I just bought the game today and ran the benchmark and got this score:
[8000 and over] Extremely High Performance
Easily capable of running the game on the highest settings.
[5500–7999] Very High Performance
Easily capable of running the game. Should perform exceptionally well, even at higher resolutions.
[4500-5499] High Performance
Easily capable of running the game. Should perform well, even at higher resolutions.
[3000-4499] Fairly High Performance
Capable of running the game on default settings. Consider switching to a higher resolution depending on performance.
[2500-2999] Standard Performance
Capable of running the game on default settings.
[2000-2499] Slightly Low Performance
Capable of running the game, but may experience some slowdown. Adjust settings to improve performance.
[1500-1999] Low Performance
Capable of running the game, but will experience considerable slowdown. Adjusting settings is unlikely to improve performance.
[Under 1500] Insufficient Performance
Does not meet specifications for running the game.
Now according to this chart on the benchmark, I need over 8000 to run the game on maximum settings. Forgive me, but didn't this come out in 2010? The i7-3770k is overclocked to 4.5Ghz and the GTX 670 is also overclocked (1325mhz boost core clock, 1895mhz memory clock). Looking at GPU-Z, I was actually being bottlenecked by my GPU.
Can someone explain to me how a 2 year old game can bottleneck an overclocked GTX 670? Exactly what kind of computer do you need to run this on maximum settings? Am I doing something wrong in the benchmark, or have some setting I'm overlooking? Appreciate any help. I made my character and went in game to see if it was just the benchmark that was having problems, but on maximum settings I was actually below 60FPS and my GPU temps were pushing 80c and that's with water cooling.
At this point, though I love Final Fantasy, and I love the beginning and the graphical quality, I don't think I can risk frying a brand new GPU (somehow) on a 2 year old game. Any ideas?