MelodicSoul
New Member
We happen to be unlucky, and it seems that now is not a good time to buy computer hardware for FFXIV with respects to pricing. (But if money is not an issue and you can afford the hardware, then this post isn't relevant.)
I'll explain:
Looking at the Passmark theoretical processor scores of cpu and gpus here:
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html
and here:
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html
We can see that the higher end released gpu and cpus have a much significant increase in performance compared to it's predecessors.
Forexample, (I'm Canadian, so prices will reflect on Canadian prices.) look at a cpu that is around 300 dollars, a i7 875K that score 6367 compared to one of the top of the line cpus at i7 970 at around 900 dollars.
The score difference between these 2 cpus are drastic, 4018 points.
That's a performance gain of over 63%.
As a side note, with my experience of purchasing hardware, I find that 300-200 dollars to purchase a cpu or videocard seems to be the sweet spot, almost like best bang for the buck type deal. In that we know that hardware depreciate in value quickly.
Let's look at the gpus:
the Geforce GTX 480 scores a whopping 3509, which runs at around 460 dollars, and the GTX 460 which scores 2304, runs at around 180 dollars.
The performance difference between these 2 cards is a value of 1205, that's a 52% performance gain compared using the GTX 460. And the price being a big difference, it's not worth going for the high end 480.
I know these are all theoretical values, though, how does it relate to FFXIV performance scores?
Well I've done some looking around, and I came across this thread:
http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/94743-The-OFFICIAL-FFXIV-Benchmark-amp-Beta-Performance-Thread
I did some calculations and found that using the same cpu and using the scores in the thread above, I found that the performance gain for the scores are 1:1 in relation to FFXIV benchmark score and PassMark G3D Mark. Not quite but quite close.
Therefore if you gained 1000 points in PassMark G3D Mark, you would gain 1000 points in the FFXIV benchmark.
We all know that the FFXIV benchmark is only meant as a guideline. And the time the thread was made with the information of the scores is quite old.
Here's what SquareEnix says about the FFXIV benchmark scores:
[8000 and over] Extremely High Performance
Easily capable of running the game on the highest settings.
[5500–7999] Very High Performance
Easily capable of running the game. Should perform exceptionally well, even at higher resolutions.
[4500-5499] High Performance
Easily capable of running the game. Should perform well, even at higher resolutions.
[3000-4499] Fairly High Performance
Capable of running the game on default settings. Consider switching to a higher resolution depending on performance.
And their recommended requirements:
http://www.finalfantasyxiv.com/media/recom/na/pc.html
Notice that they recommend a i7 (2.66GHz) or faster with a GTX 460 or above. But this is only relevant to a 1280x720 Window mode, this is not even 1080p.
I would like to deduce that, every amount of score we can gain from the Benchmarks is worth every juice or penny, to increase our performance for a cpu and gpu intensive game like FFXIV.
Personally I would like to run at 1080p with a min fps of atleast 40-50 fps. I hope that in the near future I would be able to run the game at double resolution, even though the 4 x MSAA should be good enough.
But for me, I conclude for myself, now is not a good time to buy PC parts to build a system for myself that would adequately run FFXIV. I would need to wait for the prices to drop.
Thanks for taking the time in reading with what I had to say.
I'll explain:
Looking at the Passmark theoretical processor scores of cpu and gpus here:
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html
and here:
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html
We can see that the higher end released gpu and cpus have a much significant increase in performance compared to it's predecessors.
Forexample, (I'm Canadian, so prices will reflect on Canadian prices.) look at a cpu that is around 300 dollars, a i7 875K that score 6367 compared to one of the top of the line cpus at i7 970 at around 900 dollars.
The score difference between these 2 cpus are drastic, 4018 points.
That's a performance gain of over 63%.
As a side note, with my experience of purchasing hardware, I find that 300-200 dollars to purchase a cpu or videocard seems to be the sweet spot, almost like best bang for the buck type deal. In that we know that hardware depreciate in value quickly.
Let's look at the gpus:
the Geforce GTX 480 scores a whopping 3509, which runs at around 460 dollars, and the GTX 460 which scores 2304, runs at around 180 dollars.
The performance difference between these 2 cards is a value of 1205, that's a 52% performance gain compared using the GTX 460. And the price being a big difference, it's not worth going for the high end 480.
I know these are all theoretical values, though, how does it relate to FFXIV performance scores?
Well I've done some looking around, and I came across this thread:
http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/94743-The-OFFICIAL-FFXIV-Benchmark-amp-Beta-Performance-Thread
I did some calculations and found that using the same cpu and using the scores in the thread above, I found that the performance gain for the scores are 1:1 in relation to FFXIV benchmark score and PassMark G3D Mark. Not quite but quite close.
Therefore if you gained 1000 points in PassMark G3D Mark, you would gain 1000 points in the FFXIV benchmark.
We all know that the FFXIV benchmark is only meant as a guideline. And the time the thread was made with the information of the scores is quite old.
Here's what SquareEnix says about the FFXIV benchmark scores:
[8000 and over] Extremely High Performance
Easily capable of running the game on the highest settings.
[5500–7999] Very High Performance
Easily capable of running the game. Should perform exceptionally well, even at higher resolutions.
[4500-5499] High Performance
Easily capable of running the game. Should perform well, even at higher resolutions.
[3000-4499] Fairly High Performance
Capable of running the game on default settings. Consider switching to a higher resolution depending on performance.
And their recommended requirements:
http://www.finalfantasyxiv.com/media/recom/na/pc.html
Notice that they recommend a i7 (2.66GHz) or faster with a GTX 460 or above. But this is only relevant to a 1280x720 Window mode, this is not even 1080p.
I would like to deduce that, every amount of score we can gain from the Benchmarks is worth every juice or penny, to increase our performance for a cpu and gpu intensive game like FFXIV.
Personally I would like to run at 1080p with a min fps of atleast 40-50 fps. I hope that in the near future I would be able to run the game at double resolution, even though the 4 x MSAA should be good enough.
But for me, I conclude for myself, now is not a good time to buy PC parts to build a system for myself that would adequately run FFXIV. I would need to wait for the prices to drop.
Thanks for taking the time in reading with what I had to say.