Want to upgrade my computer for this game, need some advice.

[Auroro]

Hello,

I'm looking to upgrade my pc to a point where I can play this game maxed, also with breathing room for future games/updates. Ideally want to spend 300-500. Understand I may have to upgrade all 3 of the following;
My Specs:
AMD FX 6300 Black edition
GTX 660 oc 2gb
Asus M5A99FX PRO R2.0

Thanks in advance for any input!

[Raist]

Shorter answer:
Build your rig according to the requirements of other games you are interested in. This is not a good benchmark against a lot of others. It is still heavily CPU bound where others are more efficiently offloading to the GPU's and such.


Longer answer:
A quality quad-core or better CPU is key, since it does a lot of work in the game's engine up front. Generally the newer revisions of a line will be better choices, unless you are looking at the enthusiast models that allow you to unlock multipliers to overclock the snot out of them.

Quality memory is important too--you will be moving a LOT of data back and forth. A lot of horsepower doesn't do much good if you aren't feeding it to your devices properly. This applies not only to your system memory, but your graphics card as well. Look at the memory specifications. Graphics cards will often provide a simple note about the memory bandwidth that makes it easier to compare (it can get confusing with quad-pumped speed, different bit width, etc.). Basically, more Gigabytes/second is better. Otherwise, generally speaking higher DDR ratings should be better (DDR3 better then DDR2), as well as the wider bit width (256-bit better than 128-bit, provided they run close to the same MHz rating).

As for the GPU...Windows 10 is bringing DirectX 12 into the mainstream. Just a matter of time for it to be the staple for games across the board. So you may want to make sure the GPU has strong DirectX 12 hardware support for some future proofing--otherwise hardware DX11 support is sufficient for this game. Note that you do still have the option of running DX9 if it is somewhere you need to cut costs on in the short term.

[Twilite]

My crappy very old 9800 GTX+ has no problems with this game, and your card blows mine out of the water. I used to have the same CPU til it died from a Water Cooling leak, but it ran the game ok as well. I couldn't max but got pretty close.

[Zumi]

It's not really worth it unless your going to spend $1000-$1500, for that much you could get a 6th gen core i7, and a 970gtx

[Colorful]

Any chance you could monitor the CPU usage while playing FFXIV and report back? I want to say your CPU is more than enough, but I'm not too knowledgeable with AMD CPUs, I'd recommend MSI Afterburner. FFXIV really isn't a very CPU intensive game, at most it's usage is around 50-55% usage on my i5 4570.

If you've done that and your CPU doesn't need an upgrade, I'd recommend switching out that GPU with a GTX 970. I would be recommending the 390, but as an AMD user I know it's definitely not the best card for FFXIV, especially the 300 series. That would run you about $350, you might also need to upgrade your power supply but that should be around $70-100 depending on the brand (I've had good experiences with Antec, so I'd recommend them). The AMD FX 6300 won't bottleneck the 970, so you don't have to worry about that.

[xXRaineXx]

[QUOTE=Colorful;3467093]Any chance you could monitor the CPU usage while playing FFXIV and report back? I want to say your CPU is more than enough, but I'm not too knowledgeable with AMD CPUs, I'd recommend MSI Afterburner. FFXIV really isn't a very CPU intensive game, at most it's usage is around 50-55% usage on my i5 4570.

50~55%? Geez that's taking a big strain on your cpu... but then again it's probably an old CPU.

As for the op, https://pcpartpicker.com/ < go here and try pick out a few parts, mix and match a few and post them back here. I'm not a tech wizard, but I did build my own $4000 watercooled rig. I can help you find the most optimal build.

[Judge_Xero]

The FX6300 will bottleneck you in highly populated areas due to the lower single threaded performance.

I would recommend overclocking your CPU to about 4.5GHZ and reducing the number of other players the game tries to render.

[NoahArks]

I got a few questions, since I'm not going to google the motherboard:

- What kind of case do you have?
- How much ram and is it ddr3?
- Do you use a aftermarket cooler for the cpu, if so which one?
- What kind of PSU do you have?
- Do you have a SSD or 1tb hdd?

The gtx 660 is pretty much fine for a while. You can upgrade that last. As for the cpu, I'd say please go with intel. Not because it's much better, it's because in the long term it's the cheapest. For any game you're fine with a i5, no matter what someone triesto claim. I'm not even convinced when dx12 officially becomes a standard with games that a i7 would give a mindblowing performance over it. Here is a little pcpartpicker link with what I made, without using the following I've asked and what can be reused. Went with the haswell generation since skylake doesn't really give a better performance in games and it costs 30bucks more.

PC part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/rd8WFT I did add ram on this list.

[Krindor]

I got a few questions, since I'm not going to google the motherboard:

- What kind of case do you have?
- How much ram and is it ddr3?
- Do you use a aftermarket cooler for the cpu, if so which one?
- What kind of PSU do you have?
- Do you have a SSD or 1tb hdd?

The gtx 660 is pretty much fine for a while. You can upgrade that last. As for the cpu, I'd say please go with intel. Not because it's much better, it's because in the long term it's the cheapest. For any game you're fine with a i5, no matter what someone triesto claim. I'm not even convinced when dx12 officially becomes a standard with games that a i7 would give a mindblowing performance over it. Here is a little pcpartpicker link with what I made, without using the following I've asked and what can be reused. Went with the haswell generation since skylake doesn't really give a better performance in games and it costs 30bucks more.

PC part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/rd8WFT I did add ram on this list.

I would actually say that it is the other way around, the 660 isn't powerful enough to run the game on max at 1080p no matter what cpu he has. I'm using a 3770k and 670 and it is running at round 40-50 FPS at 2560x1080 almost max settings. So in my opinion the first thing to upgrade should be the GPU, probably try and find a 970 for around 300$ and then if he doesn't already have a SSD he should get one. There are some places the CPU definitely will bottleneck, but overall a better GPU is the better option especially considering he would have to buy a new motherboard.

So the upgrade route in my opinion should be GPU>SSD>CPU/Mobo>RAM.

[NoahArks]

snip

It's powerful enough to run it on 30-40fps. I ran this game on a GTX660, 8gb ram and a i7 3770k till february and it ran fine. Not like this game gives you benefits playing on 60fps. also if you consider his budget being 300-500, then it's the obvious choice to not touch the gpu till later when he has more money to spend. I can pretty much vouch for saying that the gtx 960 would be able to run this game on 60fps constantly. Though, if he's going for a gpu in the 200-400 range, it's gonna be either the 380 or the 390, because those blow it out of the park. I own a 390 myself atm, and it's maybe 61 degrees in a crowded area or in void ark, lower when there isnt as much to render.

When changing systems, you actually want to work on the full system, instead of just the gpu, since those tend to cost more than most components combined. Also a 300+ costing gpu will bottleneck with the fx6300. So it's cpu/mobo > ram (if you can't reuse) > gpu. SSD is a luxery item in a gaming build. It's not a must have.