Recently bought an EVGA GTX 580, and I was quite excited to see how much better FFXIV ran now, opposed to my GTX 275 I had previously. I too have an extremely beefy custom built PC, cost me around $3500 thus far. With the settings at near max, I'm capped at 60 FPS now, {my 40" HDTV is sadly only 60hrz} in the field and in towns. It very rarely drops below a solid 60fps.

Anyway, I too am having a horrible stuttering/hitching/whatever its called while walking in all 3 cities, and my fps remains capped at 60 throughout. Its very annoying, but I suppose once the Guildleves become available at the Aetheryte camps in 1.18, I'll be able to avoid the cities more frequently, though it may get kinda lonely not being around as many players as often... /cry