graphics card/processor help!

[Coldfire]

Sorry but you're wrong.
Phenom 2 is garbage compared to the i5.
I upgraded not too long ago myself and now I can safely say that the i5 2500 is a monster.

You totally didn't get the topic it seems. The op is looking for a way to make the game run smoother on his machine and a new CPU won't help at all. And I doubt you switched from Phenom II to i5 as the difference in games is almost none(I have both in my house with the same GPUs).
About SLI/Crossfire: causes too much trouble, never scales well, almost never works in windowed mode, requires a strong PSU and produces too much heat for normal gamers. Better go with a single card if you're not sure about it.

[Zorlin]

A single 6950/560TI can max ff14 1080p at 60fps the fps in populated areas will depend greatly on CPU but having a 560 or a 580 will give the same FPS at 1080p. So id only recomend the 580 if you plan on going over 1080p/multi monitor. Also the 580 needs alot of power as the 6950/560TI both draw 140w the 580 draws 363w so you would need atleast a good brand 650-700w PSU Corsair/Antec/Seasonic/XFX where with a 6950/560TI you could keep yr 550w PSU not to mention case airflow the 580 can get really hot in small/bad airflow cases.

[Lucifer]

You totally didn't get the topic it seems. The op is looking for a way to make the game run smoother on his machine and a new CPU won't help at all. And I doubt you switched from Phenom II to i5 as the difference in games is almost none(I have both in my house with the same GPUs).
About SLI/Crossfire: causes too much trouble, never scales well, almost never works in windowed mode, requires a strong PSU and produces too much heat for normal gamers. Better go with a single card if you're not sure about it.

Stop doubting because it happened.
The phenom 2 is garbage. The difference is highly conceivable; and with a good reason too. Sandy Bridge is no joke.

[Coldfire]

Stop doubting because it happened.
The phenom 2 is garbage. The difference is highly conceivable; and with a good reason too. Sandy Bridge is no joke.

Stop fantrolling.

Just saw on a newsletter: HD7970 will be available january 9th for ~500 bucks. Get that one and you're safe for the next few years xD

[Bahn]

Stop fantrolling.

Just saw on a newsletter: HD7970 will be available january 9th for ~500 bucks. Get that one and you're safe for the next few years xD

Ohhh, right - my friends were talking about that a few hours ago. That does look promising - waiting for benchmark/performance analysis comparisons for that one.

[ispano]

Man, that's kind of awesome and not at the same time. I had planned to swap out the 5970s in my beast to 6990s, but then I lost my job. Looking now like it will be the 7xxx version of the dual GPU card that goes in this thing.

[Lucifer]

Stop fantrolling.

Just saw on a newsletter: HD7970 will be available january 9th for ~500 bucks. Get that one and you're safe for the next few years xD

"Yawn"
Fantrolling? I'm not an "intel fanboy" or what ever you moronic kids come up with. I'm a tech junkie and AMD is pure garbage. Bulldozer is close to the performance the i5 can produce but it's still not as good (it is really cheap though). 32 NM on the i5, that means less heat and more room for overclocking. You can get the i5 to incredible speeds on air cooling!
All this factors in to this games performance. You WANT to run this game to as close to 60 FPS as possible.

Like I said before, I upgraded from a phenom 2, 955 BE quad core. The game ran terrible on it. Low FPS and Ul'dah...not a place you could step foot in.


OP, if you want to make your game run smoother, I would HIGHLY advise you switch to an i5. It would be more beneficial for everything you do on your PC, but more importantly; it will make FFXIV run very smoothly. I would also advise you overclock it to 4.0 ghz as it's extremely easy to do.

[Coldfire]

Like I said before, I upgraded from a phenom 2, 955 BE quad core. The game ran terrible on it. Low FPS and Ul'dah...not a place you could step foot in.

There we have it. You're really fantrolling. You're the only one on these forums who says he has problems with the game on a Phenom quadcore. Well I tried the game on this machine and the machine upstairs and you know what?? Both 60 fps everywhere(magic or are you just lying?). Get lost please.

[Lucifer]

There we have it. You're really fantrolling. You're the only one on these forums who says he has problems with the game on a Phenom quadcore. Well I tried the game on this machine and the machine upstairs and you know what?? Both 60 fps everywhere(magic or are you just lying?). Get lost please.

I could say the exact same thing about what you're saying.

The gall of some people.
What settings are you running the game in? What video card is it that you are using?

[ispano]

Wait.... some people must have some really poor settings or staring at some walls when they get these 60 fps claims. I've run the game on a Phenom II 940+ATI 5970 @ 1680x1060, i7 980X+2x nVidia GTX480M @ 1920x1080 and 2x Xeon X5680+2x AMD 5970 @ 1920x1200 and 2560x1600, I think the only time I could get stable 60.... was never. It would always dip at some point. And Sandy Bridge will have a performance boost over any of those listed.