Graphics Card Advice

[Norack]

If you play at a resolution much higher then 1920x1080p or use multiple monitors at 1080p then you should get the 4GB, if not then go with the 2GB. Most games won't break above 2GB, but recently some games like skyrim and BF3 have broken 2GB when playing at higher then 1080p rez. It really depends on what you have now and what you want for the future, if you think your gonna get a insane screen or use multiple monitors in the near future to play PC games then go with 4GB to future proof. If your gonna only stick with 1080p then go with 2gb, i highly doubt FFXIV will even use 2gb.

Here are some benchmarks comparing a 2GB vs 4GB of the same card, notice how for all the resolutions at 1080p or lower, the FPS is the same, for some games even at higher res the FPS is the same.

In regards to the FTW version, this really depends on the specific card so it would be more helpful if you could link the 2 cards your looking at.

O wow! thx for the advice, I woulda gone with the 4 GB's if i didn't know this which is about $100 more ty ^.^

Here are the cards that I am looking at and ultimately will get 1 of these 2

GTX 670 2GB = http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130782

GTX 670 2GB FTW = http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130787

Not a huge price difference, the FTW version is about $25 more, but I can't see any difference at all in the FTW version other than it has "FTW" in the description.

lol sounds stupid but if the normal version doesn't work better than the FTW version id probably get the FTW version simply because i have a clear case and the FTW one looks better lol.

[Shura]

O wow! thx for the advice, I woulda gone with the 4 GB's if i didn't know this which is about $100 more ty ^.^

Here are the cards that I am looking at and ultimately will get 1 of these 2

GTX 670 2GB = http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130782

GTX 670 2GB FTW = http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130787

Not a huge price difference, the FTW version is about $25 more, but I can't see any difference at all in the FTW version other than it has "FTW" in the description.

lol sounds stupid but if the normal version doesn't work better than the FTW version id probably get the FTW version simply because i have a clear case and the FTW one looks better lol.

The FTW version is clocked higher:
Core Clock is 915MHz vs 1006MHz
Boost Clock is 980MHz vs 1084MHz
Effective Memory Clock 6008MHz vs 6208MHz

Its just an overclocked version of the normal card, it also uses a custom cooler but some reviews say it also runs hotter.

Now this really comes down to preference, but i personally prefer bang for buck and in my honest opinion, the 670 is not worth it for almost $400. The ATI 7950 Boost is a much better card for the money; Here you can see a comparison between the GTX 670 and ATI 7950 boost. Notice how their almost tied every time, the 7950 also overclocks like a beast, if you OC it, it beats the 670 and its $100 cheaper.

For me it comes done to value, i go with whatever card offers me the best performance for price, sometimes its Nvidia and other times its ATI and this generation i think the 7950 boost is the best bang for buck card out there.

Sapphire 7950 Dual-X

Here is a Newest Version of the above card, it was recently released so not much reviews out yet.

[AdorraEloom]

I been researching the 2.0 vs 3.0 PCI-E mother boards for the last few weeks. Here is what I learned.

When you use a single card that supports the PCI-E 3.0 (like the 680 GTX) on a 2.0 mother board, you will lose about 1% performance. How ever if you use more than one GTX 680 card (SLI) on a PCI-E 2.0 board, you start to lose a lot more performance, ranging from 25% and even up to 50% performance loss in SLI.

[Duuude007]

If you want a card that is budget, current and more than capable of handling the game, the GTX 660 is the biggest bang for your buck. pricewatch com has it up for $209 new, and it is on par with the most powerful and expensive dual cores of 3 generations (years) ago.

[Mwahaha]

A friend of mine has an Alienware M15x running an old 5850 GPU. Benchmark on max full HD only scores 2.3k~. However the Beta still ran smoothly at 1920 x 1080 on max settings with nothing more than some server lag towards the end of the session (when it went a bit funny). Didn't even lag a second in the clusterF areas after the servers rolled back.

It seems that as long as your GPU is backed up by a reasonable enough PC you really should be fine. Anyone scoring over 2k on max should wait until they try the game before spending money just to boost it.

[radhaz]

I agree. This game isn't done yet, there are many things that will change performance wise.

A friend of mine has an Alienware M15x running an old 5850 GPU. Benchmark on max full HD only scores 2.3k~. However the Beta still ran smoothly at 1920 x 1080 on max settings with nothing more than some server lag towards the end of the session (when it went a bit funny). Didn't even lag a second in the clusterF areas after the servers rolled back.

It seems that as long as your GPU is backed up by a reasonable enough PC you really should be fine. Anyone scoring over 2k on max should wait until they try the game before spending money just to boost it.

[WHS]

I just went over this same issue on pcie 2 vs pcie 3 and to tell the truth , and on single gpu and single monitor it don't matter cause you won't saturate the pcie bus anyways. Now with multi monitor and multi gpu with say something like eye finity going on and at a res higher then 1920 x 1080. Doing stuff like that is where the 3.0 pcie bus will come in handy. Won't really need it right now unless you plan to play ffxiv arr on 3 monitors with more then one gpu and on a very high resolution.

I just copy pasted this from another post, in it im talking about possibly getting the gtx 680. I think my computer could handle it, but one thing im still dont understand is my motherboard has a PCIe2.0 where as the 680 is a PCIe3.0. So what would the difference be? would it be stupid of me to get it, like would I only be able to utilize about 50% of the card since my motherboard isn't 3.0? or if you could give me advice on a much cheaper card that would significantly improve my performance to I could do that. thanks ^.^ right now when running the bench my score was aout 6k-6.5k.

"I wasn't thinking about upgrading my computer, cause I dont have a whole lot of money and im not very tech savy with actually building a computer. But after researching some I think I may only have to get a new graphics card, and not have to get anything else. Would anyone be able to help me out in seeing if my computer could actually handle this type of graphics card or referring me to another cheaper graphics card that would significantly increase performance and allow me to play on max settings no problem?

my specs that i think are most needed are:

Motherboard: http://www.gigabyte.us/products/prod...id=3786&m=n#ov

Only reasion I am including my motherboard is because i dont fully understand if mine will work cause i see alot of ppl saying its a PCIe 3.0 but it will work on a PCIe2.0 which I think is what mine has.

CPU: I have a AMD Phenom II Xi6 1090t
GPU: I have a NVidia GTX 460
RAM: I have 8 GB's
PSU: 800 watts - I included my power supply cause idk if i would have enough power i have been doing a little research on the 680 and i see lots of conflicting results saying that 800 watts would be enough, and some saying i would need over 1000.

Again after reading everyones scores and comparing my system with everyone elses, I have come to the conclusion I will be able to play FFXIV: ARR on max settings smoothly if i just upgrade my graphics card, but not 100% sure. If someone could tell me if im right or wrong it would be much appreciated thank you very much."

[Kyra]

I recently upgraded to the GTX 660Ti, Got some decent benchmark scores without costing a fortune. Runs fine on 600W 12V Rail PSU. I would recommend that card if you want the best performance/cost ratio.


Posted my benchmark results with this card, and this was with a PCI Express 1.0 chipset and core 2 duo processor, so its a pretty good card. You would get even more performance from it with a 2.0/3.0 PCI Express slot but I have no idea how much. An i7 would boost its performance to.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...l=1#post977067

[Shura]

I recently upgraded to the GTX 660Ti, Got some decent benchmark scores without costing a fortune. Runs fine on 600W 12V Rail PSU. I would recommend that card if you want the best performance/cost ratio.


Posted my benchmark results with this card, and this was with a PCI Express 1.0 chipset and core 2 duo processor, so its a pretty good card. You would get even more performance from it with a 2.0/3.0 PCI Express slot but I have no idea how much. An i7 would boost its performance to.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...l=1#post977067

If your not bound to a certain brand then, Best performance/cost would be the 7950 Boost, which sells for about the same price as the 660ti and with a small OC, beats the 670 too. But if your a Nvidia fan, then like Kyra says, the 660ti is the best performance/cost card.

[Zenaku]

If your not bound to a certain brand then, Best performance/cost would be the 7950 Boost, which sells for about the same price as the 660ti and with a small OC, beats the 670 too. But if your a Nvidia fan, then like Kyra says, the 660ti is the best performance/cost card.

Wish i had money for a 660ti i just sit with a 660 seeing how i only going to end up playing FFXIV.