Graphics or Processor

[16bitBounty]

I currently have a Phenom II x4 945 & a Sapphire HD7770 GHz Edition
I can run the game on High (Laptop) fine and the game runs on Max albeit a little choppy.

I'd like to upgrade to the HD7950 to hopefully get 60fps on Max. I'm worried my CPU will bottleneck this GPU and I'm wondering if I'd get a better return out of upgrading the Phenom II to an i5 4670. Currently, I can only afford one as neither are cheap on a budget.

I'd prefer not to do any OCing.

[raelgun]

cpu by a huge mile, all mmos are far more cpu hungry then a gpu, not to say a gpu isnt that important, in the world of mmos its cpu, theres a lot of info that needs to be dealt with and player actions on screen, thats something that isnt dealt with by the gpu, this is coming from a mmo player that had a phenom 2 before from 3.4ghz oced to 3.9, and went to a I5 3570k 4.4 ghz stable, can push for more but need a better motherboard to do that, all with decent temps and silence, gpus get cheaper anyways, also advice, the element you will gain is minimum FPS when shit hits the fan so to speak

[Sheer]

snip

I beg to differ. It was being discussed in the beta forums - a better GPU is what really makes a difference in this game. People with a lot worse CPUs than mine (i5-3570k) - but with something like a Radeon 7850 instead of my 7770 - were able to pump up the game to high if not maximum settings with nearly 60FPS. Even OCing their CPU hardly affected on their framerate. I'm currently running standard settings for desktop with FXAA enabled and stick at 60FPS.

However, I'd like to add that this is the only MMO I've seen with that particular scenario. Any other time, a better CPU is what tends to make a difference. Why FFXIV: ARR is the odd one out I have no idea; I could make an educated guess, but that's about it.

[raelgun]

if your talking about world events, then this is a pointless scenario, the case in point is raids, more specifically 24 mans, when talking in say wow, the fps to consider is always 25 man raids as the bar, you can never take account of world events since the variables cant be controlled in any way in the slightest, fixed situation in raids matter especially with the battle log behaviour, so no, im not wrong, a cpu will be a greater addition no matter what for mmos in this case.
all mmos in a raid situation behaves differently to the world

[Lemon8or]

If you're basing the performance on those benchmark, it's not very accurate. While the information in the benchmark is set, hence the CPU wasn't as stressed, the higher scores just indicates the ability of your computer to push out frame rates for static contents. In real games however, you'll notice a good difference with a better CPU, especially in highly congested FATE that there are a lot of people doing everything at once. I would go the CPU path.

[mythicrose]

This is just my opinion, but there's not going to be a large difference switching your graphics cards. You might get a better return with a processor for now (may be different when the 8000s series releases). If you decide to upgrade your CPU be sure your motherboard has the correct chipset to match that of the new CPU.

[SoraKaiser]

I don't want to interfere but nobody said if it was for world event or raid 24 mans like you say it is, so for mee he/she is asking for better overall performances in the game which include fates so i would say CPU increase would be better.

[Shori]

This game isnt graphically intense so I believe you would see a better benefit from upgrading the CPU. Infact - my other half has only one step up the GPU that I have but has a 4ghz 8core CPU compared to my 3ghz 4core and it STOMPS on my performance. Also HDD speed counts alot for loading and instances/quests to update hense my upgrade to a SSD when I get my pay.

edit: this of course is all tested and written pre-directX upgrade that SE are planning on.

[raelgun]

I don't want to interfere but nobody said if it was for world event or raid 24 mans like you say it is, so for mee he/she is asking for better overall performances in the game which include fates so i would say CPU increase would be better.

the issue is, fates over time will die down, as a result, system stress goes down with this, but 24 man raids system stress will remain consistent, you dont upgrade for variables you cant control, you upgrade to the areas you know you need that performance in a consistent manner

[Sheer]

To reiterate my previous point... I suggest looking at some external sources as to CPU/GPU upgrades and their effect on benchmark scores; here's a thread on FFXIVRealm that I found. I really do suggest reading through a few sources you find on Google before making a final decision.