The OFFICIAL FFXIV Benchmark & Beta Performance Thread

[Questionable]

Forgot to ask, not sure if it's mentioned. Would 8Gb ddr3 @ 1600mhz be required or 4gb is enough?

[alecrast]

Forgot to ask, not sure if it's mentioned. Would 8Gb ddr3 @ 1600mhz be required or 4gb is enough?

For your i7, correct? 4GB is enough. 8GB is better but, again, unlikely to change your experience in a significantly meaningful way. 8GB also has the virtue of requiring 64-bit Windows (so does 4GB if you want access to the entire 4GB).

[Questionable]

For your i7, correct? 4GB is enough. 8GB is better but, again, unlikely to change your experience in a significantly meaningful way. 8GB also has the virtue of requiring 64-bit Windows (so does 4GB if you want access to the entire 4GB).

I'm getting 64bit 7 as well. I might just get 4GB for now and get another 4GB for other usage of the computer if I need it I guess.

What program are people using to get the FPS rates, just fraps? And also the program to display GPU/CPU usage. I only use CPU-Z, not sure if that shows usage?

[Celeras]

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...

720/1750 is the max I could OC with mine on stock voltage, eVGA. Card is binned as .987V stock. By increasing to 1.087V I could hit as high as 850/2000 with the stock cooler. With the aftermarket cooler I'm using now, I'm limited to 800/1800 because it doesn't cool VRMs very well. It is however dead quiet at 100% speed, so while I could do that max on stock cooler I only used it for benching and stuck with 700/1750 as my 24/7 clocks. With this cooler, I can easily use 800/1800 24/7.

I just did a writeup about it since it was new and largely unreviewed, if you're curious: http://www.overclock.net/nvidia/7867...ion-fermi.html

[alecrast]

I'm getting 64bit 7 as well. I might just get 4GB for now and get another 4GB for other usage of the computer if I need it I guess.

What program are people using to get the FPS rates, just fraps? And also the program to display GPU/CPU usage. I only use CPU-Z, not sure if that shows usage?

You can use FRAPS for FPS, screenshots, movies.

For GPU/CPU usage, vendors are supplying their own tools or you can use Rivatuner. I suspect a lot of those vendor-supplied tools are really just using Rivatuner behind the scenes and eliminating all the setup work for the user.

[Amele]

I'm getting 64bit 7 as well. I might just get 4GB for now and get another 4GB for other usage of the computer if I need it I guess.

What program are people using to get the FPS rates, just fraps? And also the program to display GPU/CPU usage. I only use CPU-Z, not sure if that shows usage?

I use msi-afterburner myself, which includes the overlay you can see on some of my (and celeras's) screenshots.

4GB should be plenty, (6GB for triple channel), but more ram will improve load times slightly. I'm not sure how much that will affect top-line frame rates, but bottom frame rates may be improved slightly by having additional ram.

and yes, intel has.. interesting naming conventions. at least they're slowly standardizing between series. (an x in the letter number code is an unlocked processor for instance.) and generally, larger numbers are better. where it gets confusing for me is between series, sometimes. (e.g. comparing a core2quad to an i3 or i5 - it's not always clear which processor is actually the more powerful one.)

[Aristio]

"The program can't start because d3dx9_41.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem"

What am I doing wrong?

Edit: If it's something blatantly stupid, I apologize in advance.

[sruon]

"The program can't start because d3dx9_41.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem"

What am I doing wrong?

Edit: If it's something blatantly stupid, I apologize in advanced.

Try to grab June something DX9 installer from Microsoft website.

[Ratatapa]

edit : meh didn't reload the page before answering

[½pint]

A few facts I learnt today from an informed source:

For gaming, you get much more bang for your buck with the dual-core i5s than you do with the quad core i7s. That is assuming that FFXIV doesn't have some wondrous concurrency built in.

The top of the line i5s are the 600 series, not the 700 series. The 700 series are the older ones.

[Kirbyprime]

Somewhat curious... anyone tried playing beta on a triple SLI machine? Building a new comp late this year / early next year and would be interesting in knowing if it's even worth doing 3way sli.

[Questionable]

I wonder why they still keep that 30FPS cap

[alecrast]

A few facts I learnt today from an informed source:

For gaming, you get much more bang for your buck with the dual-core i5s than you do with the quad core i7s. That is assuming that FFXIV doesn't have some wondrous concurrency built in.

The top of the line i5s are the 600 series, not the 700 series. The 700 series are the older ones.

Not sure what kind of prices you pay in the UK but given that an i7 930 can be purchased for $199 here in the States, you'll be hard pressed to find anyone recommending i5s over the i7 930 which can be ratcheted up to 4GHz with almost no effort. Given the 930's low cost and the X58's superiority as a platform over the P55, it's hard to recommend anything 1156-based. The X58 will also support hexacore processors, should Intel decide to toss a cheap one to the masses to compete with Bulldozer, down the road.

With FFXIV utilizing 4 cores, albeit unevenly, and with more games starting to do so (Dragon Age, for example), it's really hard to justify a dual-core with HT for anything but a HTPC. Other builders may disagree, of course. The above is just my take on the state of Intel's current processor line-up.

[shaddix]

I just did a writeup about it since it was new and largely unreviewed, if you're curious: http://www.overclock.net/nvidia/7867...ion-fermi.html

I read that yesterday, but I didn't realize that you were the one that wrote it til now lol.

[½pint]

Not sure what kind of prices you pay in the UK but given that an i7 930 can be purchased for $199 here in the States, you'll be hard pressed to find anyone recommending i5s over the i7 930 which can be ratcheted up to 4GHz with almost no effort. Given the 930's low cost and the X58's superiority as a platform over the P55, it's hard to recommend anything 1156-based. The X58 will also support hexacore processors, should Intel decide to toss a cheap one to the masses to compete with Bulldozer, down the road.

With FFXIV utilizing 4 cores, albeit unevenly, and with more games starting to do so (Dragon Age, for example), it's really hard to justify a dual-core with HT for anything but a HTPC. Other builders may disagree, of course. The above is just my take on the state of Intel's current processor line-up.

Thanks for turning me on to that. I assume you are talking about Micro Center? I happen to be in the process of building my own new PC (hence my earlier post) and also I am flying to San Fran tomorrow :D. I shall be picking up a nearly-half-price (for a Brit) i7 930

Any other deals I should be aware of?

[alecrast]

Thanks for turning me on to that. I assume you are talking about Micro Center? I happen to be in the process of building my own new PC (hence my earlier post) and also I am flying to San Fran tomorrow :D. I shall be picking up a nearly-half-price (for a Brit) i7 930

Any other deals I should be aware of?

Microcenter sells the Coolermaster Hyper 212+ for $20. Not a bad deal considering Newegg sells it for $50.

And yeah, $199 is Microcenter's price for the 930. Microcenter often sells processors at-cost per volume of 1000 processors, using the low processor price to entice customers into the store to buy other things that are not so steeply discounted.

[Dakin]

X6/460.

Thanks, gonna go that route then. Any suggestions for an AM3 SLI mobo within $100-$130?

Currently looking at: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813130235

[Celeras]

That's probably fine, there aren't many choices for nVidia chipsets on AMD boards. I just got a Gigabyte 890FX UD5 and plan to use the SLI patch if I ever upgrade tand require the functionality.

[CrstyCptSteveWitherspoon]

Microcenter sells the Coolermaster Hyper 212+ for $20. Not a bad deal considering Newegg sells it for $50.

And yeah, $199 is Microcenter's price for the 930. Microcenter often sells processors at-cost per volume of 1000 processors, using the low processor price to entice customers into the store to buy other things that are not so steeply discounted.

Oh shit. I'm looking at the 930 for my rig, and currently it's $289 on newegg. Hell I'll go ahead and order it from microcenter and save 90$. I believe I saw someone post in another thread that Aug 29th the price of the 950's would come down to $289 though? Any truth to this statement? If so I might be willing to hold out another month on my purchase...

[alecrast]

Oh shit. I'm looking at the 930 for my rig, and currently it's $289 on newegg. Hell I'll go ahead and order it from microcenter and save 90$. I believe I saw someone post in another thread that Aug 29th the price of the 950's would come down to $289 though? Any truth to this statement? If so I might be willing to hold out another month on my purchase...

According to HKEPC:
The highest performing CPU to have its price slashed will be the Core i7 950 (3.06 GHz). It makes sense that the, recently released, 960 and the 950 could not occupy the same price point ($562) for too long and so, on August 29th, Intel will reduce the 950's price to $294. Please bear in mind that all the prices quoted are for 1,000 unit orders and that retailers will each structure their pricing policy differently.

If you're comfortable with a really mild overclock, I think I'd still get the i7 930, though. Getting the i7 930 (stock is 2.8GHz) up to 3.06GHz is trivial - you're talking about 146 BCLK versus 133. I can run my i7 860 at 20x 200 BCLK for an even 4GHz.