Choosing Graphics Card

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Originally Posted by S-r-ex

At that price point, I'd reckon the GTX1060 would hit the sweet spot.

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Originally Posted by Averax

GTX 1060 is better than RX 480 and the MSRP of it is $250

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This! Go GTX 1060. It's just the better card. Make sure you get the 6gb version of the 1060, which should be $240-280 depending on which brand stamps their label on it and if they overclock it for you. I just upgraded to 1060 myself and couldn't be happier. I'm sure RX 480 isn't a bad choice. Both are overkill for FFXIV.

I got this one for ~$260. It's slightly overclocked. I don't know if it's worth it or not. If you know how to do that stuff, you can probably do it yourself and save $20.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...82E16814487261

The base version is this ~$240
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...82E16814487260

Is it possible to play XIV on integrated? Absolutely. People don't give integrated as much credit as it deserves these days, assuming it's modern parts (primarily the CPU). It's nowhere near as bad as it was 10 or 20 years ago. Just don't play it on high settings. As with even dedicated cards, the lower your settings, the smoother it should be, if you have graphical lag.

From here on, I'm going to assume what you said is true, about implying you're not asking for advice on the GPU for anything but FFXIV.

As for the GPU purchase, Tom's Hardware tends to have a decent hierarchy listing of GPU. HERE

So there's some unanswered questions that you need to consider. Are you stretched for cash or do you try to minimize expense as much as possible? As in, maybe $60 or so saved is worth a small drop in potential power. If yes, then the RX is going to be your go-to card series. 4GB cards are fine for XIV. Not perfect, but you probably won't care much if you're gaming on a low budget.

Do you have a preference between NVIDIA or Radeon? IMO, that's pretty much the deciding factor on the matter, if you do. As others noted, the GTX1060 is your ideal budget "powerhouse" today. That's assuming you prefer NVIDIA and vice versa. If it doesn't matter on brand, then cost point will be slightly cheaper for the RX480, as others stated. Assuming saving on cost is a high priority though, the RX470 is capable enough and a little cheaper.

While both card brands work fine regardless of CPU, they do tend to behave slightly better with their respective/associated brand, in my own personal experience. NVIDIA with Intel, AMD Radeon with... AMD. Many don't notice or experience the problems I've seen, and they've mostly been minor annoyances, so it's not a huge deal, but could be something to consider. I personally wouldn't worry about it though, at least not over cost or brand preference.

TL;DR - The RX470 or 480 is probably your best bet to budget with, assuming you're running good parts elsewhere (e.g. CPU and RAM). Given the small cost difference of ~$20, the RX480 is probably your better option.

This YouTube link will show you the benchmark of the RX470 and HW running at max settings 1080 (their channel shows a ton of benchmarks for a variety of cards, if you're curious): HERE

Thanks for your responses! I am considering between GTX 1060 6GB and rx 480 8GB now. Leaning to invidia. I should have listed the specs of my PC.
Intel i5-2400 quad core 3.1ghz 2nd gen
8gb RAM DDR3
500GB HDD
Win 10
Motherboard : MSI H61MA-E35(B3)

I'm wondering if it is worth spending so much, though. RX 460 4GB is half the price of the aforementioned ones and could probably provide a decent experience, I guess?

I'm building a new computer, and for the graphic card I choose and bought the AMD RX 480 with 8 Gig of RAM, the extra RAM should made the card last a bit longer. I've been using AMD Radeon for graphic cards the entire time, and the last time my graphic card got issues and I needed another one, and I went at the computer store for another one, only to find out they had no AMD graphical cards because they said the brand sucks and they don't have any, so I was forced to buy a Nvdiea card, which I've regretted deeply. I've gotten nothing but troubles since I've switched my graphical card, it crashes the computer once in a while, messed up my Samsung monitor (monitor, monitor settings and app for settings), and their app has no settings that I can access and change, like anti-aliasing, anisotropics, fan settings, etc., while the AMD app has those settings and more.

It gets really hot and humid here during summers so my graphic cards tend to overheat, which is the main issue I've had to replace my AMD graphic cards in the past.

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Originally Posted by matteoxyz

Thanks for your responses! I am considering between GTX 1060 6GB and rx 480 8GB now. Leaning to invidia. I should have listed the specs of my PC.

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A couple of points you have to consider. While the 1060 is a superb card, its borderline impossible to find a good model from a good manufacturer at the price range you want, by all means if you want to splurge extra then its one hell of a card. The 3gb 1060 may be good on paper but it will become a useless paperweight in the future since the 3gb of RAM will limit the card long before the GPU power becomes an issue for modern games, you will be basically paying a lot of money for a powerful card that becomes crippled once games exceed 3gb of ram consumption.
Basically, if you intend to keep the card for 2+ years then the RX 480 8gb is much better balanced for that price, if you want absolute cheap then the 460/470 are the best picks which would provide acceptable performance for FFXIV.

If it makes your decision easier, absolutely nothing will help with Idyllshire lag because thats a CPU issue not GPU. The full reason is complex but even the best CPUs + GPUs will still lag in idyllshire cuz of the sheer number of bodies there.

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Originally Posted by matteoxyz

Thanks for your responses! I am considering between GTX 1060 6GB and rx 480 8GB now. Leaning to invidia. I should have listed the specs of my PC.
Intel i5-2400 quad core 3.1ghz 2nd gen
8gb RAM DDR3
500GB HDD
Win 10
Motherboard : MSI H61MA-E35(B3)

I'm wondering if it is worth spending so much, though. RX 460 4GB is half the price of the aforementioned ones and could probably provide a decent experience, I guess?

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If you can swing it, I highly recommend getting a SSD. For MMOs especially, you'll significantly increase load time speeds. It's not mandatory by any means though. Just thought I'd mention it.

As for the card, RX 460 will struggle with higher settings even at 1080p while the GTX 1060 can handle near max without difficulty. So that's your choice there, really. I would stick with the 1060 since it'll future proof you better.

I have the RX 480 (8gb) and I'm running everything on max around 100-120fps. Though what I've heard is that FFXIV is not well optimised for AMD cards, and I sometimes get weird fps drops(suddenly drops to like 10 fps) and random one thing not loading (like someone's character or mount, etc), alt-tab fixes both these problems though.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

If you can swing it, I highly recommend getting a SSD. For MMOs especially, you'll significantly increase load times. It's not mandatory by any means though. Just thought I'd mention it.

As for the card, RX 460 will struggle with higher settings even at 1080p while the GTX 1060 can handle near max without difficulty. So that's your choice there, really. I would stick with the 1060 since it'll future proof you better.

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Good call on SSD. It is the part that will make the most difference for most people! I barely see load screens. A lot of the chugging people blame CPU for is actually HD->GPU texture loading, which is much faster with SSD. A decent 500gb SSD is around $150 now. A cheaper card (like RX 460) with an upgrade to SSD will provide a better overall experience. Upgrading to SSD is kindof involved though... drive cloning and all.

I can say 1060 GTX is overkill for running FFXIV max at 1080 (what I do) and probably 1440 as well (gotta get new screen to try it). FFXIV isn't exactly pushing the limit graphically. Of course, if you're upgrading GPU, you want it to run well for games that come out a year or two from now, not just some years old MMO.

One thing to consider with Nvidia is that they loan out engineers to big name games to make sure those games get optimized for Nvidia. In a way, it's a shady practice, but it does result in a lot of the more popular games simply running better on Nvidia cards with all else being equal. I don't know if FFXIV did that, but I wouldn't be surprised. Sometimes Nvidia even gets bonus features (like Witcher 3 hair effects). Also if you're thinking of getting VR gear soon, Nvidia is better prepared for that.

GTX 1060 ZOTAC

NEXT 4.0 will need a good video card but before this I think you can play at lowest effects with your integrated graphics. No need to hurry......