The graphics are "available", but you can easily play the game on low settings with an 8800gts 320mb. These cards go for $25 on craigslist, not much more elsewhere. And the game still looks pretty good on lower settings. Personally, I love eye candy, so I upgraded my 8800gts 320mb to a gtx280, still far from the top, they go for $100-150, not much either. And quad core computers with 6+gb of ram are coming way down in price. Dell sold a brand new inspirion quadcore with 4gb of ram for $400 that included a 17" monitor and 1tb hd. I slammed my 8800gts in there and bam, i have 2 computers that run ffxiv.

So you can do it for $400-500 on low settings, or if you want the ooh and ah, spent a few hundred more and get the goodies.