in the mid to low 70's, hitting 78C max. I was going to wait to get a new case that had better ventilation before I played around with the clock speed(currently set at 700). I just don't want to fry this thing after I just dropped $500 on it.

You're good even at 95+ for stress tests. I wouldn't go over 100 though.

[Questionable]

I don't tell people to go cheap. I also don't tell people to go over their budget. In this case, the person said what they are willing to get (Q8400 or Q9400) and I simply offered a third option in the Q9550 while providing details that a larger L2 cache is beneficial, hence "Q9550 > Q9400 > Q8400". Since the OP hasn't given any context as to why they're getting what they're getting, I'm not going to tell them to go out and buy an i5, i7, or Phenom II. Maybe they already have a C2D on a LGA 755 motherboard with DDR2 and just want to upgrade from a dual-core to a quad, which is a pretty solid upgrade for not a lot of money. I'm acting on the assumption that the OP knows what they're talking about since they already made it clear they purchased an i7 860 and this was a secondary system. If they're building a completely new system then yes, Core 2 is the wrong way to go. They should be looking at i5/i7/Phenom II X6 series processors but the OP didn't provide that info and I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt that he knows what he wants, until proven otherwise.

That's correct, I already have the i7 860 purchased. That CPU is for my main system. I was building the second one for my husband to use. I didn't want to go overboard because I don't want to spend too much plus I rather reuse my current board which is a 775 with E6550. Also not sure if he'll like the game beyond the 30 day trial, if he doesn't, it is a waste of money to have a computer sitting in the living room just for surfing the net/watching movies that can run a game that well.

I'm still deciding between all those CPU's. I'm just not sure how much of an improvement would 9550 or 9400 be over the 8400.

[alecrast]

That's correct, I already have the i7 860 purchased. That CPU is for my main system. I was building the second one for my husband to use. I didn't want to go overboard because I don't want to spend too much plus I rather reuse my current board which is a 775 with E6550. Also not sure if he'll like the game beyond the 30 day trial, if he doesn't, it is a waste of money to have a computer sitting in the living room just for surfing the net/watching movies that can run a game that well.

I'm still deciding between all those CPU's. I'm just not sure how much of an improvement would 9550 or 9400 be over the 8400.

If money's tight, then I don't think the 9400 over the 8400 is going to alter your experience in a significantly meaningful way. The 8400 can be overclocked to compensate for the L2 cache difference with the 9400, assuming you're comfortable doing that. First, obviously, you should run the game and see how it behaves at stock settings to determine if OC'ing is even necessary at all.

[Jianfre]

Ah, in that event I take it back.

I'm just surprised to see such a difference in systems, but then again the usage is different from what me and my wife require. You know what you are doing, and based on your situation, I understand more.

Though upgrading CPU and not at least three tiers (on Tom's chart) is still pretty inline and that cpu series is limited, badly.


The more I look at upgrading my old rig, the more I see how average (read: terrible) it really is.

DualCore Intel Pentium E2160, 1800 MHz
MSI MS-7525 (Boston)
ProMos/Mosel Vitelic 1 GB DDR2-800 DDR2 SDRAM (6-6-6-18 @ 400 MHz) (5-5-5-15 @ 333 MHz) (4-4-4-12 @ 266 MHz)
Video Adapter Intel(R) G33/G31 Express Chipset Family (320 MB)

Mass produced PCs were never great, but since I got this for $230 a year ago I never expected power.

[Amele]

Ah, in that event I take it back.

I'm just surprised to see such a difference in systems, but then again the usage is different from what me and my wife require. You know what you are doing, and based on your situation, I understand more.

Though upgrading CPU and not at least three tiers (on Tom's chart) is still pretty inline and that cpu series is limited, badly.

QX9650s (edit: think these are around 250-300$ new now) still have legs* if you're willing to push the envelope a bit with the overclock. several of the chips recommended currently are three tiers up (edit: from the E6550) and the Q9550 is in tier 2 (the same tier as the phenom II X4 / X6 1090T on the chart you referenced) - so idk if I'd say they're that limited.

where she might run into issues is that not every 775LGA motherboard can handle the 45nm quads. - which board chipset do you have questionable?

I wouldn't recommend buying into the 775LGA line for a new build**, but there's certainly still some competitive cores available if you've got a mobo that can support them.

*even tom's chart thinks so; top tier

** at this point in the cycles I'm not sure I'd recommend buying into the 1156 line if you can avoid it either, though.

[Xerlic]

I'm also looking for build advice. I've come up with the following and was looking for feedback from experts. I really have no idea what to look for in a mobo, so a friend recommended that one to me based on cost and what I'm looking for:

Sorry for quoting myself, but it came to my attention that the list I posted wasn't set to public.

CPU: Intel i5 750 link
Mobo: MSI H55-G43 link
Case + PSU: Antec Nine Hundred + EA650 Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 650W Power Supply link
Separate link to PSU: Antec EarthWatts EA650 650W link
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) Superclocked 768MB link
HDD: SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 1TB link
RAM: CORSAIR XMS3 4GB (2 x 2GB) link

Now this all falls within my budget, but in order to upgrade something else, I'll have to take away from somewhere else. I'm not looking to build an amazing gaming rig, just one that's "decent" enough to play FF14 and SC2. I'm really not too sure what to look for in a mobo, so any advice on that would be appreciated. Thanks!

[Wulfgang]

Looks pretty solid. i5 750 is very easy to overclock although you should spend the ~$30 and invest in an external CPU heatsink if you do (I would highly recommend). Mobo is so-so but will do its job. GTX 460 is solid and if FFXIV does eventually support SLI setups (and you earn some more $$$) a dual-460 setup is excellent.

Great Tom's Hardware article on SLI 460s:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...-480,2694.html

Link to cheapish but solid CPU cooler I just bought:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835185142

[sruon]

Sorry for quoting myself, but it came to my attention that the list I posted wasn't set to public.

CPU: Intel i5 750 link
Mobo: MSI H55-G43 link
Case + PSU: Antec Nine Hundred + EA650 Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 650W Power Supply link
Separate link to PSU: Antec EarthWatts EA650 650W link
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) Superclocked 768MB link
HDD: SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 1TB link
RAM: CORSAIR XMS3 4GB (2 x 2GB) link

Now this all falls within my budget, but in order to upgrade something else, I'll have to take away from somewhere else. I'm not looking to build an amazing gaming rig, just one that's "decent" enough to play FF14 and SC2. I'm really not too sure what to look for in a mobo, so any advice on that would be appreciated. Thanks!

Now that's a name I hadn't heard of in a few years.

Anyway your build is pretty good but as pointed above, you really want a CPU Cooler, I tried stock for 30 minutes and the temps were crazy high.

[Questionable]

QX9650s (edit: think these are around 250-300$ new now) still have legs* if you're willing to push the envelope a bit with the overclock. several of the chips recommended currently are three tiers up (edit: from the E6550) and the Q9550 is in tier 2 (the same tier as the phenom II X4 / X6 1090T on the chart you referenced) - so idk if I'd say they're that limited.

where she might run into issues is that not every 775LGA motherboard can handle the 45nm quads. - which board chipset do you have questionable?

I wouldn't recommend buying into the 775LGA line for a new build**, but there's certainly still some competitive cores available if you've got a mobo that can support them.

*even tom's chart thinks so; top tier

** at this point in the cycles I'm not sure I'd recommend buying into the 1156 line if you can avoid it either, though.

I have a MSI P35- Platinum or premium, forgot exactly. It should be able to support all of the C2Q's.

I know the 775 is at end of life basically but I don't want to buy a whole new system and something that's so much ahead of my current one for this second system. I can run the beta now, with ok results, it's playable but laggy. So I would think a jump from the E6550 to a 8400/94/9450 etc would make it playable with not much lag. Don't need super high settings.

[Purrrfect]

Celeras, how far could your 470 OC before having to make voltage adjustments? And what brand is it?

I started playing with mine a bit last night but it seems it does not like to even get to 700 core and barely 1750 memory. Making it awfully tough to hit 4k...

[Xerlic]

Haha sup Nours? It's been a while. Merona and I are planning to play 14 with some other Karasu peeps. Thanks to you and Wulf for the advice.

[Lovian]

For those with Asus G73jh i've found the best performance for settings to be
1920x1080
multisampling x1
standard shadows
AO - off
DoF- off (those this is a personal preference and doesn't kill fps if its on)
get 25-30fps in town, only time it seems to slow down is when it has to load a lot of people and even when its done it jumps back up to 25-30fps.

I'm not sure how well other laptops are running FFXIV, this one runs it well.

[Amele]

I have a MSI P35- Platinum or premium, forgot exactly. It should be able to support all of the C2Q's.

I know the 775 is at end of life basically but I don't want to buy a whole new system and something that's so much ahead of my current one for this second system. I can run the beta now, with ok results, it's playable but laggy. So I would think a jump from the E6550 to a 8400/94/9450 etc would make it playable with not much lag. Don't need super high settings.

oh, don't worry, I'm still on 775 myself ^^ (same idea, although I have a qx9650) if you can find a 9550, q9650 or qx9650 I'd recommend them over the 84,94,9450 but any of the six chips should be a nice upgrade over the E6550.


@xerlic, what resolution is your current monitor at? if it's over 1680x1050 I'd suggest getting a 1gb version of the 460. (it's probably about 20-30$ more but will give you alot more breathing room on vram for the larger images.)

[alecrast]

I have a MSI P35- Platinum or premium, forgot exactly. It should be able to support all of the C2Q's.

I know the 775 is at end of life basically but I don't want to buy a whole new system and something that's so much ahead of my current one for this second system. I can run the beta now, with ok results, it's playable but laggy. So I would think a jump from the E6550 to a 8400/94/9450 etc would make it playable with not much lag. Don't need super high settings.

Assuming I have the right board (MSI P35 Platinum), here is your CPU support list:

http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=pr...=&prod_no=1212

Looks like you're good to go with any CPU you choose. Just make sure to install the latest BIOS if you haven't already done so:

http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=do...1&prod_no=1212

[Questionable]

Thanks. Really strange naming of processors that Intel uses.