Hello all~ just recently I managed to fry the motherboard of my laptop that I was planning to play FFXIV on. Due to this, I'm now in the market for a new computer. I've been shopping around a bit trying to find something that can play FFXIV on max settings, while trying to maintain a 1000$ budget. This is what I have come up with so far:
Case
iBUYPOWER Lexa-S AMD Dragon Special Edition Gaming Case
Processor
[== Six Core ==] AMD Phenom™ II X6 1055T Six-Core CPU
Processor Cooling
Liquid CPU Cooling System [AMD] - [Free Upgrade] Standard 120mm Fan
Memory
4 GB [2 GB X2] DDR3-1600 Memory Module - ** FREE Upgrade from DDR3-1333 ** Corsair or Major Brand
Video Card
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 - 1GB - PALIT Sonic Platinum - Core: 800MHz - Single Card
Video Card Brand
Major Brand Powered by ATI or NVIDIA
Motherboard
Gigabyte GA-770T-USB3 -- AMD 770
Motherboard USB / SATA Interface
Motherboard default USB / SATA Interface
Power Supply
600 Watt -- Standard
Primary Hard Drive
1 TB HARD DRIVE -- 16M Cache, 7200 RPM, 3.0Gb/s - Single Drive
Optical Drive
24X Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive - Black
Flash Media Reader/Writer
12-In-1 Internal Flash Media Card Reader/Writer - Black
Sound Card
3D Premium Surround Sound Onboard
Network Card
Onboard LAN Network (Gb or 10/100)
Operating System
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium + Office Starter 2010 (Includes basic versions of Word and Excel) 64-Bit
I was hoping somebody could provide me with some suggestions and opinions on this build and the few questions I have. So~
1. Will 4GB of RAM be enough for me to play FFXIV on max settings, while having background apps (youtube, jtv, etc.) running? If not, how much RAM would allow me to do this?
2. Personally I'm an ATI graphics card person, what would the ATI card equivalent of the the GeForce card be? Also, would this card be able to support my want to play on max settings (or the ATI equivalent?)
3. I know absolutely nothing about motherboards, so I could use some help. Will this motherboard work with all the other hardware I have, and if not what should I consider buying instead?
4. Is the power supply sufficient enough for me to effectively run my computer while playing FFXIV?
5. Seeing as I'm already over budget with this build by a small amount, is there anything I can reduce to something cheaper, while still keeping mostly the same functionality? (Like the HDD space, 1TB seems awfully excessive.)
6. Will the graphics card I've selected limit the usefulness of a 6-core processor? If so, should I consider changing to a quad-core, or possibly even a dual-core processor?
Sorry for the repeat thread, I know there are a million of them cropping up as we get closer to the FFXIV release. Anyways, any and all suggestions and opinions appreciated, thanks! :)
PC made through ibuypower.com if anybody was wondering.