Advice on Graphics Cards

[Zenaku]

You're saving money because you won't need to buy another one for years. It's a fairly futureproof card. The 5770 was obsolete two years ago, and it's *discontinued* now. There's a reason for that.

A 5770 will bog down any modern PC. When she'll finally decide to change her other parts, and sooner or later she'll have to if she wants to continue playing on PCs, the 5770 would be a dead weight in it.

On the other hand a card like a 660 will be a good base for any upgrade. Hence, saving money.

Advising anyone to buy a discontinued card is honestly quite nearsighted. It does not save them money on the long run, and the performance they'll get will be sub-par anyway.

That make me feel better about me getting a 660 around FFXIV release lol. Which version you talking about tho normal or TI

[Abriael]

That make me feel better about me getting a 660 around FFXIV release lol. Which version you talking about tho normal or TI

They're both very good cards. Get the normal if you want to save some money, or the TI if you want to go the extra mile for a bit more juice. Remember that the Ti requires two power connectors instead of one, but that shouldn't be a problem.

Mind you, with a good processor (AMD 965 black edition for instance) and 4 gigs of ram even just the 660 holds the benchmark at over 6000 at maximum settings, so it's just a matter of how much you wanna spend and how futureproof you wanna be.

Ultimately the TI is the best card between the two, but the normal is probably slightly better bang-for-buck.

[Zenaku]

They're both very good cards. Get the normal if you want to save some money, or the TI if you want to go the extra mile for a bit more juice. Remember that the Ti requires two power connectors instead of one, but that shouldn't be a problem.

Mind you, with a good processor (AMD 965 black edition for instance) and 4 gigs of ram even just the 660 holds the benchmark at over 6000 at maximum settings, so it's just a matter of how much you wanna spend and how futureproof you wanna be.

Ultimately the TI is the best card between the two, but the normal is probably slightly better bang-for-buck.

Ya i be getting the normal 660 one and then upgrading my CPU to something better i have AMD 925 was thinking of getting 1055t. But it seem the 965 black edition may be better overall.

[Abriael]

Ya i be getting the normal 660 one and then upgrading my CPU to something better i have AMD 925 was thinking of getting 1055t. But it seem the 965 black edition may be better overall.

The 965 be is slightly old by now, but processors didn't have much of a generational launch lately, meaning that it's still one of the best bang-for-buck processors out there, especially if you get slightly daring and overclock it a 3.8 ghz.

For reference here's my latest benchmark run with a 965 be paired with a gtx 660 (ignore the VRAM 3786 MB thing, it's obviously a misreport, as it has only 2048).

FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn Official Benchmark (Exploration)
Tested on:24/02/2013 14:14:29
Score:6300
Average Framerate:52.307
Performance:Very High
-Easily capable of running the game. Should perform exceptionally well, even at higher resolutions.

Screen Size: 1920x1080
Graphics Presets: Custom
General
-Improve overall graphic quality. : Enabled
-Disable rendering of objects when not visible. (Occlusion Culling) : Enabled
-Use low-detail models on distant objects to increase performance. (LOD) : Enabled
-Cache LOD data only when necessary. (LOD Streaming) : Enabled
-Smooth edges. (Anti-aliasing) : Enabled
-Increase transparent lighting quality. : Enabled
-Grass Quality : High
Shadows
-Use low-detail models on shadows to increase performance. (LOD) : Disabled
-Display : All
-Shadow Resolution : High: 2048 pixels
-Shadow Cascading : High
-Shadow Softening : High
Texture Detail
-Texture Filtering : High
-Anisotropic Filtering : High
Effects
-Naturally darken the edges of the screen. (Limb Darkening) : Enabled
-Blur the graphics around an object in motion. (Radial Blur) : Enabled
-Effects While in Motion : Display All
-Screen Space Ambient Occlusion : High
-Glare : Normal
Cinematic Cutscenes
-Enable depth of field. : Enabled

System:
Windows 7 Professional 64 bit (6.1, build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_gdr.120830-0333)
AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 965 Processor
4095.176MB
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 (VRAM 3786 MB) 9.18.0013.1090

And this is in windowed mode. It'll probably perform even better in full screen.