Quote Originally Posted by nasomi View Post
$199.99 - evga intel x58 micro atx board
$39.99 - microatx case
$294.99 - intel i7 950 3.06ghz quad core
$81.99 - 6gb gskill ram
$79.99 - ocz 700w psu
$100 - evga GTX280

That's what i built last december for ffxiv when my old q6600/4gb/8800gts 320mb was strugglign to play @ 1920x1200.

I run windows 7 x64. I have a 300gb 7200rpm hdd from 5 years ago. I get 40fps in uldah and 60fps everywhere else. I have everything set to average/high, and I run 1920x1200 windowed only. I spent $800 on my system, and I could have skimped a lot of places and saved $200+ and still had the same system essentially.

If your system can't handle it, $600 will get you one that can play it beautifully. Also, I'm driving 3 28" lcd's, have a hundred chrome and ff tabs open, 2-3 rdp sessions, a movie playing, and a pile of other crap going when I play, and my system is barely batting an eye. It's been 8 months since I bought my box, you can get the same thing for a lot less now I'm sure.
Exactly my point.. High End CPU, Mid-high end GPU... good amount of RAM....
regular old HDD....
I'm telling you... the HDD is not the bottle neck for most systems like the industry would have you believe
And honestly.. if someone got an SSD... I'd say you'd benefit more putting just your OS on it and leaving everything else on an HDD